Combines Opinions on stripper heads

I have a neighbor with one.I hope you like straw!He worked his field three times before he could seed into it.From what I saw it feeds good,but that's the least of your concerns.When he seeded,he left mounds of dirt in the field some as high as two feet.That went through the combine,there was so much dirt that the unloading auger tube had to be cleaned out daily.Performance wise it isn't bad.It's really good with lodged crops and excellant with lentils.Ground speed is the same as a rigid header and leaves some unthreshed heads in the field.After seeing this thing in the field for 5 years and the headaches he's caused himself in seeding 36 inch stuble,you're better off buying a 36 ft. Honey Bee for the same price.Hoped this helped.

I have used a 28 foot Shelbourne stripper header for two years now and it was interesting to read the above post about seeding into tall stubble.The guy must have been using a hoe or sweep type seeder, a definate no no when going into tall stubble. We have been 100% no till for 6 years and seed with JD 750 disc drills which have no problem seeding in that stuff. our ground speed is 50-100% faster than with the conventional head because no straw goes through the combine and losses are very low. I suspect the other guy is running slow and missing heads because he is running too high in his incredibly rough field's( 2 ft high dirt moundsIJIJ) or running the stripper rotor too slow. We have had no problem with the header drive(1480) not being able to pull the header .

We run a 22 ft. Shelby in seed rice. Thats grown for a premium and have had no problems out of it. I think it has revolutionized the way we harvest rice. Just shy away from the ones with the big belt. Go for the shaker pans and you will be happier. That belt is outragiously high$$$. Another plus for us is being able to bale the straw for construction companies instead of burning it. Thats something else to think about.

I know a couple of guys here who run them one runs a 9500, and the other a 1680. The stripper head really speeds up harvest, but if you have rocky fields beware, because they will pick up rocks and other obstructions. Several years ago, my friend who had the 9500, was doing some custom work, and picked up a chunk of concrete block in a wheat field where there had once been a barn that was knocked down some 50 years ago. It tore the cylinder and concave all to pieces, and also damaged the stripper head. I think the total cost of repairs was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. He said that if he had been running a conventional head, he would have probably either seen the the concrete because he would have been running slower, or been cutting high enough to avoid it.