Hi Roger,
I am sorry that I missed this and my response is late, but in case you are still looking and for the benefit of any other viewers, here are my 2 cents:
I have the following two sausage stuffers:
Guide Gear Stainless Steel 15-Lb. Capacity Sausage Stuffer
Walton's 2-Speed Gearbox 11 lb Sausage Stuffer
Huntrite Stainless Steel 5-Lb. Capacity Sausage Stuffer - I do not own this stuffer, but it is basically a 5lb version of the 15lb Northern Tool stuffer. They have put various names on these stuffers over the years, but they are all made by the same manufacturer from what I can tell and appear to be pretty much exactly the same as the LEM versions from what I can tell, except the 5lb Northern Tool stuffer has metal gears whereas the LEM stuffer has plastic gears.
I have pushed literally thousands of pounds of sausage through my 15lb Northern Tool Stuffer and it is still going strong. My family makes roughly 400lbs of sausage every year (split between 4 families). That being said, I purchased my 11lb 2-speed stuffer in 11/2016, and in my opinion, this style with the dual speed gearbox is far superior to the traditional single gearbox especially if you plan to stuff snack sticks. Walton's does make a
7lb version, but it is only $10 cheaper than the 11lb, so why bother?
The Northern Tool style stuffers work
AWESOME for Fry Sausage AKA Country Style, Summer Sausage, or anything larger than 30MM. But, if you want to make breakfast links, snack sticks, hot dogs, etc that are in the 16MM-22MM size range, pushing the meat through these small tubes in the 1-speed gearbox is pretty stressful on the gears.
Walton's runs some pretty good sales in the Fall around Deer Hunting season and also off and on during the year, but right now they do not appear to have any sales on stuffers other than giving 15% off on any seasonings.
There are knock-off models on Amazon that you can buy, but if you dig into the specs I have found that they normally skimp on the gearbox and material quality, so I opted for the Walton's version.
I posted the following review of some of my sausage making equipment that may help as well:
Kitchener 4.2-Gallon Meat Mixer and Walton's 2-Speed 11lb Sausage Stuffer
Hopefully, this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Gregg