Sionics does it right!

MoMO stakes and the replicating at home thereof...... could be done with a hammer and punch if the setup was solid and a guy was careful and kinda artsy about it. Probably sounds sarcastic but I mean it (and kinda would like to try it). The other way of course would be with one of the MOACKS handtools, specifically the MOACKS Plain. SOTAR has been experimenting with the end form on the staking screws of the MOACKS Plain and I think coming very close to replicating the MoMO stake. I might at some point take a closer look at this but for the nonce I'm just too busy to roll any changes in and I just never get complaints about the current form. Chad if you want to comment please do.

This thread, I don't mean to use it as anything but an information outlet, knowing that guys are interested in how things are done. Although I don't intend it as "advertisement", I can't pretend that to some degree it will not function as that. Thing is, no one else can really write about the stakers and experiments I've done, so..... I do it. Hope it doesn't come across as crass self-promotion.

Okie, screws coming loose for seemingly no reason..... you have hit on some of the causes for sure. For some reason I can't fathom, a whole lot of companies are using offshore screws. The "YFS" brand (Taiwan) is the most common, and one of the worst, choices. It's probably elsewhere in this thread but the knurling is inadequate and the heads are roundy and shiny at the top where the side of the head meets the top surface. Even good staking won't lock them. Example-- the above MoMo'd carrier that I use for staker testing yesterday had YFS screws and the "one-big-cross-axis-whack" staking where it looks like it was done with sort of a screwdriver-blade shaped punch. They did a neat job of it but most or all of those I have seen, I have seen because it failed and the carrier was brought to me. One screw had already come loose and the other broke free at 47 inch pounds, well under the spec.

Your over-torquing theory, I think that's likely too. The places where I've delivered my stakers and toured the place or observed how they do things, have taken those torque specs very seriously with some impressive equipment in use to make sure they get it right. Honestly if everything else is right I believe we could get by with very little to almost no torque, as long as the surfaces were touching and the screws couldn't move.

I have seen a great many carriers where machining burrs prevent a key from seating, or, in the torquing process the torque is all used up in defeating the burrs to get the key down. Also surface imperfections from milling leaving gas escape routes. Everything matters!

Edit: Another comment on screw brands. I forget who it was or maybe I never even knew, but I've seen carriers offered that had screws marked "TUZ". This is another Taiwanese brand and believe me I'm not disparaging everything Taiwanese because they do make some very good stuff. TUZ and YFS screws are probably fine in any other role besides as carrier key screws although in discussions with one domestic manufacturer who had some inside scoop on one of them, I got the distinct impression that "maybe not". Anyway-- the TUZ brand, this was a few years ago but I tracked it down and found that they had no distribution in the US. But you could get them on Amazon. My conclusion then was, some US outfit was so cheap that they were buying carrier key screws on Amazon.

Or maybe the whole thing was coming from Taiwan.... who knows. Over the years I have received Emails from maybe a dozen places in China offering to supply (paraphrasing) "M16 bolt and carry make to perfect mil-spec at very pleasant price". I had an Email just this AM from a place in Turkey looking to supply similar. Might be good stuff but dang, there are a lot of people right here doing it, so......