The best Murray lawn mower is the Murray 22" 2-in-1 Self-Propelled (153003): a 22-inch cut on a 140 cc Briggs & Stratton EX550 with front-wheel drive and Prime 'N Pull starting, which is the widest walk-behind deck Murray sells and about as much mower as you can get for the money anywhere. If you have real acreage, the Murray Cruz 42"is the cheapest genuine zero-turn on the market — 19 HP, dual Hydro-Gear transaxles, seven cutting heights. And the 20" push (152506)is the floor: a 125 cc Briggs E450 for a small flat lawn, and nothing more.
One thing first, because it changes how you shop. Murray sells exclusively through The Home Depot— Murray says so on its own product pages. There is no Murray mower listed on Amazon; a search returns Murray blades and fuel caps. So every card on this page is a check-price link rather than a live number, and we would rather tell you that than publish a price we cannot verify. Where we can show a verified live price, we do, and the brands that have one are flagged throughout.
Murray is a Briggs & Stratton brand and its proposition is simple: real engines, basic everything else, at the bottom of the market. That is a legitimate thing to want. What you are giving up is deck construction, engine size per inch of deck and the dealer service network that brands like Honda and John Deere charge for. We have not run any of these machines; the ranking reads Murray's published deck widths, engine codes, displacements and drive types. See how we pick.
How to choose a Murray mower
Deck width is the only spec that changes your Saturday.Murray's walk-behinds come in 20 and 22 inches. Two inches sounds trivial and is about a ten percent cut in passes, every time you mow, for years. The 22-inch model is also the self-propelled one, so the gap between them is larger than the model numbers suggest.
Watch the engine-to-deck ratio.This is where budget mowers give ground. A 140 cc engine behind a 22-inch deck is a small engine for that much blade; the YARDMAX 22-inch Select PACE on our self-propelled roundup fits 201 cc behind the same width. In light grass you will not notice. In tall damp grass, or if you let it get away from you for a fortnight, you will.
Front-wheel drive suits flat lawns only.The 22-inch Murray is front-wheel drive, which is genuinely nice on level ground — lift the handle and the mower pivots on its rear wheels at the end of each pass. On a slope it is the wrong layout, because leaning on the handle lifts weight off the driven wheels exactly when you need traction. If your lawn has banks, read the self-propelled roundup and buy rear-wheel drive.
2-in-1 versus 3-in-1 decides what happens to clippings. The 22-inch Murray is a 2-in-1 deck: mulch or rear-bag, no side discharge. The 20-inch push mower is the opposite case and has the side chute. Side discharge is the one that saves you on an overgrown lawn, because a bag fills in two minutes and mulching chokes. If you want all three modes, the mulching mower roundup covers 3-in-1 decks properly.
The Cruz zero-turns, and why they are interesting
Murray's two zero-turns are the most genuinely notable thing the brand makes. A zero-turn mower is defined by having two independently driven rear wheels on separate hydrostatic transaxles, and that is real engineering, not a styling package. The Cruz 42"has dual Hydro-Gear transaxles, a 540 cc 19 HP Briggs EX1900, seven cutting heights and a stated three acres per tank; the Cruz XD 50"steps to 22 HP and a 50-inch deck. Those specs at Murray money undercut the dealer brands substantially.
The compromise is the deck. Both Cruz machines use a stamped 13-gauge steel deck, where the dealer zero-turns in our zero-turn roundup use fabricated decks of heavier plate. A stamped deck flexes under load, and a flexing deck scalps on uneven ground and cuts less evenly at speed. If your ground is flat, that matters little. If it rolls, it is the reason to spend more.
Who should buy something else
If the appeal of Murray is price, compare it against the machines that have a live, verifiable Amazon price before you commit — the cheap mower roundup ranks those, and several of them undercut Murray on cost per inch of deck. If the appeal is the Briggs engine, note that most budget brands fit Briggs or a close equivalent now.
And if you are buying a zero-turn to keep for fifteen years, buy a fabricated deck. The Husqvarna Z242F is the usual next step up and has a verified listing; a commercial machine is in our commercial mower roundup.