Leading equipment suppliers Ponsse and Tigercat have gone head-to-head on the Discovery channel’s Mean Machines program aired in Canada and the United Kingdon earlier this year. The Ponsse BuffaloKing and a Tigercat 1075 were put through their paces in tests of speed, accuracy, load capacity, precision and stability.

• Speed Test: The operators needed to drive down the same trail and pick up one grapple full of logs and drive back up to the starting point. Fastest time won. The Ponsse BuffaloKing had the best time.
• Accuracy Test: This test was to build a log cabin by piling 8, 4.8 m poplar logs into a square, four layers high. The operator that could do this in the fastest time won. Again, the BuffaloKing operator came out on top.
• Load Capacity Test: Ponsse first had a load that included 2.4 m and 4.8 m logs but this was not used in the competition since Tigercat could not load these two lengths. Tigercat then used only 4.8 m logs. Tigercat’s bigger rated load capacity (20 t versus 18 t) enabled it to fit six more logs into their bunk.
• Precision Test: The object of this test was to transfer a hardhat from one post on one side of the machine to a post on the other side of the machine. The Ponsse team operator/machine again took the points.
• Stability Test: The idea for this test was to travel with the boom extended and the grapple loaded. Ponsse did this with the frame lock off and on. With the frame locked. The BuffaloKing was able to carry the load at a farther distance from the center of the machine.