[Stripit]

How I used to do it was to weigh the truck loaded ready to travel, weigh each axle so you know front and rear axle weights. That is the base line. Then having those numbers compare those to the truck Gross weigh limit, and axle limits, also inspect the sidewall of the tires to see what that max load carrying is. Then most folks use 20% of the gross weigh limit of the trailer as the "possible" pin weight that will go to the truck. That 20% is only a guess as some are much more, others less, but use that as a refference point. So if you find a 15,000GVW trailer, you can guess 3,000lbs of pin weight going into the bed of the truck. On the trucks sticker you will see GVWR of the axles, but if you add those up you will see it doesn't equal the GVWR of the truck, as it will be less than the sum of the axles. Now comes the fun part, which number do you feel safe being over. For me not the tires, but the rear axle "could" be at or over and still be under the tires max load. I used to find most of the 250/2500 series trucks were over some rated number when hauling larger trailers. That didn't mean that once you go over a number on the truck, it would fail, otherwise you would see hundreds of pickup trucks scattered along the highways. But overloading is not something I would recommend. They place limits for safety and durability. Sometimes these numbers get real confusing and takes a while to understand.