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Bucket Breakdown: How to Match the Right One to Your Wheel Loader
A Quick Guide to Common Bucket Types and Smart Selection Tips
Choosing the right wheel loader is only half the equation. The other half? Choosing the right bucket. From productivity to fuel use to machine wear, your bucket plays a big role in how efficiently your wheel loader performs.
Top 4 Bucket Options — and When to Use Each
- Best all-around: General Purpose buckets are a solid everyday choice that can handle a wide range of lighter materials: sand, gravel, soil and crushed stone. If your jobs vary and you want one bucket that can do most of them well, this is a good place to start.
- Best for speed and carrying: Need to move more material faster? General Purpose Performance buckets provide higher fill factors and material retention in load-and-carry work. They’re also good for grading, leveling, and dumping across many applications and materials.
- Best for light grading or back-dragging: Flat Floor buckets feature a specially designed long, flat floor and a rear cutting edge. That setup is well-suited for applications that require back-dragging and grading.
- Best for tough materials: Spade Nose Rock buckets live up to their name, efficiently moving tough materials like sand, gravel, coal seam, limestone, gypsum and more. They’re ideal for quarry, aggregate and mining work.
Keep in mind this is just a small sampling of your options — so be sure to talk to your Cat® dealer about specialty buckets that might be a better fit for your job.
Tips on Bucket Size: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
It’s easy to assume that a bigger bucket means more production, but that’s not always true. If you use a bucket that exceeds your loader’s recommended lift capacity, you could accelerate wear, shorten component life and cause unplanned failures. Any short-term gains might be offset by costly repairs and downtime.
In fact, it usually makes sense to choose your bucket size first, then select the wheel loader model that can handle it safely and efficiently. To maximize productivity, follow this formula:
- Consider the capacity of the machine you're loading.
- Determine how many loads you need to move each day.
- Select the bucket size that gives you the ideal pass match.
Optional Add-On: Quick Coupler for More Versatility
If you swap buckets or other work tools frequently, consider adding a Fusion™ quick coupler. It allows fast bucket and fork changes, with a selectable kickout feature to optimize positioning for different applications.
Smart Bucket Picks Start with a Conversation
The right bucket depends on what you’re moving, how often you’re moving it and how your wheel loader fits into the rest of your operation.
Your local Cat dealer can help you compare options and choose the bucket that delivers the best performance for your work — and your bottom line.
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