buzst, the way I look at may be different then many of the folks here. The beauty of hydraulics is that either they will or they won't lift something. If that were not the case, we'd all be replacing hydraulic componets regularly. The thing to be concerned about is continually trying to pry with just the corner of the bucket, especially curling the bucket. A tremendous amount of force is placed there and twisting the bucket is possible. While it is possible to twist the loader itself, Kubotas are quite sturdy. You should also get some weight on the rear end, just tire ballast will not be enough. I have a 1200 lb box scraper on mine. I have moved (not lifted) rocks significantly larger then the one you show. Rat...