I believe I have come up with an effective, easy, inexpensive mod to allow pan tension adjustment on the Duke Pros by drilling holes through pan arms, just above spring pin and inserting a bolt and nut to pinch the pan arms together, creating drag and allowing adjustment of pan tension.

I do have a little concern that the additional hole may cause metal fatigue failure over time, especially on #850,s for wolf.

Take a look- let me know what ya think. Haven’t had a chance to field test. I’m setting up a few of my #650’s this way but won’t be setting for a bit until cat season opens.

Just bend the dog to induce more tension.

Several guys did that on the 850s in Montana because they have a pan tension requirement on wolf traps. They claim it works well. I've only messed with the Duke 850s, haven't ever had ahold of a 550 or 650. In my opinion as long as the pan sits level and the dog disengages before the pan touches the frame (seen a couple 850s that wouldn't go off out of the box because the pan bottomed out before disengaging the dog) then the pan tension is fine on all the 850s I have messed with. But then I like to run a little lighter pan tension than a lot on my traps. I've found that frost getting in the trap and any crust on the snow or other covering over your traps tends to increase the weight needed to set them off anyways. Without testing I can say that none of my traps have the 10 lb tension required in Montana, guessing probably averaging around 5-6 on my wolf traps and I very seldom catch coyotes in them until spring when the weather warms up or early fall.

I enjoy tuning, tweaking, and modifying K9 traps. So any attempt to do so gets a thumbs up from me. Good job, and let us know how it works.

I would use a "nylock" nut on that bolt, tho. You know, the nuts with the nylon insert. It will keep the adjustment that you make, without loosening.

In addition to the nylon nut, a plastic washer cut from a milk carton or Teflon washer from the hardware store will give you a more consistent pan tension than without.

Matt

How long is that bolt if you dont mind? I may do that on some of mine!

Sorta sux to buy a new trap and then drill holes and add nuts and bolts to make it work satisfactorily.

Who says trappers ain’t rich, lol? Got money to spend on things that don’t work then spend their own time to fix it. I don’t have that kind of money or time.

Yup plan to use brass screw with a couple brass washers and nylocks. This was just the first pass with some stuff in had laying around to see if it was worth pursuing.

Have yet to set a trap straight from the manufacturer that I haven’t inspected, adjusted and modified.

Duke #850’s are around $30-35. They are heavy duty well built trap. Other suitable wolf traps run upwards of $100.

I’m ok with spending $.50 and about 1 minute of my time to make a modification that greatly improves the performance of the trap.

I believe they are 1 3/4”. I’ll measure tomorrow and post it.

Thanks.

Ive used the duke 650s out of the box without issue, same with the 550s. Just regular normal things like deburring contact points i don’t consider to be problematic trap flaws, just tuning. Adding a bolt isnt a bit deal either.

Yessir. I inspect and adjust. But that drilling and adding parts is a no-go 4 me.

I've baseplated, laminated, made custom chains, etc., But, no more of that. Only did it for live market coyotes.

Carolina test bolt I used were 1 1/2” #6. I am going to use 1 1/2” #8 brass with brass washers and nylocks.

You should buy some NO BS Wolf Xtremes then. Better trap, made here, no fiddling with them, and they're already coated.

Adding a pan tension bolt isn't the only thing you need to do to those 850s to make them wolf ready. You need to thread the end of the spring pins and put lock nuts on them also, tack weld the baseplate , and make sure the jaw ends are bubble tipped to keep from pulling out. There's more to those than adjusting pan tension. This is your first time trapping wolves, don't learn lessons the hard way trying to save a dollar.

I don't think anything is going to pull those cast jaws out, but it wouldn't hurt anything to dab a spot of weld on them. I'll bet you could get away with catching a bunch of wolves without threading the ends of the spring pins also, but I'd do it. Because it is easy and it only takes one wolf to pop them off and make you sick for a long time.

Make sure the pan doesn't bottom out before it goes off, I think I already said that, but I've seen that problem on multiple Duke 850s. Easy fix, but really should be checked before they box them up at the factory.

if you call Duke they will send you free pan tensioners for the 850s 662-494-6767

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