Ramsey REP 8000e
By Shawn Pagan

Testing...Testing...1...2...3...
So now we had everything hooked up and we headed out to the trails. We wanted to test this winch in a real-world environment so we played around pretty hard and tried to get either ourselves stuck in a position to use the new rear-mounted winch or get someone behind us stuck. Not having much luck on the rockier sections of test trails, we ended up driving through a newer trail and as luck would have it, one of the guys got hung up on a tree stump and broke. Darn his luck but it gave us a great opportunity to try out the winch! We had already crested the tree-lined hill and made a sharp right turn when he found the tree stump. We needed to pull him off the stump but he was at quite an angle, so we really needed a winch along with a tree saver and a pulley.

Notice the angle of the trail.

Line tensioned and ready to pull

The winch did great pulling the dead weight of the TJ up the hill. It didn't stall and was able to uproot the tree stump along with pulling the Jeep. While winching is not always this easy, it surely convinced us that this winch was genuine and would work in the real world.

It's tight fit but it works great..

Here you can see the angle of our pull.

After getting back, we started to toss around a few thoughts on the use of the REP 8000e when my trail partner suggested that it seemed much faster then the Mile Marker 8000 lb electric he had recently installed. This suggestion started our minds turning on how to test this theory. What follows is our real-world, if not scientific, testing to see what the pull strength and line speed of the Ramsey REP 8000e is compared to the Mile Marker (and for good measure a few other winches, as well).

Both vehicles connected to the same tree strap..

Both winch controls ran by same person

What we decided to do was run out 38 feet of cable (measured by a tape) from each winch to a tree saver secured with a clevis hook with both winches to the same clevis and pull simultaneously. As you can see, the anchor tree is slightly uphill from the vehicles which keeps the "rolling" factor to a minimum. Then we had one person run both winches at the same time while we ticked off one minute on our handy dandy Timex. We found the results to be quite interesting..

The rig on the right has the Ramsey REP 8000e

This gives a pretty good visual of the difference.

We had originally planned on only running the test for 30 seconds or so but decided to extend the run to 1 minute when it seemed the vehicles had moved only a few feet after 30 seconds. At the end of a minute it was obvious which one had pulled farther but we wanted to be sure so out came the tape measure.

Mile Marker - measured to the hook.

Ramsey - measured to the hook.

We measured to the same point on each hook. This gave us a nice flat comparison of the pull of both winches. Below is a close-up of the measurements. As you can visually see, the cable left out on the Mile Marker was roughly 20 feet 2 inches (242") and on the Ramsey we had 16 feet 6 inches (198").

Mile Marker Electric 8000

Ramsey REP 8000e

Since we started with 38 feet of cable (456") that means during a 1 minute, slight uphill pull, the Mile Marker pulled 17' 2" (216") and the Ramsey pulled 21' 6" (258"), meaning that the visual above looks correct and the Ramsey out-pulled the Mile Marker by close to 3.5 feet per minute. This also showed that the Ramsey didn't think too much of the load we had since it actually out-pulled its own published numbers for rated line speed of 11 to 15 feet per minute (see page 1 of this article).

Long before a minute was up the Ramsey Patriot and the Warn M8000 ate up the 36 feet of cable!

This convinced us that both of these winches worked but they also "seemed" awfully slow. And of course there is nothing that adds to the credibility of a good experiment like finding a third and a fourth test subject in order to establish a baseline of comparison - especially when one of those test subjects is attached to one of the Jeeps used in the above tests.

So we turned the Jeep with the rear mounted Ramsey around and borrowed a buddies CJ-7. The black TJ sports an older style Warn M8000 winch and the CJ-7 has a Ramsey Patriot Profile 8000. However, we soon found that we would need to find a different test for these winches. They defiantly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that both the Ramsey REP 8000e and the Mile Marker are indeed slow. Why? We had to shut down both of the two new winches before we ever got to the 1 minute mark as they had both pulled the entire 38' (456") of cable in before the time was up.

Now we understand that this test is only superficially scientific. But it does give everyone some idea as to how this winch will work in the real world. In fact a few things to keep in mind during the Mile Marker vs. Ramsey portion of the test is that the vehicle the Ramsey is pulling has larger tires (36's vs. 33's), steel beadlocks (vs. aluminum), a 6 cyl. (vs. a 4) and used 12 foot leads from the battery to the winch which probably means that in a true comparison (same vehicle, same mount, same pull, same cables, etc), the Ramsey might have fared better then 3.5' per minute faster. We also understand that neither the Ramsey REP 8000e or the Mile Marker are designed to compete with either the Warn M8000 or the Ramsey Patriot that we tested. The Ramsey REP 8000e is an entry level winch that's designed to meet a price goal - not necessarily a performance one.

Regardless of price - it's a Ramsey and it works.

If you have the funds or spend a lot of time in places where winch speed is mandatory you might be better off buying something from Ramsey's Patriot line or another comparable brand. However, the bottom line is that the Ramsey REP 8000e works and will get you home and out of most binds for a price that doesn't bust you budget. At a current street price of around $400, roughly half of what most of the current crop of major winches cost, the REP 8000e might be worth having. It may be slow, but it's American made and should pull you out of just about any trouble you can get yourself into.

Resources

Ramsey Winch Company 1600 North Garnett Road Tulsa, OK 74116 (918) 438-2760 www.ramsey.com

 

Looking for a Ramsey REP 8000e for your rig? Click here!

 

Shawn Pagan is a staff writer for ROCKCRAWLER.com as well as Our Land Use Editor. Shawn resides north of Houston, TX. Contact Shawn at thepagan@rockcrawler.com