MCN Contender with modified Chinese ergonomic base ring

[PeturKitty]

MCN Contender with modified Chinese ergonomic base ring

20200214_160008.jpg (50.95 KiB) Viewed 95531 times

I love my MCN Contender but could not prevent it from spinning. I've always loved the comfort of these Chinese ergonomic rings and the fact that they stay in place. Mark at MCN cut off the old lock cylinder, filled the alignment pin holes and installed a new attaching lock pin. The price was reasonable at about $70 with a 5 day turn around.

[Tom Allen]

He did a nice job.

[Naljeans]

Mark is fantastic. Always reasonable pricing too.

[PeturKitty]

This base ring has become quite a project, but I believe I'm finally finished. Since getting it back from Mark I've reduced the thickness over 3/4 of the circumference. I left the top untouched for fear of damaging the welded areas. It now has a total weight of about 2.5 oz. This is a drop of about 1/2 ounce from from the original Chinese base ring. My original goal was to prevent my Contender from spinning, but not create a weight issue that would cause it to sag. At this point I think I'm as close as I'm going to get.

[Tom Allen]

That's a lot of work, but nice job.

[PeturKitty]

I'm considering customising a A272. It should be easy to lighten up the base ring, but I'm not sure exactly how to modify the cage so its easier to keep clean and also reduce the weight. Maybe a patern of openings similar to a CB3000.

[Tom Allen]

I've thought about buying one, and drilling a lot of small holes around it. My concern with slots or elongated holes is that if your skin swells out of the hole, it could be painful because the tubing is thin compared to the thicker plastic.

[PeturKitty]

Update on my modified MCN Contender: The modified 45mm base ring is still working out well. I recently sent the cage back to Mark at MCN to be shortened 1/2 inch. Its absolutely true shorter cages are much more comfortable. I went down to 2" from 2 1/2". No painfull night time erections. It now only weighs a total of 5 oz with the Abus lock.

[Freaky_Dude]

I have a MCN Amicus. It holds my wife’s property nicely. However, the spinning on the single central mounting point is an annoyance at times. How does your current base ring eliminate that? I can’t quite tell from the photos. Thanks.

[PeturKitty]

I had an Amicus for a while as well. They are a nice semi custom device. To answer your question the Chinese base rings are kind of a triangular shape instead of round or oval. Also looking from the side the bottom curves back into your body and the inside is flat instead of round. They are much heavier than the MCN rings, thats why I removed the excess material making it lighter.