Dad is purchasing a meat grinder so that we can dump our homemade electric. Sausage making in our family is about to get a whole lot easier. Anywho, he has it narrowed down to the following choices and I thought I would put them here for review/opinions just in case somebody here has experience with any or all.

Cabelas 3/4 hp:
www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/horizontal-pod.jhtml?id=0015811&navAction=jump&navCount=3&indexId=&parentId=&parentType=&rid=&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fcatalog%2Fpod-link.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=search

Anvil #12 3/4 hp:
www.etrestaurant.com/Shop/enter.html?target=New_ItemsFood_PreperationMeat_GrindersAnvil_Meat_Grinders.html

Torrey m12fs 3/4 hp:
www.pleasanthillgrain.com/meat_grinders_food.html

All suggestions and opinions welcome. Thanks.

edited to fix torrey link.

bump for the night crew

My cousin has the Cabela's 1/2hp meat grinder with the 22 meat grinder body.  With 3 of us butchering deer, we could not keep up with this meat grinder. I can only imagine a 3/4 or 1hp meat grinder with a 32 body.  

If it were me buying one, the Cabela's one would be the way to go, it has a very stout gear reducer, and they sell replacement blades and parts at affordable prices.

Thank you for the info P226. Seems the Cabela is on backorder, but he is planning to try ordering again after Cristmas.

I pondered the thought about building my own meat grinder with pullies.  However in order to get the RPMs for 60RPM (who turns a hand meat grinder that fast for hours?) I would need a 32 inch pully and a 2 inch pulley!

I am still looking at the posability in building one, but am going use a gearbox ie either a worm screw or actual gears vs the pully set up.  The hardest part is finding the gear reduction at an affordable price.  

I have looked at smaller and cheaper meat grinders ie 1/3 hp meat grinders, Kitchen Aid attachments and they are really NOT designed to handle large amounts of grinding ie 40-50lbs ie butchering deer, hogs, a whole cow.  In fact I have worn out two small meat grinders doing this.  Not that my personal experience is the end all, but I feel the way to go is to buy a real meat grinder like the ones you want.  

Also you can make your old meat grinder perform like new by sharpening the the front edge of each cutter, NOT the flat face.  Sharpening the flat face will ruin the cutter, but sharpening the front edge does not and is the right way to sharpen the cutter.  

My uncle designed a homemade belt driven grinder. We have used it for years, but the damn thing is like 4 foot long assembled and very cumbersome to move from place to place. He had to enclose it in a screen box for safety...lol. I will try to find some pics of it.