Big Bud guy

Only guys around here that run one combine cut about 1000 acres or less. You can't screw around with small grains and malt barley getting rained on. The 1688 more often then not makes it through the harvest without breaking down vs the 8230. Right now the 8230 is in the shop getting the CVT drive worked on. I would say out of the other combines, the 2388 was the best of the lot. The 21s had some teething issues and a neighbor of mine who we seed for has had more trouble with his 2588 then the 2388 it replaced. Only one 7088 in the neighborhood and its been a good combine.

Off that piece itself, forever. Off of the other 5,000 or more acres the farmer owns (if a farmer bought it) maybe as little as 5-10 years. Land quit paying for itself around here probably 50 years ago. Doesn’t stop people including us from buying it.

Not completely the same but my cousin prefers his 1688 over his other combine which is a 8230. No joke. I've heard from a lot the 66/88 was the most bullet proof AF made before and especially since. They run that 1688 along side the 8230 from start to finish every year.

Neighbors to the north of us who sold out in the early 90s ended their farming with a C2 Gleaner and gas 7700. They cut around 2,000 acres. My uncle worked for them for a short time. His first job was to put the C2 back together. When he started on it, you could stand in front of it and look all the way through it. My cousins ended with the 7700 after the auction. They thought they were getting a good deal for $3,000. They overhauled everything on it but it was still a POS. That combine was so wore out, the grain tank was sagging and rubbing on some of the pulleys. At the time they were still running a pair of 105s. They sent the 7700 on its way and ran the 105s for a few more years.

A 3300 is almost exactly half the size of a 7700. 28 3/4" width vs 55". Guys out here in MT didn't even know JD made a combine that small.

45ft flex headers are pretty much the norm now no matter what brand and what color of combine. Course JD now has a few 50 footers floating around with that X9.

Your dad was smart to get the 4420 for even a tenth of those acres. 3300s are smaller then a 55. Not by much but certainly wouldn't keep up to a late 55. 3300s were probably a nice combine for someone moving up from a PT 6ft-7ft combine or 45.

Not any 20 series but I’ve seen 7700s parked over that issue.

Likewise out here we couldn’t figure out how anybody made a living with a little 4420. Guys running two 8820s weren’t not uncommon. Only thing we had comparable to a 4420/4400 was the IH 715.

Nice. Would love to own a 6601 but down here nobody ran PT combines like that. 6601s came out a year before the rest of the 00 series.

My uncle had two WD-9s hooked together. He pulled a 24ft chisel duck foot plow with the tandem and replaced it a IH 1256 and pulled the same plow. I think the way he did it was similar to your step dad's setup. From researching it looks like you could get real fancy hooking two tractors together and make them operate as one or chain them together and herd them across the field. Some of the simple conversations like my uncle's or your step dads, they leave the front axle on the front tractor and just use that for steering instead of making up a hydraulic pivot point.

I have an account here, NAT, Youtube, ytmag, FB which I never post but always look because I’m in various groups like Steiger and Big Bud.

It’s still probably half green yet but turning fast. There won’t be much there because the grasshoppers got into it and messed up the pollination. Some cobs are fine, others I’m finding very few kernels in them. I’ll have to watch that next year

I assumed thats what they were doing and I hope everybody else on here did too. It is a Bigtractorpower video. Run that setup through a thousand acres and I bet that 3020 wouldn’t last. And you kinda lost me on the cost because the whole reason for PT combines is they were substantially cheaper then their SP counterparts. In todays world I don’t know if rare PT combines bring a premium or not. I would bet they didn’t spend a whole lot to get that 9501. It’s modern enough anyway you can make a living with it just like Rusty does with his 7721