Very easy to insert cat 5 or 6 cable into. And these are for solid cable, so you can use them on both solid and stranded cable. Yes the pins are staggered up and down like they should be, no they do not come with a separate sled or loadbar, the connector is almost like a funnel inside. Very easy to use, and most importantly, the connectors still have a nice audible "click" when plugging them into a port after crimping them.