we have never tried to pump solids. it is used for wine transfer only.

I don't believe that it is designed to move must. I purchased it to pump juice from a fermenter through a dip-tube. When I use enzymes for color enhancement the degraded tissue makes it through the mesh in the dip tube and plugs up the screens on a diaphram pump after only gallon or two. I have not used it yet but it looks like it should work great for my application.

If you read the product discription and specs you can easily see that an oriface if less than an inch cant move must (remember must contains grapes and they can plug the shit out of anything that has a small diameter). In addition the reason that must pumps are big and expensive is that they can use their power to forceably push the heavy shit through the pipes that are by the way bigger than ab inch. The pump is useful for sucking out the liquid and some of the seeds out of the fermentation tank. Once down to the cap a plastic shovel works best. It also has saved me hours of pumping time when racking barrels. The one inch hose minimizes the damage to the winery pumping.

Hi Darold - Please see the attached item.

This pump is self priming. To get the best use out of this feature it is important to be close to the source have some head pressure from gravity such as the source fluid being higher than the pump and to use a tube that is the same diameter or larger than the inlet tube (1"). I've usually used this pump against all of those recommendations but primed it manually first and have had no problems whatsoever. For the power cord I used a 25 foot extension cord which I chopped the end off to make sure I can use this anywhere in my workspace.

In my experience yes. I use this pump to draw wine from bulk tank to bottler and it pulls inert gas through the lines prior to to the system being fully charged no problem. That said a shot of acid sanitizer does also lubricate a dry impeller.

Yes.

It is self-priming if the source is less than about 10 ft from the inlet. It's biggest problem is that it has a hard time reversing direction. However it is easy to disassemble the pump head and clean. I recommend spraying it with food grade silicone for storage.

Yes it is self priming.

Yes. However it works best if the liquid you want to pump is as close to the pump as possible. In our experience we have been able to pull from as far away as 6 feet but we prefer to have wine in the hose before we start.