Gate question

[Lucky_P]

greybeard
Farm manager here loves those gate latches.
I mostly hate 'em, cause posts are always shifting - and it's my fault they don't latch correctly every time, you know...
If you mount that latch pin assembly with the bolts above and below one of the crossbars, you don't have to drill a hole, and the cows can't rotate it.

Wider is better. Have a couple of 10' gates here, but they're straight-on approaches, leaving the pasture,going into the woods. Only thing that ever goes through them, maybe once a year, is an ATV, or maybe the tractor. Anything else is at least 12 ft.
An old fellow who's been around the block more than once told me one time, "It doesn't matter how wide the gateway is, the cows will always try to bust through there in numbers at least 1 cow wider than it'll accomodate..."

 

[greybeard]

greybeard
Farm manager here loves those gate latches.
I mostly hate 'em, cause posts are always shifting - and it's my fault they don't latch correctly every time, you know...
If you mount that latch pin assembly with the bolts above and below one of the crossbars, you don't have to drill a hole, and the cows can't rotate it.

True, but locating it on one of the horiz crossbars forever limits ability to adjust it up or down if the gate sags or gets bent--but, you can always drill a different hole.

Tell your farm manager, when he buys one of those one way toggle lock latches, to go ahead and weld an extension (2-3" long) on the 1" diameter lock pin before he even installs the latch. This winter has been very very soggy here, and I have found, even with posts 4' in the ground, the wire strain is actually enlarging the opening between the hung post and the latch post. The posts themselves are still almost perfectly vertical--but the posts and their braces are just being pulled--I can see a gap in the ground between the sidewall and the post.
Had to weld an extension on one of the other kind of latch too--the double latch where the gate swings either direction.