Hey All,
I've got 20 days on the new Kingpin and thought I would offer some of the info I wish I had when I was was buying them.
First a little about me:
190LBS, 6', 318 BSL in a Vulcan
I won't bother with normal humility here. I ski fast and spend most my time in the air. I jump off big cliffs at 50 MPH. I ski with a lot of angle. When the going gets tough I stand on my tails and work them like a rear wheel. I'm hard on bindings. I ran all my old cambered skis with Looks at 17-18. My Newlifes have pivots at 11 and my Hellbents have Dukes at 12. This DIN would be way to low for me on "traditional skis", but center-mounted with rocker changes everything about the release characteristics for me.
And now the setup:
First of all, the Magnum Opus is epic. Mounted with the Kingpin and Vulcan they feel like wearing sneakers. Lost 8 pounds over Hellbent/Duke/Fulltilt. To make a long story short, all my old equipment is now in the basement.
The interface of the kingpin is way more solid than my Dukes. Locked on and so low to the ski. At DIN 10 I can ski all over the hardpack-hill at top speed with no worries. Switch landings are the same as any binding. I can dirty'nose'wheelie these with no problems, just like a Duke. I've knuckled them HARD. Looped them out. Landed on my back to accidental rodeo to feet. They just stay on. I love these bindings!
Problems:
Starting at about 15' down and 30' out and DIN 10 they "prerelease" on pow landings. Dukes don't do this from this height. This makes sense to me, because its not jarring forces like hardback, but long slow powerful forces that require big elasticity. So I run them at 12.5 and they hold. I guess the biggest I have taken these so far now is 25' down 50' out to pow. No problems! The most important thing to point out here is that I have never released from the front yet. I completely trust them, and have never locked out the toes. The toes are so good that after "prereleasing" at DIN 10 in pow + the resulting violent sore neck tomahawk they were still attached at the toe! I heard this looks pretty funny. Only thing I can add here is that I land VERY forward in pow. It's a lot of pressure on the heel.
Touring:
Unlike the Beast, these tour flat. Otherwise what else is there to say? The brakes stay up, the risers are easy to use, at changeover I can leave my skis on, just flick the lever and step down.
To sum up:
This is the future, a total game changer. I'm selling everything else I own.