Dental burs can be used cutting hard tissues – tooth or bone. These are made of steel, stainless-steel, tungsten carbide and diamond grit. There is a bewildering variety of dental burs in any dental catalogue, nevertheless for basic veterinary use only a couple of burs are required.

All burs use a shank and a head. There are three main varieties of shank – Long Straight Shank (HP), Latch-type Shank (RA) Grip Shank (FG)

Long Straight Shank (HP)
These shanks match the nose cone from the slow speed handpiece after the prophy angle or contra angle is taken away. They are used for diamond cutting discs or long 40mm burs. The primary using HP burs is in the trimming of small herbivore cheek teeth.

Latch-type Shank (RA)
These shanks match the latch in the contra-angle on slow speed handpieces. They can be 20mm long and accessible in the identical shapes as FG burs.

Friction Grip Shank (FG)
These shanks go with the turbine of the high-speed handpiece. The standard length is 20mm long, but longer surgical lengths are available that are commonly necessary for veterinary work.

Round Head
These heads are used for cavity preparation, creating access points, undercuts and channels for luxator blades in extraction. Sizes range between 1/4 to 9. The smaller the number, the lesser your head. The very best sizes to use initially are 1, 2, and 4.

Pear Head
These heads are used for cavity preparation, access points and splitting roots of small teeth. The most useful sizes are 330 and 330L

Crosscut Tapered Fissure Head
These heads can be used for sectioning multi-rooted teeth and reducing crown height when disarming dogs. Essentially the most useful sizes are 700/700L and 701/701L.

Finishing Burs
These heads are used for finishing restorations, soft tissue recontouring, alveolaplasty, enameloplasty and odontoplasty. They are often obtained as 12 or 30 bladed burs in carbide steel or as diamond heads of various shapes. They’re also like white stone, for composite, or green stone, for amalgam.
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