Never cared for the 1216s….

I made 6 foot H stands for them using 7/16” cold finish rod. You have to have metal cutting/welding capability to do that though.

I had misses with 1216’s in runs until I loosened the hinge bolts so they were 100% free swinging because mine were a little snug from the factory, and waxed them (just clean the wax off of trigger area).

There is one other factor that I think might help with my setup - the 7/16” smooth rod binds just a bit between the hinge bolts and the sides of the spring eyes, so that there is good amount of extra pressure on the jaws when set on the H stand. This provides extra “jump speed” during that critical first bit of travel as the jaws close which speeds them up quite a bit.

The ones I have were noticeably slow out of the box, like watch them close slow, and I had a lot of misses and tail catches until I loosened the bolts and waxed them. That made them a good trap, and on my 7/16 rod H stands they are plenty fast.

I do still get some hip and tail catches on smaller beavers, I attribute that to the size and the fact that the triggers cant cover the whole space tight enough and they just dont hit the trigger until they are too far through.

I have come to like the 1216, and I choose which size BG to use based on the width of the run. But really I only run 3 sizes - Sauvageau 1113’s, MB 1216’s, and the big wide 660’s that RBG makes. Truth is I dont use BGs much because so much of my work is done in warm weather and turtles clog them horribly. Footholds set deep for back feet and snares are 80% or more for me.