ORIGINAL: rclement
My experience with nylon bolts for landing gear is that they do work just as planned but there are a few things to consider. I put 3 on a 40 size Funtana and broke them off twice and it worked perfect. I didn't use the 1/4 - 20 like some people do but used 10-32 and they snapped right off, saving the plane. Worked perfect. I think that on most 40 sized planes 1/4 - 20 is probably too big and probably won't snap off soon enough. Also one thing to consider is whether or not you have wheel pants. With wheel pants on when the gear comes off it can send the end of the wheel pants up through the wing. On the planes that I use wheel pants I just beef up the landing gear area better.
I took your advice on the nylon bolts, good thing too. All this snow around here, I landed about a foot short and the wheels touched down in about 1.5 inches of snow. the bolts broke and damage was very minimal, just some new nylon bolts and a minor ultracote patch, oh and re-balanced the prop, it's now a 12.75X7 LOL.
sure beats the heck out of a cartwheel or something.