I'm with you dude. I bought one for about $70 way over 10 years ago, have ground hudreds of pounds of meat through it, works just fine. It takes some patience, you have to cut the meat up into ~ 1" strips, you can't force anything. Once in a while it bogs down, stop, dissasemble and regroup. For my needs it's just fine. I can do the meat from one deer, about 20 lbs. (I keep all roasts, neck, ribs separate) in about 2 hours. Thats run through twice, wrapped and cleaned up.