flail choppers

I'm looking for some guidance/information. How far can a JD 16a or NH 38 throw the forage from the tip of the discharge chute. I have an old Fox 844 flail chopper that throws the grass/legumes/etc about 14'- 16' from the end of the discharge chute if the material/grass is dry. As I have a 20 foot self feeding wagon .. I need the flail chopper to 'throw' the forage 22 - 24 feet... from the tip of the discharge chute. I have asked manufacture's sales folks .. but they have either been unresponsive to my request or down right evasive. My old Fox 844 is in decent shape but in need of some 'tweaking' .. as parts are now hard to come by.. Hiniker .. who owns the Fox parts business today is rapidly running out of 'parts'. Can I expect a Deere 16A ..set to factory specs .. to throw/propel the forage to the back of my self feeding wagon? At 76 years of age I'm getting a bit 'worn' to fork the forage from the front of my wagon to the back... Although my cardiologist says it's good exercise.... and getting in/out of that damn wagon is getting to be a 'trip' ..?of sorts. . I really need some guidance as the manufacturers don't want to cooperate. The question to answer is how far will a flail chopper throw/propel dry grass/legume if in new condition??? thanks
 
I think 22 to 24 feet is asking a LOT. Wagons were not that long when the choppers were new.

Don't know if newer pull types would blow it that far, but they would come closer with having a separate blower and adjustable speeds.
 
My thinking as well. I was hesitant to speak up at first because I have never run a Deere or Gehl flail chopper. For every day the IH 8 would blow over the back of the wagon there were many days it would have trouble hitting the back. Probably why no salesman is putting his reputation on the line for this question. Unless my memory is bad I thought Fox made a very good flail chopper. However, if the parts are not there to bring out maximum performance then it does not matter. A lot of 16A's locally back in the day but I never heard much about how they performed.
 
I think that it comes down to a fine line between enough moisture to add "bulk" and too much where the material is too "weighted" for the size of the flail chopper blower. Probably, there was R & D happening on those during the 1980's or 1990's maybe there would have been an increase in fan size. Nearly all designs came out of the 1960's or 1970's. I want to say the NH 38 came out around 1975 or 1976.
 
Trouble with those things was,"new condition" lasted about two weeks. I always found a Gehl 72 or 7200 would blow better than a 16A. I don't know if it was because the chute was shorter or what. Never had the gear box apart on one to see if they were geared the same or not. I do know the Gehl used a smaller pulley to run the flail shaft off the fan shaft,so either the flail shaft ran slower on the Gehl or the fan ran faster.
 
Had a No. 10 from before the No. 16 and the wagon was 12' long and would not fill the back end, if forage was wet would not reach front end of wagon. The 10 did not have the knives on the fan the 15 & 16 had. Was a late 50's model.
 
My NH 36 flail chopper will blow to the back of a 16' wagon pretty easily, 18' if the crop has just the right moisture. 20+ feet would be a stretch.
 
Any one out there know the fan speed of a Deere 16A flail chopper? My Fox 844 is a 6 knife/paddle unit and runs at 1000 rpm, the new NH 38 at 1400rpm and the Deere 972 at 1376rpm.
I suspect from the responses so far that 'distance' is a function of number of paddles, length of crop cut by the recutter knives, moisture of crop and efficiency of the recutter/blower unit. Most used machines I have looked at are woefully out of adjustment. paddle gap too wide, recutter knives out of spec. My old Fox 844 needs a new blower band(not available), new knife blocks/stationary knives(only one is available) among other things. It might be cheaper to find a good servicable used machine Deere or New Holland and build it back to factory specs. It seems to me that the NH 38 might be the best bet as the new cupped paddles appear be able to be retrofitted into the older units... but that's only a guess at this juncture.
 
I know I'll get accused of Deere bashing,but after having a 15 and three 16As,then a Gehl 72 and 7200,I wouldn't recommend a Deere. Right off the top,the pulley on the fan shaft that runs the flail shaft is on a hub with a tapered shaft. You'll never be able to keep it tight. Like I said,I don't know about the fan speed,but just watching the hay come out of it,it just lobs out of the spout vs actually coming out with some force with any other make. I always had auger problems with the Deeres. In mature grass hay,it would wrap on the auger. I broke two shafts over the years,that run the auger. That shaft threads in the end of the auger,so when it breaks,you'll be replacing the shaft and auger both. They just weren't a well built machine.
 
I am not going to beat you up over your statement, but in all the years using the 16A we have never had a problem with that tapered shaft. It seemed to work okay is all the good I have to say about it. One other thing as much as we used it the deflector at the top of the spout never got much wear, it would spit a wad here and there but most just went 3/4 the way up the spout and filled the front of the wagon.
 
Sometimes some farmer engineering helps those problems. I always wanted to put a smaller driven pulley on the blower of the IH as that would have sped the fan up. I think from the factory they were around 20" in diameter so maybe go down to 18". Nothing special as to how those pulleys were made. After getting fed up with trashy grain samples here a few years ago I researched driver pulleys on my JD 6620 combine and found that a 10.5 inch pulley from a 7720 would sub for the 9 inch that was stock on the 6620. I have to watch for changes in the field more but it is nice having more range for the cleaning fan.
 
I never saw one more than a few years old that the pulley didn't wobble like a knob on an outhouse door. You had to take a big punch or something and knock them in toward the inside before you tightened the set screw. Like I said,I had several. I thought that's what a flail chopper was until I got my first Gehl.
I had two IHs over the years. A number 7 and a number 8 if memory serves me right. The trouble with those was that the flail shaft ran off the gear box and the way they were made,the whole weight of the rotating shaft sat right on the gear box. I liked the way they raised and lowered,and they were a blowing son of a gun,but that drive thing could be a problem. I had trouble with them cracking the steel plate that the gear box bolted to.
 
I want to thank all who responded. Appreciate the comments and suggestions and I especially found the comment about the paint still being on the 16A chute near the end/spout. I looked at a 1983 16a in pristine condition..but the unit was well worn inside and with the paint still on the underside of the chute near the end. I asked if a new chute was recently installed.. all I got from the used farm machinery dealer was a blank stare . While chopping yesterday afternoon with my Fox 844 I, for the first time, realized why the flail chopper manufacturers don't show 20' self feeder wagons trailing their units... again thanks to all.
 
A little trivia... Deere did not design the 16A chopper- a company called the Lundell Corporation did. Lundell allowed Deere and others (NH, probably gehl) to build those choppers, but Lundell had the rights to them. That's why they all look VERY similar.

There are variances between them, but they are more alike than different.

Good luck in your quest.
 
I had a Lundell once. I'd forgot about that one. It was one of those big V shaped direct throw models. Has replacable knives on the paddles. There was a one row corn head for that one. I never put it on. The whole bottom end unbolted,flail shaft and all. The corn head was a cut/throw unit that replaced the flail shaft. That thing was a horse of a different color for sure.
 
Yes, Lundell made those, too. Somewhere I have some literature of the Lundell chopper though that looks just like a Deere 16A. It might be in the ads of an old Farm Quarterly.
 
I"ve had 3 of them, a 16 and 2 16As. None of them would blow to the back of my portable feed bunk which was 25 feet. I was young then and forked back to fill the last 5 feet. Never had much trouble. Had to replace worn out auger on one and broken flails from rocks. No problems with pulleys. However I"d like to find a 12" pressed pulley that will work on the flail shaft. I can make a hub or cut the center to fit the JD hub. Mine sat in the woods for 20 years and that pulley rotted on one side so the belt won"t stay on. They work excellent for chopping brush around the fields.
 
I have a New Holland 36 and pull a 20' feed wagon behind it.For the most part it will fill the feed wagon about 2/3 of the way back with some making it to the back. Several things will affect how far it throws. If what you are chopping is heavy it will throw it farther, if it is short, dry or thin, it will not throw it as far. Also which way the wind is blowing can play into it. If the chopper is not putting out a good heavy stream and the wind is blowing, it can be hard to hit the wagon at all.
 

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