short bed - sliding hitch vs sidewinder?

C Schomer wrote:
My 5er came with a SW/5th AB but I have a LB so I removed the SW and reused the 5th AB and moved it back 10.5" to do away with the ext. pin position. I towed it home 1000 mile with the SW and I couldn't tell any difference from a solid pin box. After removing the SW, I still couldn't tell any difference.
My hitch is 3" in front of the axle and the pivot point of the SW was 9" behind the axle. The pivot point of a bumper pull is about 4', maybe even more, with a WD hitch sticking out farther. I'll take the 9" behind the axle any day over a bumper pull! That little bit was undetectable even when I went back and forth with the SW and the pin positions. I have friends who put their regular 5er hitches 6"- 8" behind the axle, on their SBs, so they wouldn't need a slider and that also worked fine. A heavy slider would be the very last resort for me. I'd find a SB friendly 5er and mount the hitch farther back if I needed a little more. Craig

Thanks Craig, lots of sensible stuff here.

One thing that occurs to me though is that putting regular hitch back slightly behind the axle would have some negative impact on the whole "weight police thing" for me, since my truck will be a well-configured "half ton". For such a truck, I'm told that even with "legal" numbers, the rear axle has more weight than it should. A slightly forward hitch position puts at least a couple hundred pounds more of the pin weight onto the front axle instead of the rear. (whereas the behind the axle position would actually move some of the engine weight onto the rear axle via lever action)