Top Gun Back Blades FAQ

Yes, if you’re running a compatible 3/4-ton or larger truck. That includes 3/4-ton and one-ton pickups, plus larger trucks and flat decks up to Ford F-450/F-550 and Ram 5500 models.

It’s critical that we know your truck’s year, make, model, and bed length. Every mount bolts up under your frame and is specifically designed for your truck. Your truck bed stays free, your tailgate stays on, and your tow hitch stays available when the blade is off. You can use your truck like a truck is supposed to be used the rest of the year.

Generally, we’re talking Ford, Dodge, Ram, Chevrolet, and GMC trucks newer than 1999. For the back blades we’re discussing here, you’re looking at a 3/4-ton or larger truck.

The exact mount depends on your year, make, model, and bed length, so send us those details and we’ll confirm the fit before you order.

It fits in your hand and it’s smaller than your cell phone. The controller has three toggle switches: one for the right wing, one for the left wing, and one to move the blade up and down.

You can reach both wing toggles with your thumb, so you can bring both wings in or push both out at the same time. There’s a power button on the bottom and a red LED to show whether the controller is on or off. When you’re in transport mode, turn the power off to help prevent accidental movements.

The small size matters on a long shift. The ergonomics are right, so you’re not hanging on to a big controller that tires your hand out.

The mounting hardware bolts up under your truck’s frame, with two receivers for the blade and a center receiver for towing when the blade is off. You don’t give up your main towing hitch.

Some mounts, mostly for 2020 and newer trucks, fit around the factory hitch. If we need to replace the hitch, the replacement has three receivers: one on each side for the blade and the center receiver for your truck.

Flat decks are more of a custom job. We can work with skirted decks, rear plates, or high flat decks that need a drop-down mount. Both single-rear-wheel and dual-rear-wheel setups can be accommodated. That goes for the 16-foot Double Barrel and the 20-foot Freedom Eagle.

You can come to our shop in Muskegon, Michigan, install it yourself, or have a local shop do it. At our shop, installation typically takes about two hours. If it’s a tricky one, it can take four.

If you’re doing it yourself, plan for four to eight hours. A lot of guys who handle their own basic installs can do it, and you don’t need a ton of tools. Installing the mounting brackets is similar to installing a receiver hitch. The controller and wiring harness are similar to a brake-controller installation, with power running to the battery and the controller routed into the cab.

We have short and long installation videos, plus a tech to support you if you run into an issue. A hitch shop, RV shop, or truck repair shop with a hoist is another good option.

Most operators hook up in one to three minutes. It hooks up like a trailer: back up to your blade, two pins and a power plug, and you’re back on the road.

A lot of our customers run landscaping, excavation, or building businesses. They drop their trailer when the snow’s coming, hook up the blade, and go to work. At the end of the shift, they drop the blade and go back to using the truck. The parked blade takes up about half a parking stall.

There’s also an adjustment toggle on the side of the battery box, plus two 3.5-inch lights aimed toward the blade’s corners. Those help light up the wings and make hooking up or unhooking in the dark easier.

Cap the truck-side connection and latch the blade’s power plug into its storage mount on the side of the battery box. Both connections close up so they’re protected when the blade is disconnected.

You want the plug sealed against water and corrosion. Put some dielectric grease in there, latch everything closed, and Bob’s your uncle.

Five things come with every blade order:

• Your blade.
• Your controller.
• Your wiring harness.
• Your mounting brackets and hardware.
• Your safety cylinder.

That goes for the Double Barrel, the Freedom Eagle, and custom blade orders. Those five things are included in every order.

The safety cylinder is there to get you going again if you break a wing cylinder. The wing cylinder is designed to be the weak point in a hard impact, helping protect the wing and moldboard.

Say you clip the concrete base of a light post or a jersey barrier. If the wing cylinder breaks, you remove the two cotter pins, take out the damaged cylinder, slide the safety cylinder bar into place, and put the pins back in. The wing stays fixed closed in the transport position, so you can transport the blade and continue plowing with that wing closed.

The swap can take less than two minutes. Back at the shop, replace the damaged wing cylinder and put the safety bar back in your truck. In the video, Rob puts a replacement cylinder at around $300; contact us for current parts pricing.

We sell direct, so there isn’t a local dealer network you need to go through. We ship to customers from Alaska to New Brunswick and down to Texas.

Call, text, or email us with what you need. If you’re in a storm, we’ll work with you on urgent shipping options, including same-day or overnight service where available. If it’s not urgent, we can send it by regular shipping. You click, we ship, done.

There are very few parts in the blade. It’s a simple product, and we have 24-hour tech support through the winter. If you have a question, a concern, or a new challenge, we’re here to walk you through it.

If you’re comfortable driving a trailer, driving with a back blade will feel familiar. It can look intimidating at first, especially for a new operator or someone running a fleet, but you get used to where the blade sits.

We also offer red laser guides that show where the wing tips will be at full extension. Depending on the truck, they can mount to the side mirrors, a headache rack, or a suitable tab on the truck bed. If the line is on a parked car or another obstacle, that’s your sign to bring the wing in.

The lasers are adapted from mining equipment and built for vibration and tough environments. They’re a useful visual reference when you’re working in the dark, and they look cool, too. They’re an aid to judging clearance; you still need to check your surroundings.

You don’t give up your truck bed, your tailgate, or the use of your tow hitch when the blade is off. At the beginning of the night, you hook up with two pins and a power plug. At the end of the night, you drop it off and go back to work like normal.

We’ve been doing this since 2005. The idea is an overbuilt plow that’s really simple—more farmer-style than complicated. It’s built to give you years of work with limited maintenance, so you can focus on servicing your clients, keeping them happy, and growing your portfolio.

Rob’s expectation is that a well-maintained blade should give you about a decade of service. That’s the approach behind the product: keep it strong, keep it simple, and keep you working.

Yes. You can run salters, brine units, and compatible tailgate spreaders with a Top Gun setup. The details depend on the equipment you’re using.

We have an attachment called the Fire Bar, with a two-inch receiver that sits slightly above the blade. A compatible liquid de-icing bar pins into that receiver so you can apply liquids behind the truck. Don’t push piles with that attachment still on the blade.

A compatible tailgate spreader can also use the Fire Bar receiver. Rob recommends keeping the hopper load to one or two bags in this setup and removing the spreader before pushing piles.

With a V-box or two-yard hopper spreader, a removable leg or chute lets you change between plowing and spreading. Take the chute off, hook up the blade, and plow. Then drop the blade, reinstall the chute, and spread.

A back blade and liquid de-icing setup can be a productive combination. Rob describes covering roughly five to seven acres an hour with the blade on suitable sites, with higher coverage applying liquids. Actual output depends on the site and conditions.

In the comparisons Rob describes, a Top Gun Back Blade can reduce costs by as much as 90% compared with a loader and another plow doing the same amount of work.

The point is what it costs you to service the property. If you’re getting the full rate for the work and you can do it with less equipment and lower costs, more of that revenue stays in your pocket.

That 90% figure is Rob’s comparison, not a guaranteed result for every operation. Your savings depend on the equipment you’re replacing, the properties you service, snow conditions, and operating costs.

All our blades come in semi-gloss black as standard. That includes the 16-foot blade, the 20-foot blade, and custom orders.

If you want to upgrade, we can do colors such as blue, Celtic green, lime green, or a red similar to a Boss or Western plow. We don’t get into the really fancy candy colors, but matching your fleet, your truck, or your brand colors is something we do all the time.

Yes. A skid steer adapter mounts to the back side of the blade, opposite the truck mounting side. The adapter has four inches of travel, so the blade can move up and down with the pavement.

When you’re done plowing, fold the wings in and load the machine onto your trailer. You get the working width of a 16- or 20-foot blade, with a folded blade width of about 8 feet 5 inches.

The folding wings also help on busy sites. If a car or truck needs to pass, bring the wings in, let it through, and open them back up. Each side has a three-inch curb guard, adding six inches to the nominal blade width. When you’re working along curbs, bring the wings in a little to allow for those guards.

Yes. It’s the same blade, with different adapters for your truck, skid steer, or tractor.

With the appropriate controller and wiring harness on the skid steer or tractor, you can operate the wings and still move the blade back to your truck when you need it.

Without that wiring and controller, you can use it like a box plow. The machine lifts the blade up and down, but you won’t have powered wing control. That’s a way to try it on another piece of equipment. If it proves valuable, add the wiring harness and controller so you can use all the functions.

Top Gun Back Blades are used on residential driveways, HOA properties, small commercial lots, large malls, industrial sites, and distribution centers. They’re also used at airports and in municipal snow removal.

Standard driveways are no problem. If you’re dealing with really long, awkward mountain driveways with tight twists and turns, a back blade may not be the right fit. We’d rather tell you that up front.

At distribution centers, the reach under trailer kingpins is a useful feature. Rob also describes customers using the blades around airport facilities, parking structures, and on runways. Tell us about your property and the surfaces you’re clearing so we can help you work out the right setup.

No. You don’t need big commercial sites to get value from a Top Gun Back Blade. Small and midsize commercial lots can benefit, too.

Rob recently spoke with a customer in Utah who had waited three years because he didn’t have big commercial contracts. He finally bought a blade, and a friend bought one at the same time. Their reaction was, “Why did we ever wait?”

That customer told Rob he could see a midsize lot taking him roughly 20 minutes with his back blade, compared with several hours for someone using a front blade. That’s one customer’s experience, but it shows why the size of the contract isn’t the only thing to look at. Look at the time you spend on the properties you already service.

Yes, you can stack snow with your back blade. Rob estimates you’ll get about a foot less stacking height than with a V-plow, which is known for stacking well, but you’re moving snow across a much wider blade.

You can nudge snow up over a curb, clean up the lot, and work it into piles. Some customers run only a back blade because it handles their plowing, cleanup, and stacking without a front plow.

If your area gets enough snow that you need piles moved or hauled away, you don’t necessarily need to own a loader or skid steer. Hiring a local operator for those loadouts can make more sense than carrying the cost of that equipment all year.

We build the blade to push against a flat surface, and keeping the wings from folding back 180 degrees is part of that design. Rob sees the fold-back position as an engineering weak point when a blade is pushing into a pile.

You can’t always see what’s in that pile. It might be ice, a hidden curb, or another solid object. Our design keeps a strong, flat pushing surface instead of relying on wings folded backward. It’s made to push.

It’s a simple blade with limited maintenance, but you still want to give it a full inspection, top to bottom, and keep it clean, washed, and free of salt buildup.

Check the hydraulic hoses for wear, leaks, and brittleness. UV exposure and age can affect any hydraulic hose. Rob calls out the three-to-five-year mark as a time to pay particular attention to aging hoses. Replacement hoses can be sourced locally, or we can send them to you.

For hydraulic fluid, follow our maintenance guide’s recommendation to change it every season. Use a good salt neutralizer when cleaning the blade, and follow the full guide for fasteners, cylinders, cutting edges, electrical connections, and off-season storage.

See the routine maintenance guide

Rob’s view is that it’s a preparation-meets-opportunity situation. If you plan to use the blade for years, having the equipment ready can put you in a position to say yes when good contracts or a big winter come along.

Waiting until you have every contract lined up can mean you’re still waiting on equipment when you need it. Think about the work you already have, the work you want to take on, and the time it takes to get a blade built. The idea is to be ready when the opportunity arrives.

You can, but look at the whole equation before deciding you’ve found a smoking deal. A used blade may need repairs, upgrades, a truck-specific mount, or an updated wiring harness before it’s ready for your truck.

Rob says he sees buyers spend $3,000 to $5,000 on that work. Many used blades are five to ten years old or more and have done a lot of plowing. The purchase price is only part of what you’ll spend.

Compare the total cost of the used blade and everything it needs with a new blade that comes with the correct setup and warranty. In some cases, the difference ends up being a couple of thousand dollars. Check the condition and compatibility before you buy.

Generally, lead time is eight to ten weeks. We’re a made-to-order shop, so you need to plan ahead. Contact us to confirm the current timeline for your order and location.

We’re focused on building a quality blade that helps you get through your sites efficiently for years to come. If you’re thinking of ordering the day before, the week before, or even the month before a storm, we may not be able to get you a blade that fast.