There is a severe problem with the quality control of super stakes in the last 3 years. I have bought several hundred of them going through MTP, F&T, PCS Outdoors, and Schmitt Enterprises. ALOT of them have these cracks inside the hole on the top piece, as you can clearly see above. Some are way more obvious than others. I have had issues with these breaking while pulling and driving the stakes.

While all of the vendors i named above replaced my bad stakes i received, it appears that this is an issue i have to bring to the publics eye after a continual problems over and over and over again. Pretty frustrating at this point.

One of these fails and an animal running around carrying a trap is BAD PR for trapping! Not to mention those of us that depend on our trapping gear to pay our bills!

FYI, Minnesota Trapline Products owns Super Stakes/ has them manufactured.

Can we get an answer on why these keep getting sold to your vendors and clients, even 3 years after bringing it to MTP’s attention??

Have you brought this to MTPs attention before?

Yep, on multiple occasions had to have them swap them out for good ones. Told them what the issue was.

I have had to swap out bad stakes for good stakes multiple times from
MTP, F&T, PCS, and just got 42 bad ones from Schmitt Enterprises i am sending Gerald back. I have done this so many times from 2020 till now i have lost count.

Never had that issue with wolf fangs, just saying.

I don't think this is a "what earth anchor is best" thread, but I could be wrong

I have also had the same issue with superstakes recently. Couldn't figure out what was going on when I was losing them during pulling. It takes a good bit of force to open one up even when made incorrectly, but it can be done

You are correct, not a which one is best thread. Yes Sir, have had multiple traps i go to pull up and bloop out the come without the anchor. A coyote wouldve been long gone. Thank goodness these sets didnt make catches!

There are quite afew that will look fine to the untrained eye, but flip them over and look and look inside the hole and the crack is visible. No telling how many 1000’s have been sold and shipped with defects. Everybody check your anchors!

From the pictures shown, that appears to be an issue caused by the design of the tool cavity and the flow of the material during casting. What I see is referred to as a knit line. The material has to flow around a pin that creates the hole. Unfortunately, in this case, material flows around the pin from both directions and meets where you see the line on the casting. Unfortunately, it is also happens at the thinnest place around the hole. Also, a slight variation in the temperature of the flowing material will affect how well the material flows and how well it knits together where the two flows around the pin meet.

Ideally, the tool should be modified to change the material flow pattern so it does not knit at the thinnest(weakest) point around the hole.

But given the design and the fact that some stakes have the visible knit line or even worse and others do not, it means that the problem might not exist if the process is controlled better. If the material has cooled too much when the two flows meet, it does not bond well and leaves a weak point that may eventually fail.

Knit lines are a fact of life in all kinds of molded and cast parts and their location can be critical to the reliability of the part.

I hear ya KSlongliner...

The material on that one was way too cool and did not even fill the cavity. Perfect example of what can happen if the control parameters are not maintained. And things that can be done to shorten the cycle times and speed up production usually result in poor quality parts!

Appriciate the feedback Sir!
I have seen some that are so bad ypu can see daylight all the way through the crack.

Washxc, i have had several similar to yours as well. The quality control has gone down hill big time. Check this one out.

I wonder if they've they've changed manufacturers. There was a general shortage a while back of the things.

I use the super stakes with the fins and the retrieval boss. Most of the failures I have had were on the retrieval boss rather than the holding boss. But I pre-drill all of mine and that reduces the forces required to set and retrieve but I still hit rocks occasionally and break them or have a chain link fail.

If I did not pre-drill in my ground, I would break lots of them or lots of chain trying to pull them.

Never have I ever lost a superstake. There’s been those I’ve had to leave, lol, but never had one break.

I brought up super stakes problem before, different issue but still a problem. No response from supplier I bought from. There quality control is definitely poor.

I haven't noticed it but I haven't really looked closely. I put them on, dyed, waxed and set. I purchased probably three or four dozen in the last four years. They all drove, held and pulled fine.

Hopefully I got good ones. I'll check this fall. Thanks for the heads up.

I always used 2" Pogo anchors without any problems.

I could make 2" washer locks if I drove those pogos in my soil - and I have relatively decent soil as compared to southern Missouri....some of us dont have black topsoil

Thanks for being this to our attention! It would be bad for trappers if animals were observed running around with traps on their paws.

Let Bob Young know about this. He will not be happy.