My dad and I maintain about a dozen deer stands with shooting lanes along miles of roads and trails on various hunting properties. Needless to say, this requires a fair amount of new work and maintainance each year. A constant problem for years has been how to deal with heavy grass and small, pencil-thickness willows and brush that grows back up every year.
This grass and brush is too heavy for the normal nylon trimmer line and the brush cutter blade tends to push this stuff over rather than cut it. Also the smaller cutting diameter of the blade reduces efficiency in grass and small brush and when I’m spending 4-5 hours clearing trails, efficiency matters.
This season I decided to try other options to see if I could get something that cuts this thin brush and grass better. I bought the Grass Gator 4680 Extra Heavy Duty trimmer head.
Both the head and the replacement blades (more on this later) are sold at Fleet Farm and other local reatilers.
This model of Grass Gator head uses 3 serrated metal blades, each blade pivots to protect it from damage should it contact something too solid to cut. As a note, this blade is NOT for use around the home or around anything where trimmer damage would be an issue. Grass Gator makes heads with nylon blades for that kind of work. Don’t get this head anywhere near anything you don’t want to destroy.
And destroy it does! To cut to the chase, this head turned my Husqvarna straight shaft trimmer into a lethal weapon. The Grass Gator head destroyed everything that was less than half an inch in diameter and it was especially good with blackberry and raspberry thorns and willow. The serrated teeth tear up anything that gets in the way and because the cutting radius is almost as big as the bump feed line head, the result is that it clears a wide swath which means less time and effort.
At one point my dad walked back to the truck to get a sharp chainsaw chain and was amazed that in the 15 minutes he was gone, I had cleared a 50 yard long shooting lane using the Grass Gator. The lane was completely full of head-high grass and raspberry thorns. The Grass Gator chewed it up in about half the time it would have taken me to use the brush cutter blade.
It’s necessary to run the trimmer at high RPMs to get the smoothest cutting performance. It still cuts at lower RPMs, but the trimmer jumps around more and it gets tiring. I found myself holding my Husqvarna at about 3/4 throttle and then really reving it up when it came to the heavy grass.
Since the cutting blades are replaceable, even accidental contact with a rock or steel fence post won’t put the head out of commission. Obviously, you should always wear a face shield and protective clothing when using any kind of brush cutting machinery.
Another word of caution, this blade requires a heavy-duty trimmer. Don’t just throw the Grass Gator on your $59 curved shaft discount store trimmer. The engine, clutch, and shaft won’t be able to withstand the stress of running for hours at wide open throttle and hacking through brush. Grass Gator recommends this head only for trimmers greater than 25 c.c. I can easily see where a light duty homeowner trimmer would be destroyed by this kind of hard use. Both your trimmer and the head must be rated for brush cutter use, so check your owner’s manual first.
The only downside I found is that like other blades and heads for trimmers, cutting heavy, fibrous grasses like cattails can cause the cut grass to wrap up between the head and the bevel case on the trimmer. Therefore, I found that I had to stop, shut down the trimmer, and untangle the head. It would be nice if Grass Gator (or anyone else) would solve this problem.
But overall, for the kind of brush clearing that hunters and outdoorspeople often need to do to maintain trails and shooting lanes, this cutting head is well worth the $20 investment.
Highly recommended.
Grouse