I pretty much always run duck bill teeth on the 322. Machine has enough power and I don't get into rock. I just started on a 1/2ac pond and due to the drought, his clay is stupid hard. Usually if it is picking up the tracks and I have to work the tooth angle to get in there, I consider it hard. Just curious if having to give nearly full hydro pressure, picking up machine, etc is more wear on machine that is reasonable? Problem is I need to dress things as I go so switching to rock teeth may slow me down. I can still dig it without issue, just taking more force than I like. I guess I am spoiled usually digging easy soils. I have always questioned if basically dragging those big teeth from a full reach was hard on the bucket because those teeth act more like an extended finish edge. I also have side biters that are not currently on, and I just decided I want them. Too much wear on the bucket and I should be running them for this.
Is a second bucket an option?
We have bought rock teeth just for tearing up frost. If you only have a day or 2 of the work it’s probably not worth it but there not too hard to swap back and forth so they will probably pay for themselves. I remember one time we couldn’t get a hammer to break rock so we dug entire building ripping rock with some very nice daggers, dumb but it worked!