My neighbor says he found a place that makes buffalo jerky, that'll sell raw buffalo hides for $50. This seems pretty cheap, bur how hard would it be to home tan them? I've home tanned stuff before, but only small stuff. Am I going to break my back and my mind trying to get one soft, or can it be done at home?

Unless you have nothing else to do but work a hide all day every day for days on end, don't even try it. It will never be soft. Even shaving it thin enough to tan properly will be a nightmare without a shaving machine. Frankly, $50 is more than they're worth.

Here's a neat blog write up on one tanner's experience brain tanning a robe. Definitely a lot of work.

https://www.nanawaya.com/post/braintanning-a-buffalo-robe

Very Good Read k snow

When they say raw, they mean it. they are "wet" and dirty.
These are penned animals for the most part and will have stanchion rubs on them and need a lot of cleaning up on both sides to be ready to process.
The leather will be up to an inch thick in places and needs to be shaved to ensure a complete tan and soft hide.
this is not a project to take on as a rookie. Not saying do not do it, but learn on something like a beaver and then go from there.

Buffalo hides are worth what cow hides are, Nothing

I worked a yearling Buffalo hide a couple years ago and it was exactly as described. Multiple days of thinning and scraping followed by hours of working the tanning solution in and breaking the hide and mine is still cardboard like in spots.

To expensive they can be bought for cheaper I have seen them for half that and even under as the get beat up. As far as tanning them i tried one when I was a young man and it made a great piece of plywood.

Plywood

There is something besides the goose that is loose if you take on a project like home tanning a Buffalo hide!! Your name should be loosescrew!! LOL

Five of us went on a buffalo hunt. We shot 5 buffalo. We wanted to have the hides tanned and consulted a local tannery. The guy there said if we could bring the hides in all fleshed, they would tan them.
Only one of us had the equipment to flesh them. Me. I fleshed all five hides, which was not like fleshing a fur bearer or a bear hide. I would never do it again. I delivered the hides to the tannery guy.
About 2 months later we got the hides back. The tannery guy said a deals a deal, but don't ever bring me a buffalo hide again.

I believe your tanning project would cause you to hate the guy that sold you the pelt! I hated working on buffalo/bison in my taxidermy shop. I jacked the price so high that, thankfully, I only got to do the occasional wooly beast. As stated, these hides would very likely be in horrible shape, plus so thick with manure and whatnot (do you have burdock in your area???) The last one I priced was a monstrous old bull, it had burdock so thick in its shaggy head and neck that it would have taken me many, many hours to deal with them.....or many, many $$ to pay the tannery to deal with them. It also had scores of pounds of manure caked in the hair. All that plus the usual gore you'd expect from a massive fresh-dead beast that was skinned by the farmer that was in a big hurry to get the carcass to the butcher. I honestly don't remember what I quoted the guy, but it must have impressed the heck out of him because he told several people that I wanted way too much money to get any work from him. I smiled and smiled.

I did 2 elk hides in the shop soft tan and a buffalo I scraped and salted to send to the tannery and another for a mount.

Also, they butcher buffalo year round. Just because you want a cushy winter hide, doesn't mean you're not gonna get a short hair rubbed summer hide.

Y'all guys have no sense of humor. Should have told him to jump on that deal.

You got that right. A few years ago, a local ranch had a few get free and they shot them not too far from me. A friend said I could have the hides, so I went to the farm. The guy skidded the buffalo out with a skid steer, and they were worn down to the hide. No thank you.

In my opinion, if you want a tanned Buffalo hide for what ever purpose, I think you should buy one already tanned and ready to use. Shop around on the internet and you will find all sorts of Buffalo hides for sale - various sizes, various quality, various prices. Should be able to find what you are looking for.

The advantage of buying already tanned - you know what the finished hide looks like!! No work, no gamble on the tanning, etc. more expensive but worth it in the long run.

A few years ago a fella I knew was going on a buffalo hunt in MT. Offered to sell the hide for a $100. Me not really knowing anything and wanting a tanned hide called my taxidermist friend. He said heck I got 6 hides in the freezer, I'll give you one. He tanned it for $300. Turned out awesome!

I kinda figured it would be too much work. I don't really want one, but my neighbor was all over it until I told him it would probably turn out to be a stinking hairy piece of plywood

I've bought many buffalo hides through the years from people just wanting to get rid of the hide after they find out how much it is to have them tanned, always gave them an offer of 100.00 and explained all I had to do to even send it in to tan, they always just left them with me.

I would hand flesh them clean then salt on racks over night, shake them loose and do it again, then start drying them over racks, would take me a week or so to get them dried up and folded small enough to ship to Moyles. They are not cheap to tan for sure, but the demand for fully furred hides is quite high, never lost on any of them I sold !

They always did a great job, and the hides were always nice because of being winter shot, I always made money on them for such little effort and time to expend on them, have given them away for gifts as well , throws on furniture and now saving up for a couple nice furred ones to make me a buff coat.

Yea they are work but just don't buy summer ranch ones and before you start fleshing take a high power hose to the fur side to clean the dirt and manure off, sure makes fleshing them go faster.

I always welcome any one wanting to sale me a winter hide, know I will always make money on them, for 50.00 dollars a winter hide I would be very busy with quite a few !!