Forestry Grapple vs Sorting Grab

Almost every contractor who ends up asking this question already owns a sorting or demolition grab, and it does move logs. The honest starting position is that it will keep doing so. A purpose-built forestry grapple is not a capability you lack; it is a cycle-time and reliability investment in work you are already doing. The question that decides it is how many hours a year the machine spends handling roundwood, stems, brash and biomass. Below a few hundred hours, the grab you have is almost certainly the cheaper answer. Above that, the difference in grip, capacity and attachment mass compounds across every cycle until the purpose-built head pays for itself.

How each one works

A sorting grab is a general materials tool. Its jaws are usually shell-shaped or short-tined with a wide, shallow profile designed to scoop mixed demolition waste, scrap, rubble and loose material off a flat surface. It closes on volume rather than on a shape, and its structure is built to take the abrasive punishment of concrete and steel. In its own world it is excellent, and that is exactly why it is a compromise on timber.

A forestry grapple is built around the geometry of a round object. The Powerhand EX28 uses 50 mm solid Hardox tines that angle inward, with gripping structures on the underside of the headstock, so that a log rolling into the closing jaw is driven toward the centre rather than squeezed out sideways. Capacity is stated as a grapple area, from 0.25 m² on the EX25 to 0.40 m² on the EX40, with maximum openings from 1,641 mm to 2,137 mm. Mounting can be rigid or swing-link, and Indexator rotators are available to give continuous orientation control.

Sorting grab on roundwood

1. Approach
2. Close on volume
3. Lift
4. Re-grip if the log rolls

Forestry grapple

1. Approach
2. Tines penetrate and centre the stem
3. Lift
4. Rotate and place

Where the difference shows up on site

Tine penetration and the re-grip you stop making

The single most expensive habit in log handling is the second attempt. A shallow-profile grab presented to a pile of brash tends to sit on top of it, and presented to a single log on flat ground it tends to push the log away before it closes. Both produce a re-grip, and a re-grip is a full cycle of boom, slew and close for no material moved. Slim, inward-angled tines penetrate into a pile rather than riding over it, and they close under the log rather than against it. On a chipper-feeding cycle repeated several hundred times a shift, converting a one-in-four re-grip rate into a one-in-twenty rate is a production change no operator training will match.

Grip on long stems and bundles

A sorting grab holds a stem at a point. A forestry grapple with the right opening holds it in a geometry that resists rolling and twisting, which matters most when the stem is long and the centre of mass is nowhere near the jaws. Long stems that rotate in the grab during a slew are a control problem before they are a productivity problem, and they are one of the reasons operators slow down. Neither head’s capacity figure is a safe suspended-load rating; the carrier lift chart at the working radius is, and operators should establish exclusion zones and follow applicable WHS procedures and manufacturer instructions.

Grapple area against the material you actually handle

Grapple area is the useful comparison figure because it describes the bundle the head can close on, which is what determines how many trips it takes to move a pile. Matching it to the material matters more than maximising it. Clean sawlogs reward precision, controlled closing and rotation, and oversize brash capacity adds nothing but weight. Loose brash, lop and top and biomass reward area, because the limiting factor is bulk rather than mass. Handling mixed material from a clearing operation sits between the two, which is why the 0.28 m² EX28 across a broad 12 to 25 tonne carrier band is such a common answer.

Attachment mass relative to payload

This is the argument that most often goes the sorting grab’s way, and it deserves care. A forestry grapple is heavier than many buyers assume once a rotator is fitted: the EX28 goes from 496 kg bare to 617 kg, and the EX36 from 652 to 837 kg, with the whole range set out in EX25 vs EX28 vs EX36 vs EX40. Every one of those kilograms sits at the end of the boom and comes straight off what you can lift at radius. A general grab that is lighter than the forestry head it would replace may genuinely move more timber per lift on a marginal carrier, even though it grips worse. Work it through with the lift chart guide and the lift capacity calculator using real head, rotator and hitch masses, not tonne class.

Rotation, and whether you need it

A rotator transforms placement work. Orienting a stem to a chipper infeed, squaring logs onto a stack or aligning brash into a windrow all become single movements instead of a sequence of boom and slew corrections, and on repetitive feeding that is where most of the cycle saving actually comes from. It also adds weight and cost, and on a machine that only occasionally moves timber it is hard to justify. Powerhand uses Indexator rotators across the EX range, and the same rotator decision applies whether the head is rigid or swing-link mounted.

Wear, damage and what each head survives

A sorting grab lives on demolition and recycling work, and its structure and wear packages are built for that. Run it in timber and it will survive comfortably; run a forestry grapple in concrete and scrap and you will wear slim Hardox tines and rotator bearings on material they were never designed for. That cuts both ways in a mixed fleet: buying a forestry grapple is also a commitment to stop using the grab for timber and to stop using the grapple for everything else. If the machine genuinely alternates between demolition and clearing every week, a fast quick coupler arrangement matters as much as the head choice.

The numbers that matter

The forestry column below uses published Powerhand EX figures. The sorting grab column is deliberately qualitative because these vary widely between makes and we do not publish figures for products outside our range.

Factor	Forestry grapple	Sorting grab
Designed for	Roundwood, long stems, bundles, brash	Demolition waste, scrap, rubble, mixed materials
Jaw geometry	Inward-angled tines plus underside gripping structures on the headstock	Shell or short-tine profile optimised for loose bulk material
Tines	50 mm solid Hardox on EX28 and above; smaller-section on EX25	Typically shorter and broader, built for abrasion
Capacity measure	Grapple area, 0.25 to 0.40 m² across the EX range	Usually a volume or jaw width figure
Maximum opening	1,641 mm (EX25) to 2,137 mm (EX40)	Varies by make
Mass with rotator	400 kg (EX25), 617 kg (EX28), 837 kg (EX36), 1,091 kg (EX40)	Varies; often lighter than an equivalent forestry head
Rotation	Indexator rotator options, continuous rotation	Rotation sometimes fitted, sometimes not
Mounting	Rigid or swing-link	Usually rigid
Weakness on the other job	Slim tines and rotator wear badly in concrete and scrap	Rides over piles, pushes single logs away, more re-grips

The Terragrip is worth knowing about here because it does not fit either column. One fixed leg acts as a root ripper and rake while a single moving leg grips, giving around 1,540 mm of opening on roughly 14 to 25 tonne machines. It is a ground-clearing tool that also grabs, rather than a handling tool, and it competes with neither of the heads above on cycle time.

Running both: hybrid fleets

Most established plant fleets end up with a grab on the demolition machine and a forestry grapple on the clearing machine, and the useful part of that arrangement is that neither attachment is ever asked to do the other’s job. Where a business runs only one excavator, the practical compromise is to own the forestry grapple, because a good forestry head handles mixed material passably while a sorting grab handles long stems poorly, and to hire in a grab for the occasional demolition or clean-up contract. Fast changeover makes either arrangement work, and the clearing workflow guide shows where the grapple sits between the felling and processing stages.

Cost logic

Illustrative only, with round hypothetical numbers. Assume a contractor feeding a chipper for 600 hours a year. Assume the sorting grab averages 30 grabs an hour with a one-in-four re-grip rate, so 22.5 productive grabs an hour. Assume a forestry grapple with a rotator averages 34 grabs an hour with a one-in-twenty re-grip rate and slightly faster placement, so about 32 productive grabs an hour. That is a difference of 9.5 productive grabs an hour, or 5,700 across the year. If each grab moves an assumed 0.4 tonnes, that is roughly 2,280 tonnes of additional throughput on the same machine hours.

Turn that into money with your own rate. At an assumed all-in cost of $250 an hour, matching the grab’s annual throughput would take about 178 extra hours, worth roughly $44,500, and that is the number the head’s price and extra wear should be tested against. Now run it for a contractor who feeds a chipper 60 hours a year: the same logic yields roughly 18 hours of machine time, worth about $4,500, which does not buy a grapple. Nothing changes except the hours. Use the cost per unit calculator and the total cost of ownership guide.

Decide with these facts in hand

• Annual hours the machine genuinely spends handling timber, measured rather than estimated
• Material profile: clean sawlogs, mixed clearing debris, loose brash or biomass
• Typical and maximum stem length, since long stems drive the grip requirement
• Carrier lift chart at your real working radius, less head, rotator, bracket and hitch mass
• Attachment weight quoted with and without the rotator, in the exact ordered configuration
• Whether a rotator is genuinely needed for your placement work or is added weight
• Rigid or swing-link mounting, and which suits your sorting and feeding pattern
• Auxiliary circuits and case drain available for the grapple and rotator
• Changeover time and quick coupler arrangement if the machine alternates attachments weekly

Frequently asked questions