So on my rebel, I have a compression spring in place of the Bungee gear system Murphy originally designed. I had a heavy landing and ended up bending a gear tube. The landing wasn't all that bad, so I'm realizing this gear is quite weak. I talked to murphy tech and they said the bungee gear gives much better and haven't had many problems bending gear legs with the stock stuff.

What are your guys thoughts on bungee gear? Right now I have very little shock absorption which makes it hard to even wheel land. The bungee should help with that, but is there a risk of going too soft (other than prop hits). Would bungee gear hold up for back country flight?

The problem with compression springs is when they bottom out that's it no more give, not only is that hard on your gear but its hard on your spars.
The rebel gear I looked at was made of aluminum square tubing and looked really flimsy to me, if it were me I'd build a new set out of round chromoly tubing and put AOSS or Roberts suspension similar to what courier guy is running on his rans.

Also bushwheels make an unbelievable difference even if you're just landing grass strips they are the nicest thing you can do for your airframe.

Most of the older crop dusters use bungees because they handle rough fields well and are easier to rebuild after a crash. Guys flying two million dollar Air Tractors don't land them in the rough stuff. And then there is the Thrush with a jet engine and bungee gear. Now there is a really fine airplane to crash in.

Those springs are also heavy I'm told, as compared to bungees.

Get ahold of John Roberts at AVWELD, remind him I have a set of bungee shock struts I don't need anymore since I upgraded to the RAGE system, and maybe he can make those work for you (similar weight aircraft) and I can get them out of my hangar. $200.00 would do it on my end

That's a good thought, I was looking at the spring steel gear but that'll probably be down the road a little ways. Doesn't sound like the bungees are a terrible idea, just grab an extra one to throw in the emergency kit. Looking at getting some 26" ABW's now, which should help quite a bit. Thanks for the thoughts, wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something really stupid changing this over.

I imagine they are pretty heavy, I reached out to the builder and he actually has the original bungee gear sitting in his garage he's going to send down. Apparently people were talking about the bungee being too light at the time he built and his solution was the spring. Feels like a bouncy house right now landing, only have about 1" of suspension travel so this should be a nice modification.

TheRebeler, are you a member of the Murphy Builders Site? They have a recent discussion on the various gear. A guy by the name of Snowyriver, aka Craig, recently had a set of gear similar to cub gear built, and is thinking of producing them for guys with Rebels that want a 'beefier' gear.
I have the spring gear option with my kit and think it is the nicest looking gear on the plane but as more Rebels get time on them I am undecided if I will install it or go a different route.

I am on the murphy builders forum, I found the search pretty difficult to get good info from. I read through a bunch of posts yesterday but didn't come up with much useful. I'll shoot Craig a message and get his thoughts on it, I'd really like to beef it up a little bit, especially as I get more off airport. Sounds like he went down the same path I'm going down. Thanks for the tip