grapple vs 4 way bucket

[scappoose]

Which is the most useful tool? A thumb on the bucket or a dedicated root grapple, or a 4 in one bucket?

 

[doall]

The 4 in 1 is probably the most versatile.

 

[DanD78]

I have never had a grapple but do have a 5' Frontier 4 in 1 on a JD 3320. I think a grapple would be good if you were doing nothing but brush and trees. I do dirt, rock, manuer, trees and brush. I like the bucket for picking up tree branches. You can just make stacks and keep picking them up, combining stacks then drive them straight to the burn pile. It is nice to be able to pick up that list little bit of rock or dirt with out chasing it around with a normal bucket.

Dan

 

[IslandTractor]

I own both a grapple and a 4n1. Both are useful and it depends mostly on what you need to get accomplished to determine which is best. The 4n1 is a Swiss Army knife. Does a lot of things but none of them as well as a dedicated single purpose tool. The grapple clobbers the 4n1 when it comes to moving brush, digging out bushes or lifting stumps and logs but it is feeble at filling in the holes left by stump removal etc. You haven't seen rediculous though until you've tried to pick up a pile of logs or branches with a 4n1. It can basically do that task one at a time compared to ten or more in a true grapple.

Assuming everyone already has a standard bucket, my advice would be to add a grapple as the second device. A 4n1 is a nice third material movement implement. Grapples are also quite a bit less expensive than 4n1 buckets by a factor of about 2.

Don't make the mistake of getting a grapple the same width as your standard bucket. 48 inches is about ideal. Read the various lengthy grapple threads on TBN before plunking down your cash.

 

[PHS79]

The best of us is a grapple. For moving downed trees, brush, removing concrete, blacktop, ect. the grapple is ideal! I have never had a 4in1 bucket, I have looked at them but for the price I couldn't justify one, just not enough uses for me.

I do have to argue with what Islandtractor said about getting a grapple smaller than your bucket. We have a 72" grapple (tractor dirt bucket is 69" and snow bucket is 90"), the 72" replaced a 60" that we got a good deal on and figured it would be good enough for what we wanted to do with it. We were very wrong The 60" was way to small, when brushing out fence rows and tearing out black top/concrete, there is nothing worse than have stuff spill off the edge of the bucket and run it over. Especially when there are things like barbed wire and rebar that you are trying to pick up, it either results on a flat tire or wire tangled up somewhere you don't want it to be. Or having brush spill of the edge of the bucket and scratch up the side of your tractor. IMO its like trying to plow snow or move dirt, sand ect with a bucket that is narrower than the track width of your tractor, it doesn't make sense to run over what ever it is you are trying to move.

 

[IslandTractor]

A 48 inch grapple weighs about 300-350lbs. A 72 inch grapple weighs about 700lbs. That means 350lbs less net lift capacity on any given loader. A 48 inch grapple with therefore carry more logs and trees than its 72 inch cousin as well as costing about half as much.

With regard to brush, I've never had much of an issue getting as much brush into my 48 inch grapple as I could manage. The problem is mostly that you cannot see where you are going but that would only be made worse by having a wider grapple.

Can you lift this much brush with a 72 inch grapple? Can you lift a stump this large with your remaining lift capacity on a 20hp tractor (1070lb lift capacity).

 

[IslandTractor]

I'll stick with my Loader Buddy.

That thing better be cheap 'cause it is no more useful than a grapple without an upper arm or a bucket with a toothbar.

You wouldn't happen to sell them would you?

 

[PHS79]

A 48 inch grapple weighs about 300-350lbs. A 72 inch grapple weighs about 700lbs. That means 350lbs less net lift capacity on any given loader. A 48 inch grapple with therefore carry more logs and trees than its 72 inch cousin as well as costing about half as much.

With regard to brush, I've never had much of an issue getting as much brush into my 48 inch grapple as I could manage. The problem is mostly that you cannot see where you are going but that would only be made worse by having a wider grapple.

Can you lift this much brush with a 72 inch grapple? Can you lift a stump this large with your remaining lift capacity on a 20hp tractor (1070lb lift capacity).

You are correct, the 72" grapple weighs roughly 750lbs.

With my L3600 I can lift the grapple fully loaded with brush and the tractor doesn't think twice about it. But I am also dealing with a larger tractor than what you are, so that makes a big difference.

What works for some, doesn't work for others.

 

[SWIMMER]

If you already have a standard bucket, get the grapple. I have a 48 inch grapple and it is a wonderful thing. With the QA, you can switch between the bucket and grapple pretty dang fast.

I can move an amazing amount of brush with the grapple, and with the windstorms we have here, it pays for itself every winter. besides, I can pickup large logs and carry them upto the shop for cutting and splitting.

 

[IslandTractor]

You are correct, the 72" grapple weighs roughly 750lbs.

With my L3600 I can lift the grapple fully loaded with brush and the tractor doesn't think twice about it. But I am also dealing with a larger tractor than what you are, so that makes a big difference.

What works for some, doesn't work for others.

I posted photos from my old tractor. I now use a Kioti DK40se with a loader lift capacity of 2700+lbs and use the same grapple. I've never wished I had bigger and the 48 inch light duty grapple has done all I've asked.

One other advantage of the narrow grapple is when digging roots you are putting your breakout force into a smaller area and hence put more on the roots or rock you are interested in and don't waste a lot of the force on irrelevent ground on either side.

Here are a few photos from the new tractor plus same grapple: