Anybody ever make one? Might play around with some concepts with the Grandkids.

Yes. Good to know how to do as a survival skill. Not useful for much other than small birds or mice as far as I can tell. Not legal to use in some states so check your game laws. Even if not legal to use you can still learn how.

They're pretty young- I was thinking more cardboard box and survival concepts.

They are fun to play with. I messed with them a lot in boy scouts. You can set a pretty decent deadfall with the right trigger arrangement.

As a kid my father caught a lot of cottontails. Building info on internet.

Making Meat 2 by John McPherson is a good little book with info and pics on how to do a number of different primitive deadfalls and snares including the figure 4.

Made a premade little trigger system of them a while back. Was pretty nifty bad based off of an old design

A treadbar deadfall is a good one.
Will take beaver at a crossover.Gotta load it up good with weight,but lots of material close by at a beaver pond for that.

I spent a bit of time trying to catch a bobcat in one. All I got were possums! Had one set for beaver with a 100lb + drop log, ended up with a fairly flat muskrat! I use a Paiute type trigger.

Go to project Gutenberg online and put in trapping and it will pull up several books. You may need to put in deadfalls and snares A. R. Harding to find it, but it has dozens of old-time traps.

yes. It seems a lot of the survival books are regurgitated info by people who have never actually used these methods. The Mcpherson's books are legit.............................

Watch alone. I watched an episode on Netflix. If you really live off the land you need to kill big animals. Small animals are a fine supplement but large animals are needed for the long haul. fortunately KS is chock full of cattle.

Good stuff.

Actually you can catch any animal in North America with a deadfall just need to make it larger enough with enough drop weight, even the large bears have been taken with them

Definitely check your state laws not just that little book you get with your license either, I am old enough to remember when it used to be listed in the book you got in Minnesota and not sure when it was taken out but it used to be in there as a specific illegal method of taking animals, you can bet it still is to, if your state has a jaw spread restriction your going to get in trouble setting one as the entire drop log is the jaw, and don’t depend on the advice from your game warden either

My favorite is the Mohave scissor deadfall, as a kid I used them a lot before I had steel traps and they were deadly on coon and muskrats and even caught a beaver in one

Great sketches from Wolfie and great video. Thanks for posting. I love the adaptations for larger animals.

Can somebody explain, how the part ot the trigger-system highlighted in red works?

I have found the source of the picture.
This deadfall is called Haida deadfall trap (from Swanton 1908)

The discription reads as flows:

"In deadfall traps, a trigger is disrupted when the bait is taken, and a heavy object such as a log falls on the bear. Swanton (1905b:68-69) described a Haida deadfall trap, illustrated in Figure 1:

The hadjigā’ñwa-i (a) are four posts, two on each side of a bear trail. These are fastened together in pair by the kiut!a’sk!î (b).
Between them lies a timber called the q!atA’nlanu (c), while the deadfall proper consists of a timber called sî’txasq!a’gida (d) hung above this at one end and weighted at the other end, which rests upon the ground.
The suspended end is held by a loop (lq!ō’ya-i), which passes over a short stick, the x.ā’ña (e), which is supported in its turn by one of the kiut!a’sk!î. A rope is fastened to the inner end of this x.ā’ña and carried down to the notch in another stick called sqaolg.ai’wa- î (f), which is fastened to a stake at one side of the bear trail.
Other cords, qa-ĭ’tu (g), are then fastened between the two front posts and carried down to this loop. The bear, coming against the latter, in its endeavors to get through pulls the loop (h) out of the notch in the sqaolg.ai’wa- i. This in turn releases the x.ā’ña allowing the sî’txasq!a’gida to fall upon the animal’s back."

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/public...ern_Northwest_Coast_of_North_America#pf9

I thought it might be kind of a toggle trigger.
But this design seems to be made for higher release force on purpose, likely to avoid small game triggering the trap.
It would be interseting to know details how the notch in stick f was cut and how the cords where attached.

Odd spot for the trigger to me. I would think you want the target under the falling part when triggered not off to the side. I must be missing something big time.