Overview -

The 19 and 21-inch Victa Commercial catching mowers join the MulchMaster 560 and MasterCut 460 Utility in the Victa professional line.

For efficiency, I chose to focus on the 21-inch machines, which are offered with the 190 cc Briggs & Stratton 850 engine, or the 200cc Chinese Victa VC200. Both have cast iron bores, but a quoted torque number is conspicuous in its absence on the VC200, not that I was considering anything but the Briggs 850 anyway. Interesting to note that the Victa have started to drop the smaller 140 and 170 versions of the V-Series engines, and considering the failure rate of them, I think that says it all.

Simplistically, this is a widened 19-inch Mustang alloy chassis, with several changes made to make it more suitable for commercial applications. The following applies to both 19 and 21-inch commercial mowers. Because this mower was going to be used side-by-side with the Bushranger 800SP, you will note the comparisons made here -

- Metal rather than plastic catcher flap
- Cutting heights from 10 – 70mm with 10 positions (25 – 76mm and 7 positions on Bushranger)
- Heavy Duty Gearbox (as used on the MulchMaster)
- High-capacity fabric catcher with heavy duty steel frame, double layer dust deflector and leather wear points on rear corners
- Heavy duty cast aluminum deck
- Replaceable steel wear plates on the deck
- Cast iron bore engines

Something else to note is the lighter weight of the 21-inch Victa’s, tipping the scales at 46 to 48 kg compared to 52 kg for the Bushranger. First impressions proved this is quite noticeable.

But there is no such thing as a perfect mower, so there are some compromises. The chief of which being the half rear chute. In the end, I sent an email to the supplier and kindly asked for images of the chute, which was promptly sent. From this limited information, the chute appeared to be slightly wider than the Bushranger, and certainly bigger than the Honda’s.

[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]

Another thing to note, the belt rather than shaft driven gearbox is also a single speed unit, but the 5 kph speed is actually faster than the Bushranger’s 4.6 kph in top gear. And the Victa's catcher only holds 50 rather than 70 liters.

So that’s the overview! More to come..................................