A minor but often overlooked detail about weight placement: 200 pounds of weight behind the rear axle removes weight from the front and adds more than 200 to the rear, which does a better job balancing the F/R weight distribution. I would guess that the added stopping distance is negligible when adding 4% to your vehicle weight while improving the weight distribution.

 

Consider traction aids as your first and best line against loss of traction.

Winter tires have a significantly softer rubber compound that grips the road better, and also provides significantly better grip in slush, intermittent ice, and packed snow.

Studs help in packed snow, ice, and thin light snow.

Tire chains are by far the biggest and most aggressive traction aid, and provide a very impressive boost in shallow and deep snow (both packed and loose), ice, slush, and just about anything else (especially mud). The limitation is that you cannot go faster than about 35 mph. Look for diamond-pattern chains versus ladder-pattern.

 

I have chains for my Rubicon that list my 21 f150 tires so I could try those. I highly doubt they clear. Also be careful what (and where) you drive. Some states ban studs and chains. My neighboring state does.

I add weight to my Mustangs and have had great success. I also run winter tires on every car or suv and mud terrains on my trucks. i never found weight to be helpful on a heavy truck.

My 21 came with the Goodyear "all terrain" tires. They suck pretty bad offroad and i believe they would be useless in snow. Luckily I have several 4x4 equipped for it. As soon as I find a cheap enough set of wheels ill have my snow tires on my truck too. The stock tires are pretty good on road though. Plenty smooth and quiet.

 

Simple, cost. Even people driving $50k+ trucks don't want to pay for another set of wheels and tires. Also storage. People need a place to keep another set of tires year-round. Also ignorance. Many people barely give any thought to tires, let alone dedicated winter tires.

I wonder about the stopping distance argument. Yes you are adding more weight, but the whole purpose is adding traction. Additional traction could more than make up for the added weight. I'd love to see more research on this.

I've wrestled with the question of adding sand bags to my Supercrew. I have a set of Nokian winter tires which are great, but I still wonder if a couple of 60 lb bags would help even more. I may experiment with it this winter.

 

Oh yeah adding traction helps stopping power, maybe enough to overcome the added weight, but even if it's break even that's great. My argument was just that there is almost certainly a point of diminishing returns and likely even harm. Even in dry conditions added weight impacts stopping distance, and weight will only do so much to overcome even decent tires in snow losing traction. So I just said I wouldn't do like that YouTube video and keep 400+lbs in the bed for traction if you aren't having an issue moving in the first place, but 1-200lbs is probably at that helping or maybe break even point. As you said though, seeing real testing of this would be nice. I did a brief search yesterday but couldn't find much that wasn't about trailer towing or things that weren't good comparisons.

 

Well eventually you start taking away from the front end weight too. Then you scoot the front trying to turn.

 

Drove in snow all my life. In fact took my driving test in a snow storm. I never did the sand in the back, never needed it until I got my 2018. I knew working on these trucks in auto body. Removing the box on these could be done with 2 people vs 4 on a steel one. The light Aluminum box over the rear would make the rear end loose traction and swing out, going over certain bumps, train tracks, Frost heaves etc for me. So I put 170lbs of tube sand back there every winter now

 

Having a second set of tires/wheels for winter is to me not only smart, but gave me a reason to buy another great set of custom off road wheels!

 

Same here.....except it was nice and clear when I took my drivers test..lol.
My '07 Screw had the 6.5' bed, so it had a bit more weight in the back. There were days I would put it in 4WD to get going, but the Duratracs that I had for a few years worked really well. I ended up needing some new rims, so I got some takeoffs from a '19 with whatever stock AT tires that weren't nearly as good. This year I have A4WD as well as some new Duratracs, so hopefully the lighter bed is compensated by mechanicals and fresh rubber. We shall see.
I'd be more inclined to get some Winter tires if I didn't live in The State Where Nothing Is Allowed. Chains and studs are both illegal here, so the only real difference is the softer compound of a Winter tire. The Duratracs have the 3 peak snow rating and have served me well, so I don't think I'm missing too much.

 

I think the overall weight of a SCREW means you're not really lacking on weight over the rear axle, which mainly affects lighter trucks.

Remember the example in the video is with mud terrain tyres, and not a lot of people realise they are terrible tyres in the snow, so the weight in the lighter truck they were tested with, helped the lack of traction due to ****ty tyres for the snow. That really highlights the other comment here that tyres are incredibly important.