Man, that's a bummer, can't you take it back and exchange it for one that doesn't have broken tubes?
Waiting until the end of April, when you have the stuffer in your hands, that would be hard for me to do, another thing, looking at all of the sausage posts with a busted stuffer would be frustrating.
Which hot dog recipe are you going to use, I used Rytek's and thought it was a tad too salty, my hot dog experience was my first sausage attempt and I made 5 lbs, I have since learned to make 1 lb test batches to see if I like the recipe before I make a large quantity, not to rub it in, but starting tonight for smoking this weekend I'm making 4 different sausages, Nepas' pepperoni, lop chong, breakfast and chicken with sun-dried tomato, ...you see what I mean, sausage making is fun and the results are tasty and don't last long, don't wait until May if you can help it.
Gene