Anyone have direct experience with these? Appear to be all metal replacement for Kadee #5s
I bought a few pair. Slightly larger than a KD #5. All metal. Same centering spring as the KD.
They work just as good.
KD on left, ProtoMax on right.
In my opinion, I would rather keep to the safe and RELIABLE side and stick with the Kadee couplers. There hasn’t been anything produced on the market since i started modeling in 1977 that matches the reliability of Kadee couplers…chuck
I have used both but when the Protomax ones break I go for the old reliable KD cuplers because they are the best ones out there!!!
Have you actually had an all metal ProtoMax break??
On my cars that come with the new metal ones (the old ones are about the same as a Mchenry) I leave them and don’t bother changing them.
If I have to go out and buy more couplers, I’ll still stick with the kadees since they are available in bulk and IIRC, they cost less.
I will give Walthers props for having their some of their (I think a few come with the Mchenrys) cars come with a coupler that doesn’t suck.
After using ONLY Kadee couplers the past 40 years I’m not going to take a chance on a untried coupler. IMHO there is only one brand of coupler: KADEE!!
Please do not turn this into a shouting match. I agree, Kadees are the best. I for instance have never been able to make accumates work on the layout. I ask for direct experience ( as Lothar so kindly replied). Right now the Protomax are about half the price of Kadees. they do come in bulk. The question is have you ever actually used them and how have they been?
Right. Don’t know about bulk prices, but Protos come 4 pair to a pack(8 couplers) and KD’s are 2 pair for about the same $$$.
“Safe”? This isn’t prototype railroading, and no one is going to be hurt by a coupler failure.
This is starting to remind me of the PC vs. Mac debate: Neither Macs nor Kadees are flawless in their performance.
I have heard some good things about Proto Max, and I’ll give 'em a try. Until my layout is sponsored by Kadee, I have no reason not to look at the competition.
Get a car with Kadees and another car with Protomax. Pull on them until they come apart and let us know who wins.
One of our club members got a knuckle on a ProtoMAX. The Walthers rep at Trainfest said to replace it with a Kadee.
I won’t buy ProtoMAX couplers. Kadee bulk packs are $25 list for 20 pair, can be found cheaper. The cars that come with them, get Kadee replacements. I feel it is necessary to support American manufacturing and ingenuity 
where possible, and the product is better than the Chinese made equivalent. Have to be careful when replacing, they look very much alike.
Why?
I haven’t had any coupler come apart from the weight of the train, so why would I care about this?
I tried a bulk pack of the ProtoMax and installed them on 10 cars, all NMRA weighted. They run ni 60 to 80 car trains with no issues, actually I don’t even know which ones are which anymore.
No not the best…I see 'em break under strain.
I agree with Mike WSOR… buy American made stuff as much as you can. (Canadian, too)
I tried them and I like them. Buy a pack and try them, you will like them I am sure.
I find it humorous that many, maybe even most, of the replys here are based on emotions rather than plain facts. “by God I’m only buying American” or “if its made over seas its unpatriotic to buy” etc etc., or “I’ve always bought KD’s and ah ain’t gonna change now and buy no new fangled Proto somethin or another.”
When I received my Walthers 89’ Trailer Train flat cars with metal couplers I was impressed. I have no idea if they are build as well as KD’s but it seems logical that metal can hold up better than plastic. However, until someone does some real controlled stress testing like Model Railroader did a few years back, then this whole discussion is mostly “hot air”.
BTW, the report Model Railroader did was probably the most objective evaluation of the available brands of couplers in HO I had ever seen. What they did was use a strain meter measuring the pounds of force the coupler would fail/break at. Of course the KD’s were orders of magnitude above all the plastic couplers - infact the KD’s broke after the strain meter had maxed out. It would be interesting to see MR do a new test including the ProtoMax. That would certainly shed some real light on this rather emotional or sentimental subject among model railroaders. 
Lots of people said that about X2Fs and Bakers when Keith and Dale came out with their newfangled coupler, too, but some folks actually tried them before mkaing up their minds, whcih is why we even have Kadees today.
so the accumate couplers are pretty much junk? I just bought an accurail reefer car it comes w/accumate couplers…better to change them out for kd #5’s? any problems changing them?