Back dragging: how aggressive?

[SmallChange]

I did a lot of back dragging today, smoothing up a site for a new greenhouse. But I'm always cautious because the cylinders are so extended in dump direction, and would be prone to buckling.

HOW conservative, though? Getting the bottom of the bucket vertical and dragging in a moderate gear with the front wheels held up by the bucket, well, that is very aggressive, I suppose asking for trouble.

But putting the bottom of the bucket, say, 20 or 30 degrees from vertical, and dragging in the lowest gear, is that too aggressive?

Where do you draw the line?

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I guess it depends on what you're dragging?

I've pulled snow away from a garage door with the bucket curled all the way around and pulling the snow towards me, but that's just loose snow (usually).

I don't think I'd do it with hard dirt or packed gravel?

But I have a box blade that I can use for that kind of thing.

Usually if I'm back dragging with the bucket, it's with the heel of the bucket and it's close to parallel with the ground.

 

[SmallChange]

I'm dragging our soil, hard bank gravel and clay. It's hard to work with, but I only have maybe 3 to 5 inches piled up at the most. The bucket doesn't dig in much, maybe half an inch? This is with probably 30 to 40 degrees away from vertical.

Dragging with the heel doesn't move much of this gravel.

When I've bought topsoil, the heel works great for dragging.

 

[/pine]

A compact tractor with a fel is not a skid steer...!
IMO the former is best used for final smoothing etc...

 

[seville009]

I did a lot of dirt moving, smoothing, etc when we moved to our property 20+ years ago. There were many instances where I would raise the front wheels off the ground when doing it. Never hurt anything.

Usually it was when smoothing areas - would have the bucket angled at less than 45 degrees, trying to smooth it out with the bucket edge. Very difficult (for me at least) to smooth anything out going forward, mainly because I can never see where the bucket edge is to feather it.

Had old piles of foundation dirt to spread around. Would drive into the pike, raise the loader up high, curl the bucket down, then "slice" into the pile to break away the solid dirt, then back up and come forward to scoop up the dirt I just sliced off.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I believe that most manufacturers recommend that the back drag angle be 15* or less.
Your loader manual should have something shown about these types of things.

 

[airbiscuit]

A tooth bar or piranha bar would do wonders for your application.

 

[SmallChange]

I believe that most manufacturers recommend that the back drag angle be 15* or less.

Is that 15 from horizontal or 15 from vertical? I'm guessing horizontal.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Is that 15 from horizontal or 15 from vertical? I'm guessing horizontal.

Horizontal

 

[JJT]

Thousands of hours on tractors, lots of back dragging, never an issue, other than taking too big a bite and losing traction.