Two years ago I bought an Arksen 10L (23 pound, but really more like 20 pound) on ebay for $270.
Here it is on
Amazon for $250
For comparison the Lem 25 pound stuffer cost $427.
I started with a 5 pound lem (really does like 4 pounds) and it was good but gets old when you 30+ pounds of sausage. A larger stuffer than 5 pound for your volume is really needed IMO.
In all I'm happy and satisfied with it after 2 years of usage. I can tell you that being able to stuff 20 pounds of sausage in one loading is a HUGE time saver if not a life savor :)
The Arksen is all metal gears and construction other than plastic on the handle. Know this thing is quite heavy so put on your big boy pants to carry and/or move or get a second person to help. It also needs a little care and literally some polishing of the rough edges. I use U/C clamps to hold/fasten it to a table when I use it. Here is a little review I did on another forum when I bought this thing.
The box it comes it is not really meant to keep the item in it once taken it so plan on storing it covered rather than in the box
-The slow gear does not seem to go in reverse and is a bit stiff with the machine not bolted or fastened down. Thats ok the fast gear will work for me.
-No useful manual comes with the device but after 5-8 min of playing around with it you can figure it out
-It was FILTHY. It was completely covered in a thin grease film of some sort.
-The rubber/plastic gasket on the
plunger had some sort of sticky silicon type grease (best word to describe it) that was stuck inside the stuffing canister. This was particularly more of a pain to clean
-The machine work was rough. I had to take a my dremel with a rough sanding wheel and knock the sharp edge off the base of the device to feel like I would not cut my hands when picking it up. Also the edges on the inside of the stuffing canister that lead to the spout where sausage comes out were square and rough so I knocked the edge off them. Finally there was some rough machining marks on the inside bottom of the canister and rough spots in the spout where the sausage comes out. I took the sanding wheel to the spout part to make sure it was smooth so sausage wouldn't catch on it too greatly providing more resistance than needed.
-I first cleaned the entire device with 99% alcohol and paper towels to knock the thin grease off of it, this is very necessary and did a good enough job.
-Additionally it takes an S.O.S.steel cleaning pad to really clean the
plunger and to really clean the silicon grease on the
plunger and what is left behind on the walls of the stuffing canister. There is no way around this.
-Finally I hit the entire stuffing canister with the S.O.S. pad to get it really clean in and out. The entire device could have used the same cleaning but I was lazy and not happy to be covered in water from a water hose situation.
Conclusion:
In all I feel the purchase was adequate given the savings. I simply had to use my ability to alleviate the rough edges, and 2 hour or so of my life spent sanding and thoroughly cleaning the device.
Since owning the stuffer I have stuffed at least 100+ pounds of sausage and packed 75+ pounds of pure ground lean venison into 1 pound meat bags.
It is basically mandatory to stuff as a 2 man job. 1 sturdy person to crank and 1 person to feed casing and sausage. Pushing 20 pounds of meat and feeding is a very very very tough task if not impossible. I was able to do ground meat bags alone but that is because there is no need to feed and avoid busting a casing.
Expert tip, do not use the smallest tube because the pressure on the crank needed to push 20 pounds of meat down and through a small diameter tube takes a quite strong human being and/or one with stamina and stubborness. Use the largest stuffing tube you can get away with to make the cranking much easier :)
I hope this glut of info helps and other than the cleaning stuff, I think this info applies to any stuffer this size :)
