After a long and agonizing decision process, I decided to purchase the Bells of Steel Brute 2.1. I tend to take the old expression 'buy right, or buy twice" into account whenever I'm making a decision and had narrowed my decision down the this rack and options from two slightly to significantly more expensive options from a pair of Ohio based companies that I've had nothing but positive experiences with. At the end of the day the to combination of positive reviews and the package of accessories included in the cost was the deciding factor so I placed my order.
The rack shipped and arrived significantly quicker than I expected. Everything was well packaged and arrived without issue. Assembly was a breeze. Everything went together without any alignment issues. Once it was all together and tightened up, but prior to securing to the floor, I put it through a bit of a test to see how stable it felt. did some weighted pull-ups, I'm 245 + another 45lbs in weight, it didn't move. Loaded up the ss yoke with about 400# and racked the weight somewhat aggressively a few times to see if I could detect any movement... nothing. Even before securing to the ground this thing was as stable as you could hope for.
After a couple weeks of training with it I can say that I definitely did buy right with this rack. It feels absolutely bomb proof. It is pretty much perfect for my purposes. The variety of grips for the pull-up bar is awesome, even though i tend to stay of the 'fat side' because who couldn't use some additional grip work. All the accessories are perfect. Having 2 sets of j-cups allows me to embrace my laziness and leave one side set up for bench and the other for squats. band pegs work perfectly, had up to about 120# in tension per side, no movement.
All in all this is everything I hoped it would be. the only small thing that I would change is height.. I'm a bit taller, with long arms, so I cant do hanging core work from the pullup bars and if I wanted to do overhead work in the rack I wouldn't be able to. those are two outliers, which likely wouldn't affect individuals that are average height and don't have disproportionately long arms, so it doesn't at all change my level of satisfaction over all with the rack.
If you're on the fence what rack to buy.. get this one. you'll have a rack that does everything you need and will leave a few hundred dollars in your account to get some other cool toys to add to your gym.
- My Fitness Goal Is: powerlifting