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Today I want to share with you my experience with the Hustler mower bagger and what I wish I knew before purchasing this system for the Hustler Raptor SD 60-inch mower. I’ll talk about my intentions for the bagger, a quite review of how it’s installed, what I like about it and what I dislike. When I purchased my mower, I ordered the bagger and my dealer delivered it installed.
My intent is to bag the grass when it’s a few inches longer then normal. I try to cut it weekly, or when it needs it, but sometimes weather and life gets in the way. Secondly, at the end of the season, for my last mow, I cut a little shorter then normal to help discourage mice and moles from living between the grass and the snow. Next, I wanted the bagger for when I am hosting garden parties. I would also use the bagger to pick up dried thatch after dethatching to give the new grass the freedom to grow without interference of the old dead grass. Any grass that I do bag, I will take to the local composting facility. I would only bag 2,3 or maybe 4 times a year and obviously not bagging is a preference because it’s much quicker to mow and very important for the grass clippings to decay and breakdown as fertilizer which is needed for feeding future growth.
Now for our tour on how the bagging system is installed. I show the and the chute. We open the hopper and look at its design.
Likes: It worked great when mowing short grass and mowing at a slow speed. The bags would fill up after about 8-10 minutes of mowing and there were no issues with the bagger. I was able to collect a lot of short grass here but I had to mow at about one half of the normal cutting speed. Dislikes:
1. First off, this is more of an FYI, the mower is going to be about 2-feetlonger, so special care as to not cause any damage.
2. Next, like I mentioned, the engine guard cannot be used with the system in place. I really like the engine guard and will not spend the time however to switch it out when I want it on.
3. I don’t like the airflow from the high-lift blade. A lot of air actually escapes from under the deck and I get covered in dust and grass.
4. I’m not sure if the extra turbulence in the deck causes this but the middle blade missed some grass. Without the bagger system and high-lift blade, this problem went away.
5. Speaking of airflow, the bagger’s chute doesn’t make a good seal where it’s attached to the deck, and air is also lost here.
6. This is important because the chute can often get clogged with grass clippings. If the grass is over an inch long, the system really struggles. More than 50% of the time. Even if I slow down to one third ground speed, with full throttle in dry grass, the airflow cannot push the grass up and into the chute. The blades will let you know though if the chute is not allowing the grass to escape the deck. It’s not just a matter of shutting the machine down and putting your hand in the chute, you need to remove the whole thing. The grass length I’m cutting is pretty insignificant.
7. I would also rather the 3-bag system. I would rather more capacity and airflow.
8. And more on that, the mesh bags have this metal hanger, but the fabric isn’t secured behind it and gets in the way when rehanging the bags onto the frame. Over time I see this wearing thin and ripping.
9. A content gauge would also be nice, but I often ran into a situation like this. Normally the bags fill evenly, but sometimes, only one bag was full and the other empty and then the system would clog.
10. The cover is also a pain. There is no catch and I ended up getting my hand jammed multiple times. I ended up cutting a stick to a good length to support the cover’s weight.
That’s my 10 issues. The biggest concern here is the frequency that the chute gets clogged. I went back to my dealing to express my concern and when I mentioned I was having issues with the bagger on my 60-inch, he stopped me. He said, we don’t sell the bagger on the 60 for residential use. We only sell the bagger on the 60-inch for golf courses who only cut a few millimeters at a time and need a pristine look. He called up Hustler to see if they had any hints to make it work and the bottom line is, the 60-inch mower puts out too much grass for normal mowing conditions to even consider using the bagging system.
I was totally bummed because I really wanted it to work, and apparently it does residentially, just on the narrower models. They refunded my money and I purchased the mulcher kit. Looks like I’ll be doing another mower video on that soon.
I hope that you found this information helpful and got something from my experience. Please show your support with a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel to see what else I’m up to on the acreage.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:28 Intent
01:50 Installation Demo
02:44 Likes
03:06 Dislikes
06:22 Conclusion