Grapple type

[thunder86]

Looking at a Iron-craft ctgr60 for my bobcat ct4045. $1,500 price. Is this a good price on it? Will it hold up well? Looking to move brush, logs, rocks and uproot small saplings out of the ground I don’t use my backhoe on. Thanks.

 

[Jchonline]

Messicks sells them as well so that is a good sign in my opinion...they look fine to me but I dont own one.

 

[ericm979]

I chose a grapple with long bottom tines for moving brush. I think it can carry a greater volume than the short bottom tine style. It will move logs too but it works best when grabbing from above. Where I think it lacks the most compared to a short bottom tine grapple is digging. But I don't do any of that with the grapple.

With either type it will be difficult to grab anything small like a sapling. You'd have to grab it just right with a corner of a lid, and that's tough to do. Even then the grapple can't squeeze hard enough to grab the piece and pull it out. A few people here have made additional teeth for their grapples to address that.

 

[2manyrocks]

A dedicate tree/post puller is probably better for pulling saplings, small trees, and bushes, but a grapple is better for crushing and moving brush like from tree tops. The tree service I used recently had a long bottom tine style grapple made by Diamond on their Kubota compact track loader. Theirs had dual lids. Their operator would clamp the brush in one side of the grapple with one lid while using the other to crush and compact the other side. Then he'd pick up more material and crush it until he had a pretty full load to transport. Probably helped this process that the material tends to stay in the flat bottom style during this process.

 

[G31]

I have that grapple and it works fine. I had a Land Pride grapple with my last tractor and only notice the top lid of the CTGR60 is not toothed like the LP. I don’t really need that for what I do, but if you like to rake backward, lid teeth would be needed I bet. Also, the LP was AR400 and the IC “AR36” per the factory tech I called. I don’t know if that is really just A36, I’m not a steel worker.

I forgot to add, I use the clamshell type for this reason. I dig the bottom teeth into the soil to rip saplings and small brush. It does a good job, as long as you’re not trying to pull large stumps or anything.