Deer Bumper

CAJW wrote:
.... Buckstop with a 17,500 SuperWinch, .....

Ahhhrrrgghhh... (Tim Allen, Tool Time Grunt) 17,500??

heheh, I'll have to check it out... I was going with the Warn 16.5 and while I did see some Hydraulic Winches, they appeared to be a little pricey... and complicated for the bumper install..

Heheh, thanks CAJW, Gawd, now something else to upgrade to .... Joking..
thanks..

fpoole wrote:
Yep, I'm looking at them too.. Buckstop Bumpers... with a winch, so curious to what gets posted... Same thing with headlights.
thanks..

This is the setup we have. Buckstop with a 17,500 SuperWinch, which while we’ve had a few close calls, no real test of the bumper yet.

The Deer Gaurd or as we call them front end ornaments look pretty, but rarely worth the exspence.
I’ve hit two deer and one bear. The deer were in our Honda EXI.... two times. Second time was a week after I got it back, from the first deer.
The bear was in my 2001 F150 with a huge steel bumper with a 8000 lbs Warren winch mounted to the bumper. The bear hit the bumper/ winch flipped up, took out the hood windshield and caved the roof back to the back window. My girlfriend at the time didn’t think much of my driving abilities, and she called her dad to come get her when we got to town, and that was the end of my the love of the month...at 21... I got a couple cuts to my face and right arm from the broken glass.
The truck and the bear were dead.... I liked that truck too.

All three animal intrusions were after dark. I have come up on deer, bear, moose, Elk, sheep, goats, rabbits and people many many times. There everywhere around here. The neighbours had a grizzly in their back yard about a month ago.... critters are everywhere....
Lesson I got out of those three episodes was don’t drive at night. If you have to drive at night cut your speed way back. Same as driving at Dusk and Dawn.... slow down. For 40 years I drove at night, dusk and dawn to and from work, no dead critters.
99% of the animals I saw dead on the road to and from work, got hit..... and flew or were dragged hundreds of feet farther down the Hwy....Speed
Some of Semi B train, Chip trucks have the deer guards on the front of there rigs. We have hundreds of those trucks drive by our place daily to and from the the pulp mill.
Every day you see damage on the trucks as they drive 24/7, with Deer guards and with out. My son in- law owns and drives a logging truck. He is here sitting here right now, so I asked him... he laughed.. and said save your money for deductible, and I agree.
Soup.

Yah, Buckstop has the Alum option, apx $750- or more. Apparently, if I remember correctly, sigh, there's really only a 90lb difference...

https://www.buckstopinc.com/buckstop-bumpers-for-dodge/

You can get one in aluminium for lighter weight

We live in deer country and my wife has had a run in with a few since we've lived on the west slope, Northern Sierra Nevada. She has a grill guard now on her 2011 Grand. Cherokee, and we've got one on our 1999 not-so-grand Cherokee.
When I bought the Warn winch bumper/holder for the 15K pound Warn Winch, i did order the wings that flair to the sides protecting the headlights. But these are not really made as a Bovine Deflector but as a brush guard, mostly for looks. With some 4330 ChoMoly driveshaft tubing I welded on some reinforcing and added a higher radiator saver to the mix.




As luck would have it I was traveling west along highway 50 in Nevada (the loneliest highway in America) after 10 p.m. in my truck with the camper on pulling my car trailer with my CJ-8 Jeep aboard (about 16.5K pounds worth total) when I spied a large elk grazing on the same side of the road I was traveling. I slowed mightily moving into the opposing lane of traffic hoping the beast, who was a big stag, would not try to bound in front of me. As I got very close and not moving very fast, the elk decided to occupy the same space as my 16.5K pound assembly. I hit him just to the pass side of center with the brush guard extensions woefully inadequate and making no difference in the outcome, maybe making it worse. The accompanying jolt was a lot more that I expected, momentarily slowing the 8 tons of rolling thunder down several notches throwing me right against the seatbelt. One of us survived the collision with only a broken pass side headlight assy and slight sheet metal damage. But, the main part of the winch carrier is what saved me with its high shear value. No damage there, but there could have been with that heavy a beast hitting squarely in the center as the radiator without the winch carrier would have taken it in the shorts. I do think the radiator saver helped keep the beast from coming over the hood as he was a tall one. But so is my RAM.
If I were to do this again, I would get the lightest weight, most coverage aftermarket winch bumper I could find. It may be another unicorn hunt, but someone must have made a lightweight that keeps the front end safe from UFFO's (unidentified frontal flying objects). I don't need extra light sockets or fashionable Ghee-Gahz on the bumper. All substance, and no style is my style. Some of these steel Ranch Hand and other bumpers are WAY heavy hanging out over the front of your truck. jefe

I have a Buckstop Classic II on order for my Ram 5500 right now. I will also be putting a warn winch and some LED lights on it. Just waiting for everything to get here.

Bedlam wrote:

fpoole wrote:
Yep, I'm looking at them too.. Buckstop Bumpers... with a winch, so curious to what gets posted... Same thing with headlights.
thanks..

Blue Lake Off Road and Buck Stop make wider versions for the wide track axle on the chassis cab. You will not get full coverage with a pickup model, so talk to these guys before committing money. I wanted to replace mine with one of these, but time and money has been scarce and I've only hit one badger and a few birds since I started driving.

A badger?? Not something I’ve heard before! Haha.

One misplaced unlucky badger! I’ve spent a lot of time in the badger state in the woods and onlyever seen one.

Bedlam wrote:
The difference may be that with the guard you can drive away to get it repaired but without your vehicle is disabled at the scene?

Took a hit at 55mph square in the grill of a Dakota some years back and once confirmed that nothing was leaking or binding, drove it home before calling the insurance company.

Not sure the cost of the brush guard is worth the advantage of being able to drive away. If it's not drive-able, the insurance company picks up the tow bill.

Bedlam wrote:
The difference may be that with the guard you can drive away to get it repaired but without your vehicle is disabled at the scene?

As I wrote above, the factory bumper on F450 protected all the radiators during deer collision at 60 mph.
The impact was so big, that I could not find the carcass anywhere around the road.
Some newer bumpers are thinner, but the one on my new 2017 F350 looks pretty solid.
Than my wife had brush guard on her SUV when she ended in the center of pile-up. The brush guard protected plastic bumper, but did big damage to the hood.