This is a different animal the ubiquitous steel-deck Hi-Vac. It is a true rear-bagger, with a 3-speed Tuff Torque drive transmission. It is large and heavy, but several users here have raved about its bagging ability, especially in wet grass (guys in Seattle/Oregon love it, for instance); whereas the Hi-Vac bags super in the dry but less super in really wet grass. I haven't heard much one way or another about its mulching performance. Overall it's a very heavy-duty mower. Depending on the engine that came on it, that recoil work is probably not very hard. I know some of these came with either Robin 4-cycle or 2-cycle engines. Do you know what engine is on this one? In any case, for $30 you cannot possibly go wrong. You could probably part it out for much more than that if all else fails. If all goes right, you could end up with a great mower!