Fine, I can take that 14K gooseneck, hook it up to a truck that can take 30,000 pin weight and hall 44K. Sounds like a plan.

 

as long as you have 33,000 on the pin and the hitch can take it. Sure. Oh, and by the way, hitches have both vertical and horizontal ratings, too.


If you want to get down to it, trailers really need to have a pin rating...

...but they don't, as up until this point nobody has ever considered intentionally running a 68% tongue weight before.

 

Please explain how the weight on the pin when connected is not the same as the weight on the jack when dropped. Either the truck carries the weight, or the jack does.

You don't see gooseneck campers or semi trailers because they were never intended to be used off road or in rough conditions as goosenecks are. They don't have the articulation in the hitch. Most 5th wheel campers are 5th because the 5th limits side to side rocking, and the frames are not built stong enough for the stress of a gooseneck.

I don't see how you keep coming up with counting the pin weight twice. Yes when you cross a scale, the pin weight is on the truck. When GVWR is considered, you can't legally exceed the tag on the trailer, period. If the tag on the trailer says 14k, then that trailer all by itself on a scale can weigh no more than 14K. Can you theoretically get more on it if you know how much is on the pin and stay under axle weights? Yes. But DOT isn't going to care. The sticker is the king.

This isn't asking how to load a semi trailer. By that tag, I'd load it to what they say is legal. Unfortunatly, the common gooseneck doesn't have the pin weight calulated in the GVWR printed on the tag, and you only get to load it to what the tag says, or you'll make some DOT cops day.

 

The jacks are around 6' closer to the axles than the pin. Draw up a simple free body diagram and solve for the forces. Lets say a trailer with a 28' deck, 500#/ft over the whole deck, with axles centered 8' forward of the rear. The pin is 6' forward of the jacks which are at the front of the deck.

this scenario would have a pin weight of 2,708# (10,292# on the trailer axles) while the weight on the jacks when unhitched would be 3,611# (9,389# on the trailer axles). That's a 33% increase. This would be a significant miscalculation if you were to assume the jack load on a scale was your pin weight.


Plenty of 5th wheels have 2 axis motion. Especially for recreational 5th wheels. Semi 5th wheels do not, but they also have much tighter clearance issues. The two main advantages to a 5th wheel are the hitching method (minimal load movement during coupling) and the loading capabilities (larger load bearing surface, doesn't wear a ball down to a doorknob).


I'm not sure how this is difficult to understand. The trailer weight as far as the DOT is concerned is the weight on the trailer axles. The pin weight is load on the pickup, not the trailer and goes against the pickup GVWR, not the trailer GVWR. If you say you have a 20,000# (3,000# on the pin and 17,000# on the axles) then also calculate that 3,000# against the RAW of the pickup, you've counted it twice. Your trailer is 3,000# lighter than you ran your numbers for.

If you put the same rig on a scale, you will get 17,000# on the trailer section of the scale with an additional 3,000# on the steering and drive axles combined. You cannot tell the DOT, "That weight is on the trailer, not the pickup. The pickup is still under its GVWR."