[Swampdude]

For us last year, we had 2 very good reasons. The weight - since light weight sprockets in 3/8 pitch are going to be hard to find and not necessarily have the interior (shaft) shape we need.
The mounting configuration we needed was unique. So we ended up with an extremely light and strong, custom made sprocket that fit the design perfectly in the end.
As long as we have the waterjet as a resource, I plan to make sprockets. Sprockets are a great place to save weight. For example, we had (4) 60 tooth sprockets that would have weighed 2.8 lbs ea. (in steel) x 4 = 11.2 lbs
but the custom high strength aluminum ones weighed around .7lbs x 4 = 2.8 lbs - 8.4lb savings!