Joe, ill respond on the lead question this weekend i just saw it now i have been making venison sausage all day today not enough energy to respond to it now. we did almost 100 lbs of sausage today. regular breakfast, maple breakfast, italian, and 20lbs of just pork homemade polish sausage. Bailey i run the same setup on my big boards, and when its rough i use the weldon releases with no rubber bands just twist the line and stick it in the release right on the twist.