Extreme Max 3005.4281 Jumbo-Tread Universal Mount Dock Stairs with Railing - 6-Step

Kudos to Daniel Clarke, of Extreme Max's customer support team, for getting me the MIA hardware and three of the four missing endcaps for the handrails on my set of their Jumbo Six-Step Dock Stairs. I just received them today, a week after the rest of the stair set arrived in a tattered and battered box.As others have noted, the shipping cartons for this set of stairs and the smaller (Model 3005-3846) six-step model are wholly inadequate. Mine arrived with the box wrapped in the shrink wrap that UPS uses to patch up boxes that have spilled their guts all over a UPS truck or dock. Apparently, that's when mine might have lost its package of hardware and seen the rails get dinged up and scratched. Both ends of the large box were pretty well disintegrated beneath the shrink wrap. But after filling out the online request forms and submitting photos of the missing end caps and proof of purchase, Extreme Max shipped me new hardware and end caps.Once together, the stairs are stout and look like they will serve my needs very well. They are a significant step up in size and heft from the standard six-step stairs from Extreme Max (Model 3005-3846). They look and feel far more like a true set of stairs--with deep treads that hold almost your entire foot--as opposed to the standard model, which, because of its narrow treads, feels a bit more like a ladder than a stair set. Ironically, these Jumbo stairs are actually substantially cheaper than their smaller counterpart. Go figure.I had waited more than two years for these stairs to come back into stock during the pandemic, and they have proven to be well worth the wait. Order your set as soon as you see them in stock on Amazon because they are available only intermittently and appear to be selling out quickly. And if the company doesn't improve its shipping carton, you, too, might be waiting a while to get all the parts you need to put a set together. Amazon's price is also about 40% less than any of their affiliated resellers or by ordering directly from the manufacturer.The stairs themselves are well designed and constructed. All cuts are straight and smooth, and all welds are clean and complete. The hardware is all stainless steel, which is a nice touch given that these stairs will be spending much, if not all, of their life immersed in, or near, water.My only struggle during assembly was with the square holes milled into the ends of each stair tread to accept the heads of the carriage bolts that attach them to the risers. The square holes in each tread were milled too small to accept the corresponding square underside of each carriage bolt. This necessitated delivering a sharp rap with a hammer to the head of each carriage bolt to force-swage the carriage bolt head into the undersized square hole and hold it while the washer and nut were screwed on from the opposite end.In short, these stairs are a solid product--despite the poor machining of the holes in the tread and the abysmal packaging from the factory. At Amazon's very reasonable price, they are easily one-quarter or one-third the price of other aluminum dock or beach stairs from manufacturers. Get a set today, while they're available.

Good product