Need a new bucket, extended lip vs regular lip low pro?

I have a cat 226b and looking at long bottom vs short bottom buckets. I was planning to get one with teeth and was thinking short bottom would be better. But I wouldn't mind more capacity that a long bottom gives. Am I overthinking this and should just get a long bottom tooth bucket or will it be a bit much for my machine in hard digging? I already have a smooth std 30" bottom bucket that I can convert to teeth and get the new bucket as smooth which is a good option too.

Never understood the low profile long ass bucket fad...you can't see the cutting edge when it's covered in dirt.

Give me a regular old construction bucket and leave me alone.

Teeth have their place for hard materials, depends on what your doing. No teeth and I want a bolt on cutting edge.

Ed

I had a cheap bucket I welded teeth on and loved it. It was a bit shorter than the oem but worked good for me until I loaned it out and it got destroyed. So now that it’s getting replaced I’m looking at options. I’m leaning towards a standard tooth bucket. I have breakout issues sometimes as it is when loading from a stockpile. Leaning towards a wider bucket to gain some capacity.

I guess I have long been in the low profile/extended lip bucket fad. I have one bucket that is not set up that way and it is an 84" Bradco that is set up with a tooth bar. Having a small machine with limited breakout, an extended lip bucket will make it worse. The increase in tip radius is not your friend. So if your doing tough digging with the bucket, and plan to put teeth on it. I would go with a standard bucket. If your doing general grading work and not excavating an extended lip bottom would work well in my opinion. My personal opinion on bucket OEMs is Virnig makes a great bucket. They have various models to meet what your looking for. I have a 78" lo pro extended lip with their grading bend and an 84" set up the same way. I ordering one in 90" this week. When your employees comment on how much they like these buckets, that says something.

So I ended up with a 66” standard lip Bradco smooth edge. I’m glad I didn’t go with extended lip. I think it would have been too much for the machine. My 60” oem cat bucket I plan to weld teeth on instead of the bolt on teeth. My dad decided he wanted a wider bucket so we went 66” but I might keep an eye out for another 60” smooth for tight areas. I would have went rock land on the bucket but the lead time was 6 weeks. A oem cat bucket was a bit cheaper than bradco but I’d have to drive 1.5 hrs each ways to get it.