I decided to take my chance with the hobbico retracts

I have heard bad things about them. But I fly off of a compacted dirt runway so the retracts should not be a problem. Our other newer field is crused stone with a plastic tarplike material sterched over it and driven into the ground drum tight. That wont be a problem ether.
You want to do renforcements to the landing gear area and use a good hobbico retract servo (cs-63) and fly from low cut grass or smooth runways like mine retracts will be fine