Winch size on new trailer

[Smoker62]

Bought a new Iron Bull tandem axle beaver tail trailer and want to mount a winch on front , mostly to pull logs onto the deck. How big of winch would you need ? I know bigger is better but I dont want a 700 dollar 15k winch if I can pull with a 7k for 400 less. Longest log would be 16 ft as thats as big as my mill will cut . Diameter would be 12 to maybe 30 " . Using the log weight calculator , the heaviest would be around 4k.

On another note, I have stake pockets and a rub rail on the trailer. I want to make removable sides and front rails . How do you keep your 2x4 uprights from jumping out of the pockets on rough roads or RR crossings ? Be a small occurence but hate to have it happen.

Thanks !

 

[fordf150]

remember winches are rated by a rolling load and also they are rated on the first layer of the drum, dont know what factor to use for figuring out what you would need for dragging a log up on but guessing you wont regret going bigger than you really think. I had a 12k ramsey winch on one of my trailers and it worked it to pull cars up on if they didnt have wheels/tires on them. figure a standard car is only 3000# so go from there.


in the offroad world we always went with double the vehicle weight so a 4500# truck needed a 9000# winch and there were plenty of times we had to double line it or stretch out to a tree farther away to get more wraps off the drum.

I think industry standard for vehicle recovery is minimum 1.5 times the vehicle loaded weight

 

[northmanlogging]

smittybilt, has some very affordable winches, have a 9500# on the crummy, I sometimes use it for pulling trees etc.

In the end a bigger winch is going to be faster, electric winches are slow regardless of brand or style, 12v just isn't enough to move that much weight so they need to be geared down a considerable amount.

If you plan on using it often, spend the money on a good winch, Ramsey, Warn, Smittybilt, I wouldn't want to run anything else.

If you plan on really abusing it, consider a hydraulic winch, little 5 horse and a pump would be another couple hundred, but the reliability would be excellent.

 

[Smoker62]

Wouldn't use it much. Have a little 25hp Kubota loader backhoe and use a grapple most times. But there is always an occasional load with my tractor not around. Maybe a half dozen times a season at most. Plus it would help load tractor if need to get it on with loss of power , hydraulic issue or some other unforeseen event.