Case-IH Farmall 45A, Kubota M8540 Narrow, New Holland TN 65, Bobcat 331, Ford 1920, 1952 John Deere M, Allis Chalmers B, Bombardier Traxter XT, Massey Harris 81RC and a John Deere 3300 combine, Cub Cadet GT1554
My neighbor has the Case-IH version of the 530 and it does a decent job. It has not been taken care of the best but is reliable.
I ran the 540 a couple times and didn't have any trouble with it at all. It did a good job with the ruined hay. The field was set to be small square baled and then it rained for a week. When the rain went away I rolled the hay over twice and used the 540 to pick the crap up. I wish I could have justified buying the 540 but for my use it just didn't make sense to own a round baler.
They are a good reliable baler that seems to take a beating and keep working. They are a very basic baler that can be run with a 35pto horsepower tractor.
Good little machine that can be run with a larger compact tractor. I have one sitting in my shed that is a Case-IH 8420 which is a Hesston 530 with Case-IH decals on it. Mine is in real nice shape and it happens to be for sale. Send me a PM if you are interested in more details or pictures.
I have a Hesston 5530 round baler, which is the predecessor to your 530. I pull it with a D-10 (III) Allis-Chalmers tractor (35 HP). Older gas and diesel tractors of this horsepower would have no trouble pulling this baler. I don't know if the new John Deere's or other so-called compact utility tractors have the guts to pull one of these. My brother has a 4300 JD, and it moves awful slow pulling the same 5' bush hog that my D-10 uses. My $.02
It would be close? Are you sure it is only 30 pto hp, we have a JD 4600 and I have pulled the 8420 with it and it did not even know it was there, but I don't know how much difference there is between the 4600 and the 4400. You could probably pull it but maybe just not make a full 54" tall bale, might have to stop at 36"-48"? Or heck it might work, before I got the 8420 I pulled an old Hesston 5500 5x5 with my M4700 @ 42pto hp and the baler called for 50pto hp, if it was real hot out and the conditions were heavy I just had to run a little slower and maybe not make a full 5' tall bale.
Honestly I don't know what the 4600 is putting out. It belongs to our business and I rarely run it myself. We've had it 7 or 8 years and I can't remember the specs from when we bought it. It is a 4x4 and hydraulic shuttle, I guess it has got about 1,100 hrs on it and it has not been my favorite machine. It was the last non-orange tractor we bought.