Pros and cons of a high volume bucket

4-in-1 trends lately are pushing customers towards high volume 4-in-1 buckets over standard designs, but are they right for your machine?

Traditional 4-in-1 buckets are still the standard attachment of choice for skid steer loaders and mini loaders on the east coast of Australia, but we are starting to see a real push towards high volume buckets.  There are pros and cos to both.

The real benefit of the a high volume bucket is the increase in capacity of the bucket, in most cases it is around 15%.  Aside from the increase in volume most manufactures generally build high volume buckets stronger than standard duty buckets. Quite often additional cutting edges are standard on high volume buckets which really increases their longevity.  It is vary rare to see additional cutting edges fitted to a standard 4-in-1.

The downside to High volume buckets is their additional weight, although here is a 15% increase in volume there is also normally around 25-30% increase in weight of the bucket.  This makes them only suitable for heavy duty machines with high lift capacities, for light weight machines the benefit of the additional volume is offset by the additional weight of the bucket.  The additional weight of the bucket will also put added stressed on the host machine so  they  are not suitable for all brands of machines, it pays to heck pin and bush sizing before purchasing a high volume bucket.  The additional weight of the bucket will also effect the fuel consumption of the machine, not so noticeable on large machines but very noticeable on small ones.  Lastly high volume buckets decrease visibility which can be a real hazard on a small machine.