Caliber Longboard Trucks Review – Trucks For Best Riders

If you are reading this Caliber longboard trucks review, chances are you are a long-term member of this wonderful game. You know that these solid, metal components are small but are crucial to your longboard and skateboard riding.

When picking the perfect longboard, two things must be considered: quality and size. Other factors to consider are the shapes, materials, and designs. To make sure you get the most suitable one, we narrow down the list of top trucks from Caliber – the name all riders are familiar with, so stick around to find out!

About Caliber Truck brand

Despite joining the competition just a few years, Caliber is a well-known name to every rider. They are already ahead of the competition in terms of reduction, tolerance tightening, and over-all ride quality in their cast truck.

They were the first to popularize the lower 44-degree truck heavily, with their clean and sharp lines and their higher level of stability immortalized. They have powerful marketing and great media backed by a solid team of skaters, ranging from free riders and dancers to downhill skaters, including some of the most famous names in longboarding. This is the high-quality cast truck manufacturer you get to choose from.

Caliber Longboard Trucks review: Our recommendations

Caliber Standard 8.0 Blackout Skateboard Trucks

The Caliber Standard 8.0 Truck is designed for those who love the unique ride of a TKP truck. This Caliber skate truck comes with an expanded open-yolk bushing seat for highly adjustable bushing configurations and a tight-fitting pivot cup to turn as accurately as possible.

The ultra-high rebound bushings are ideal responsiveness and the inner-hanger collarbone allows for smoother and faster grinds. You can have different wheelbase adjustments thanks to the Universal 8-hole baseplate. The pressed-in kingpin design allows maximum control and responsiveness through the corners.

With its faced hanger ends and clean manufacturing, the Standard Truck is a great offer from Caliber that is highly recommended in many Caliber standard trucks reviews.

Caliber II Forty-Four 10″/44 Raw Skateboard Trucks

The Caliber 44 is one of the best-selling cast trucks on the market because it is much more stable than its 50 counterparts, especially with no rake.

As an affordable set of trucks, The Forty-Four Caliber is built for speed for those who want to push the limits of downhill racing. Blood Orange Bushings are fitted with two 89a durometer barrels to avoid high-speed wobbles and optimize the trucks’ stability.

The grade 8 steel kingpin with a circular kingpin hole ensures that your trucks will stay in one piece, no matter how hard you push them. The Caliber 44 has the updated steps on the Caliber 2 trucks bushings seat and the reinforced base plate, while the thinner paints increase the tightened tolerances. The decreased pivot cup seat chamber provides a tighter fit for the pivot pin and eliminates side-to-side play as the pivot cup breaks in.

Caliber Cal II 50° RKP Longboard Trucks

The Caliber Trucks Cal II 50 is another fantastic longboard truck with a reasonable price from Caliber. With re-engineered bushing seats, the trucks can minimize all kinds of excess movements in order to give you good stability and pleasing turning.

Caliber has drastically improved their trucks’ strength and the quality of bushing seats, pivots, kingpin and paint colors, making them stand out from their competitors. The updated inner gives higher rebound and overall responsiveness to eliminate all the slop.

At the same time, the outer-step helps create a perfect no-slip fit with oversized aftermarket bushing combinations. The circular kingpin hole, with a diameter of 17.4mm, offers a smooth and uniform lean and allows a proper clearance, which prevents the Kingpin bite on the hanger.

See Also: BEST LONGBOARD TRUCKS

Caliber Cal II 44° RKP Longboard Trucks

The Caliber Cal II 44-degree trucks are tailored for those riders who want to push downhill racing and fast freeride limits. It was designed for speed for the performance riders who wish to push downhill racing limits with the 44-degree hanger angle.

For avoiding high-speed wobbles and more stability, the trucks are configured with Blood Orange Bushings with two 89a durometer barrels, which results in a more responsive feel. The circular kingpin hole provides a smooth and uniform lean, which allows a proper clearance and prevents kingpin bite on the hanger, whereas the pressed-in kingpin design allows optimal control and responsiveness around corners.

With the grade 8 steel kingpin, the trucks are 40% sturdier than the Caliber I with advanced production techniques. The redesigned bushing seat eliminates excess movement that keeps your weight distribution from translating to turn so that you can enjoy the precision feel for a fraction of the price

Caliber II Fifty Blackout Skateboard 50 Degrees – 160mm Hanger 9″ Axle Trucks

The Caliber II Fifty 50 Degrees trucks are for the carving and cruising riders with better bushing seats, increased strength and are manufactured under tighter tolerances in the same great look and feel from Caliber’s product line.

These sturdy trucks have smaller hangers and come with a 50-degree baseplate. The narrower hanger and the high angle of baseplate make for a nimble and fast turning truck.

The decreased pivot cup seat chamber provides a tighter fit for the pivot pin and eliminates side-to-side play as the pivot cup breaks in. With the axle width of 9 inches, the trucks give you appropriate leverage and allow you to get the best truck response in your ride downhill or uneven terrain.

Caliber II Fifty Satin Stone Sapphire Skateboard Reverse Kingpin 10″

The Caliber II Fifty Caliber is stable at high speeds while also having an optimal angle for making strong carves. The hanger is reversible and, when flipped, there is no rake to throw off the ride.

The bushing seats are symmetrical with an ideal configuration for any style of bushing. The decreased pivot cup seat chamber provides a tight fit for the pivot pin and prevents side-to-side play as the pivot cup breaks in.

The 89a-durometer Blood Orange Bushings make for an ideal responsiveness. With the beefed-up and reinforced 50-Degree contained baseplate, the truck’s strength increased by 40%.

Guides on choosing a longboard truck

There are only 2 main types of longboard trucks out there: Reverse Kingpin Truck (RKP) and Traditional Kingpin Truck (TKP). But choosing which one among them still requires you to be precise as they will determine the style of riding you are aiming for.

Traditional Kingpin Truck (TKP)

If you are most fancy jumping on your cruiser to get around the town or playing in the parks, then pick this type without hesitation. Traditionally made for trick skating, standard kingpin trucks are best at offering low height rides, more advanced turns, and can release easily. They primarily come in smaller sizes and thus are also suitable for smaller longboards.

Reverse Kingpin Truck (RKP)

Also referred to as the “longboard truck” because they are the most common trucks for longboard setup. They are definitely chosen for the right reasons: their high responsiveness at low speeds and the ability to remain stable and smooth, even at increased speeds.

Especially being equipped with a 20’’ or larger wheelbase, these trunks are going to be perfect for freestyle, freeride, carving, and downhill. One last thing to notice about Reverse Kingpin Truck is that they apparently sit higher than the other trunks, which made them not ideal for grinding, slapping, or flipping tricks.

Dual Pivot Trucks

This special type of truck comes with an extra axis of turn which allows them to provide extremely flexible turns. They are probably not a wise choice for downhill or long-distance riding because of their height, but definitely won’t let you down if you are up for slow rides.

When it comes to size, there are 2 basic understanding you should acquire.

First, the width of your trucks shouldn’t exceed the one of your deck. Though it doesn’t have to be perfectly precise because there sure is measurement uncertainty from the manufacturing companies, it is generally recommended to manage the difference to be no bigger than a quarter of an inch.

Second, choosing a truck’s width reflects the compromise of your board’s stability and responsiveness. The wider the trucks, the more stable and less responsive they are and vice versa. As a result, 10’’ or 180mm trucks are designed for freeride and downhill whereas 9’’ or 150mm trucks better suit freestyle, transportation and carving.

Bushing seats are small rubber rings at the center of the hanger (attached on two sides: roadside and board side) to provide resistance during your turns. The seats fit tightly around the bushings to help control the trucks when rotated, thus keeping the board steady at high speeds but less receptive at slower pace.

The bushing seats can definitely be customized with their shape or toughness to better serve your desired style of riding.

Baseplate’s function is to lock the trucks to their skateboard deck. The angles it forms from that attachment will define your board’s turning geometry. There are different variables of truck baseplate angles such as high degree, low degree, and split degree.

Low degree longboard trucks

The smaller the angles are, the more stable and less twitchy your longboard is. These types of baseplate angles vary from 42 to 48 degrees and are the best setup on a not-so-smooth surface like a hill or long road.

High degree longboard trucks

High degree trucks are referred to as 50-degree baseplates, most of which are reverse kingpin trucks. Slightly pressing the edge of your deck can turn it at a large angle. Therefore, high degree longboard trucks are fitting for freestyle, carving and low speed freeride which surely require sharp turns and high responsiveness.

Slit degree truck

There is also an option for mixing between low and high degree angle trucks, one in front and one at the back. This helps specified downhill riders avoid back truck steering.

The great thing about Caliber trucks is that they are made specifically for longboards. Being extremely stable and curvy are their highlights and their bushing seats are also very reliable. Overall, Caliber trucks are definitely a good choice and worth the money.

For beginners, don’t keep your trucks too tight, remain your bushings slightly loose, and to get yourself comfortable with your board from the get-go until you have gained the confidence to tighten it up.

Depends on the width of your longboard. The width of the trucks shouldn’t be ¼ inches bigger than that of your board. Also, make sure to read reviews (if have) when purchasing your trucks as there will be measurement uncertainty from manufacturers.

Every one or two years if possible, but the intensity of your practice is also a huge variable. Simply, if its quality starts to be unbearable for you then you know it’s the right time for a new one. Your experience matters, doesn’t it?

After checking out this Caliber longboard truck review, hopefully, you picked out the best one that is tailored for your needs and style of longboard riding. Caliber brand holds the title firmly as the most recognized name in this industry from the vast market of different manufacturers and makes reliable trucks. The Caliber Standard 8.0 Blackout Skateboard Trucks would be the perfect choice for every rider.