Skid Steer Buckets: Know Your Material Weights
Skid steers are heavy pieces of machinery built for efficiency and labor-saving in industries like construction, landscaping, farming and mining. They have lift arms which are used to attach a wide variety of skid steer attachments, including skid steer buckets. As a skid steer operator, it is important to know three different capacities before operating with a skid steer bucket attachment. These capacities include your tipping capacity, and the two types of bucket capacities, heap capacity and struck capacity.
Tipping capacity is the most important of the 3 capacities that you should be aware of. Tipping capacity refers to the amount of weight your skid steer can physically handle before it tips. This is extremely important to know not just for operating with skid steer buckets, but any skid steer attachment. Heaped capacity refers to the amount of material inside the bucket plus the amount of material stacked on top (heaped). Struck capacity refers to the amount of material on the inside physical dimensions of the bucket only. Both heaped and struck capacity are measured in cubic feet.
Knowing both heaped and struck capacity will ultimately help you determine the weight of the material in your bucket (materials are measured in lbs / cubic feet), so that you know how much you can carry without reaching your tipping capacity and putting yourself and those around you in harms way.
If you have any questions on the type of bucket you need to get the job done, or on the 3 capacities that were discussed, contact our experts at SkidSteers.com!
Material Weights (Measured in LB/CUBIC FT)
| Ashes 35-52 | Cullet 80-100 | Paper 58 | Sugar Beets 40 |
| Barley 39 | Earth-dry, loose 76 | Peanuts-shelled 18 | Sulphur 55-83 |
| Bauxite 159 | Earth-wet, packed 115 | Potash-68 | Sunflowers 25 |
| Beans 48 | Fertilizer-lime 36-53 | Potatoes 48 | Talc 55 |
| Bone Meal 57 | Fertilizer-urea 45 | Quartz-ground 165 | Taconite 90-107 |
| Borax 109 | Fertilizer-MAP, DAP 68 | Rye 45 | Wheat 48 |
| Brewers Grain 57 | Fertilizer-potash 45 | Rice 44 | Wood-chips 18-20 |
| Cement 94 | Flax Seed 45 | Rubber-scrap 50 | Wood-oak 54 |
| Chalk-crushed 87 | Gravel 90-126 | Salt 35-48 | Wood-pine 34 |
| Charcoal-oak 35 | Gypsum 159 | Sand-dry 90-105 | Wood-sawdust 15-20 |
| Clay-damp 110 | Hay-baled 20 | Sand-wet 126 | |
| Clay-dry, excavated 63 | Ice 37-56 | Sandstone 143 | |
| Coal 40-58 | Limestone 155 | Sewage Sludge 60 | |
| Coffee Beans 40-45 | Lime 36-53 | Shale, crushed 92 | |
| Coke 32 | Linseed 56 | Slag, Iron 172 | |
| Concrete 86-111 | Lye 106 | Snow-wet 15-50 | |
| Copper Ore 262 | Malt-Dry 45 | Soybeans 46 | |
| Copra 22 | Mica-Flaked 20 | Starch 96 | |
| Corn-shelled 45 | Oats 26 | Stone or gravel 90-120 | |
| Cottonseed-dry 25 | Ore 105-215 | Sugar-raw 99 |