Gooseneck/5th Wheel

5th wheel= neighbor has to borrow truck and trailer (and REALLY breaks something)

A gooseneck connects to a ball, on the truck.
A 5th wheel connects to a hitch plate (pardon my terminology ignorance) using a kingpin.

There are load-bearing and manueverability concerns, as well...

HTH
Steve

1. Typically a 5th wheel hitch will have a greater weight capacity than a gooseneck.
2. A gooseneck is more "flexible" (i.e. you can traverse rougher terrain with a gooseneck hitch than a 5th wheel).
3. As old mentioned in his post, a gooseneck has a higher probablity of breakage than a 5th wheel.
4. As you mentioned, a gooseneck ball (2 5/16") is much less "intrusive" to the bed of your truck than a 5th wheel.

All in all, I suppose it boils down to a couple of things;
1. Are you already eyeing a trailer? If so, what hitch configuration does it have?
2. What are you anticipating hauling and where? If you're hauling 2 or 3 (or even more) tractors, simultaneously or a tractor with a couple of big, heavy implements, and doing so over-the-road, go for the 5th wheel. If you're looking for more of a "general purpose" trailer (hay, equipment, other things at other times, etc.) over 'varied' terrain (fields, rough driveways, over curbs, etc. along with road trave) then I'd look at the gooseneck.

HTH
Steve

A single action (tilts forward & backwards) 5th wheel has more side to side stability than a GN, not to say that a GN is not fine hitching.

A two way action 5th tilts both forward/backward and side to side. Most of this type of 5th hitching has a side to side lockout pin so it can be made single action if desired.

You do loose some side to side stability with multi-tilt 5th wheels, but not much.

You have a typical 8" bolster plate (RV, not semi 30") on a 5th, on both kin pin and on the hitch head. So that means you sandwich a 2" pin between two flat plates.

You can also get air ride 5th where you achive 6-way head action or 8-way head action with air springs for a softer pull.

Any ridgid mount hitching will get a push from the trailer upon start-up and stopping. After driving 10hrs or so this gets old on your back so thats why the air bag 5th wheels as the air springs absorb the trailers "push".

Where a GN out shined a 5th wheel is traveling or hitch up while on ruff terrian as it "was" much easier to hitch/unhitch plus the GN added more tilt movement being on a ball vs flat plates.

Typical RV 5th hitching is rated upto about 34k maximum GCWR with 6k of vertical pin loading.

Typical GN hitching is rated upto 30k GCWR with 4K pin weight. This lower pin weight is due to the lack of typical hitch mounting design.

A coverter hitch, both 5th and GN on one sub-frame mount, has the same weight rating in both GCWR and pin weight.

T_Bone