I am ready to buy a snowplow for my Prairie 650. Lots of plows out there to choose from. I have found plows from about 47 lbs. for one with a 60" plastic lined one, to 97 lbs. for a 60" county type plow. Any thoughts to how much difference the weight of the plow makes? Do you want to go for the biggest, heaviest plow you can get to scrape off the drive or will a light plow do just as well with less wear and tear on the front end? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Moose is the way to go!
i had the 60" Moose straight blade on my old '01 Sportsman500 and it was very strong and reliable. i did 70+ miles of plowing that year, pounding the hell out of it, and it never skipped a beat. great plow!

after much research, i just bought a plow for my sp700. i went with the Moose 'county blade.' 60" wide and 26" high (with rubber flap) on one side. it's supposed to throw the snow even higher than my old straight blade. unfortunately i haven't had a chance to use it yet. but christ! it looks even STRONGER than my other plow! i'm impressed to say the very least.

i read in the Polaris Forum that a guy owns a Cycle Country plow and it's cheap and flimsy and he hates it. it bent on him easily and his last post stated that he would sell it cheap to anyone interrested. i think it's light-weight to.

i say the heavier the blade the better! it never beat-up my front end.

 

i have a warn plow, ( got it used for 250$) plowed dirt in the fall and just did my first snow fall, no problem i think its 50 lbs or lighter, the only thing is that its straight and to throw the snow u gotta go a little fast. but it rolls it very easily when going slow.i went the less expensive route i guess. but with that said, its a good choice[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]
oh yea it is all steel and i beat it pretty hard this past fall!!!!!

 

Well, I finally made the decision and bought a plow. Don't know if it was the right decision, that will remain to be seen until I get a chance to use it a bit. I went for a heavy plow, a 60" Moose County Plow. With the plow, mount, push tubes, one end cap for the short end and tax, it cost me about $450.00. I will use my winch to lift the thing. The County plow is the one that looks like a plow that the highway department uses, it is 16inches on one side and 26 inches on the other. The weight is about 87 lbs for the blade, I believe. A local dealer had everything in stock except the mount for my Kawa P650. That will be in on Thursday. I don't believe it is going to snow until after that, so I should be OK. I hope that the heavy plow is not too hard on my front springs.

 

Great choice Chieftam! congrats!
the "end cap for the short end" will limit you to only rolling snow to the RIGHT. you may want to roll snow LEFT at times so you may want to skip that option in my humble opinion.
the upper black rubber snow deflector (came standard on my Moose County Blade) is a must! you will be able to stack snow higher than you could ever imagine!

Man! you are going to have SOOOOOOOOOO much fun!

remeber to use the skids and that the rubber goes under the bracket then the washers on top. (you'll understand when you see the installation directions!)

ENJOY!

 

use the skids. it'll really extend the life of that cutting edge.

 

The reason for getting the end cap for the small side of the plow was to allow me to push some amount of snow straight, for clean-up. For lighter snow, before I got the atv, I have been using a manual pushblade and it always left some amount of snow when pushing around obstacles that was hard to push off as it would accumulate in front of the blade and then come off the edges. Multiple pushes of shorter duration are required. The layout of my driveway and house will force me to push most of the snow to the right anyway. My garage is behind the house to the side and about 100 feet long, double wide concrete. It runs right up to the house as it goes by the house, so I will have to plow it away from the house to the right. (and make sure I don't run into the house!) When I get the thing on Thursday and mount it, I am going to look for some way to mount the end cap with some sort of a quick release to allow me to push both ways if I have to. I imagine I will have to be pushing out from the garage into the street anyway, so backing up or turning around will be necessary anyway. I also have 8-feet of hard packed landscape rock on the right side of the driveway where i park my truck, trailer, and anything else that won't fit in the 24 x 40 x 12 foot garage. I will plow snow to the right onto the rock, and then lift the blade just above the rock and push it over the edge of the retaining wall.

I plan on using the skids, but how low do you run the blade? I would like to be able to scrape completely down to my cement driveway. I would imagine that will require a close adjustment on the skids so that the blade is on the ground, but not completely resting all the weight there. Is that right?

 

I have my Moose 60" blade as low as it will go (both rubber spacers with one washer beneath them and all other washers on top)...My plow will still 'ride up' at times, so it can take multiple passes to 'scrape' down to the pavement...I almost always make several 'final' cleaning passes to get the last bit of snow (it may also be that I'm dissapointed that I'm already done plowing and just to play some more).. Your County plow will probably resist 'riding up' more than my straight plow will..I almost bought the County plow, but went with the straight plow instead, seemed a little more versatile...You'll be surprised how much you bang the plow around while using it so you'll be glad that you got the HD Moose..You'll also be amazed at how high you can pile snow with this setup - it's awesome!! I had a minor problem of snow sticking to my blade (only 2 storms so far - one was very wet snow) so I'm going to try spraying the blade with silicone spray and see if that improves the situation any...I'm running 25" Titan 589 MT's and I always worry about the plow catching the front tire at full angle...So far, no contact..Last year I had a problem with the winch hook constantly coming off the lifting hoop on the plow, solved that with a new hook with a spring-loaded gate closure...This setup has turned a 90-minute snowblowing job into a 20-minute playtime...And my neighbors sure look envious...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Delta'
Why didn't you go with the AC plow. I put twenty miles on mine the other day and was very pleased. Its a steel frame with a fiberglass face. The snow never stuck, not even in the slushy parking lots that I was doing. The skids wore off though. So I made my own. Welding is fun. Just wondering why you went with the moose.

Question for anyone
At what point is the snow so deep and heavy that one would want to put chains. I plow commercially for the first time this year and clear some pretty big areas. Just wondering if I should ask for a pair of chains for Christmas. Thanks fellas and lady's of course.

LET IT SNOW!!!!!

 

Tuffguy,
have you ever heard of the term: "Strong as a Moose?"

enough said![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]