Difference between a 269 and a 273 Baler

dhermesc

Well-known Member
Like the title says what's the difference between 269 and 273 New Holland balers? Is there much of an age difference? Is one "heavier" than the other? Bigger pickups? Will be looking at them this weekend - both have the clean sweep pickups.
 
I have on the place a n old NH68 and a NH271 that I use. One of my friend has a NH273 and another a NH276. Out of all of them I can not see much or any difference as to how they bale hay. One of these friends tends to have me do his baling for him seems when he messes with many things he breaks them LOL.
 
The main difference is probably strokes per minute of the plunger I would guess, in 1981 we bought a brand new NH 315 baler. We also looked at a brand new NH 320 baler that was sitting right next to the 315. We bought the 315 because it was around $1000.00 cheaper than the 320, but the 320 was something like 15 strokes per minute faster than the 315. So the 320 could just bale a bit faster than the 315. If the very old Ford baler we had would have finished all the other peoples hay we had on the ground before it bit the dust we probably would have got the 320 (we would have had the extra money from the other baling jobs).
 
If I remember right the 269 has a belt drive pickup and the 273 is chain drive, I remember the 268 we use to use would slip some times.
 
The 269 ended the same year the 273 started. Tweaked the drive line a little on the 273 and went to a chain driven pickup rather than the belt on the 269. Knotters.needles,plunger, feeder house all pretty much the same. One nice thing is there're both low profile.On a smaller tractor you can see over the top.
Both are reliable and easy to maintain. Good Luck.
 
Also the 273 had a cutaway on the end opposite the chamber to let small pieces fall out instead of packing in and eventually interfering with the fingers.
 

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