With the 2 counterweights on the back maybe it's no longer zero tail swing? Might stick out past the tracks now? Just curious. If my 50g stuck out in the back I'm sure I would have slammed into lots of things in the woods.Only pic I got so far. Looks pretty clean. We are going to go look at it soon, I’ll give it a good look over. Of all things, the thumb on the bucket excites me the most.
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I couldn't agree more. A large mini is about perfect for finess habitat work. I love more power as much as the next person, but there are just places you don't want to make a path wide enough to walk a Cat 336 through your property.
I sat in my tree stand and my range finder said the next tree was only 167 yards, thank you!
It’s not a fair debate and I think it’s highly dependent on terrain, but I am always impressed with what a decent sized dozer and a 6-way blade can do. I got a guy running a 25,000lb 100-hp “small dozer” class Komatsu that is pushing 10-inch trees over as he pushes up a steep bluff, 2 at a time. The right dozer has a blade with decent lift height and can push at 4-ft or so. This is plenty to get good leverage. Grading abilities for water management are lightning fast too. He pushed out a low water crossing across this ravine with 20’ banks in 3 hours. To move that much dirt with a skid steer or mini would’ve taken at least 3x that. With that said, I’ll be renting a mini next summer to form a better opinion! My strategy is to rent air conditioned equipment in the summer as a way to get a little done in 100F temps, when I don’t want to do anything else.
Keep in mind, for what you can rent one for a week or two every year, you could do that for 20 years and be money ahead. If you've got a ton of work, rent a Cat 313. That's big enough to get stuff done, small enough that you won't need 14' wide trails to get around. Here's a 313 rental for a month at $7100. Probably figure $10,000 after delivery and tax and whatever else gets thrown on there. That's a $175,000 machine. You get one month per year for $10,000 and you don't have to insure it or maintain it.
Your farm policy most likely has to cover insurance. I had to get an extra rider for it but still only like $500.
Those would be great machines. Expensive at that hour range but you wouldn’t regret and they old their value extremely well if you ever wanted to get rid of it.
I guess part of my question is what hour range I should be looking for. I am definitely looking for reliability as repairs are a pain to organize when you live on the other side of the country. On the other hand, I will probably put less than 100 hrs per year on it. would something in the 2000-3000 hour range make more sense? On the sizing, I feel like bigger is better for most of the things I would be doing, but I was wondering if anybody would have gone smaller due to difficulty getting around in a wooded setting. That 80 is on the large size for a mini.
I’m no expert but I know some. The hours in the classic case of it depends. If it’s been maintained 4000 hours is nothing. Rode hard, 1000 is new pins, tracks, undercarriage, etc. Unfortunately it’s largely a case by case basis. Mine had like 3900 hours and in 3 years I’ve had zero issues but like you I don’t put many hours on it. You can sacrifice a bit on hours when you don’t use it every day for work. 80 is big. It’s one step away from full on excavator. With that said, if you can swing it there’s little downside to getting one that big. The only downside is moving it become a big more challenging depending what you drive. I’m not sure my 2500 would pull an 80. My 50 is 11,000 lbs. I would also stay away from any steel track machines. I think most 80’s are still rubber. Expensive, tear up roads, drives and concrete and you pop a track on that in the woods and you may just make it permanent deer stand.
The only place it will be moving is at 3 mph on my property, so no worries there. Popping a track in the most remote areas of my property would indeed be a nightmare!
3 mph…you must be looking at turbo charged ones!
