The first picture is J&C Black Maximizer. He is sired by Black Max and his dam was a full sister to Black Max. Yes, very line-bred/in-bred depending on your point of view. I remember Bob Volk telling me the reasoning behind that mating was they were trying to line-up the Miss Nick 175L cow, Black Max' dam. She was a black Mr. Clean daughter that was waaaaaayyyy before her time. Moderate, funcational, awesome! Black Max' sire, Performer, was where the birthweight and poor milk numbers came from. It's been many years, but last I heard, if you could even FIND Black Max semen, it was $400+ per straw. A good friend in Iowa had a tank go dry about 2006 that had 40 or so straws of Black Max in it. Not a good day. Black Max had a bunch of full brothers that were fairly popular in the day, but I don't remember their names. Black Max was 175L's natural calf and he was 4 inches taller and 300 pounds heavier than his brothers. The story behind Black Max' early demise was that he was killed as a 3 year-old in a fight with a yearling Angus bull. I can remember buying Black Max semen for $15 and after he was killed it went through the roof! A former business partner had great luck with Black Max, including the female in the second picture, who's dam was a Papillon daughter with a -10 milk EPD, but milked like a Holstein... Both Black Max and Black Maximizer (you can find semen on him without too much trouble, may be cheap, may be more expensive) on today's very moderate, deep ribbed, easy fleshing Angus cows works GREAT!!! Been there, done it.
The third pic is Circle S Leachman 600U. Never used the bull much. I remember he always put a very distinctive hip on his calves.
Last pic is Signal. The Signal daughters were phenomenal cows. Yes, some of them were way too big and were colored up pretty badly, but the majority were great, functional, very maternal females. Black Max worked extremely well on Signal daughters back in the day.
