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Historic soil degradation, primarily due to overgrazing and drought, has led to the widespread formation of bare, scalded 'claypans' throughout the rangelands of south-eastern Australia. Mechanical interventions such as ripping and water ponding have been used to restore claypans over the last ~70 years, with varying success. Strategic management of livestock to restore degraded land has increasingly gained attention in recent decades as an alternative to resource-intensive mechanical restoration methods or complete destocking. This study compared the effects of intense cattle impact (~400-600 cattle held overnight on 0.5 ha of claypan + hay) with deep ripping (a single tine, to 30 cm depth with one meter row spacings) across three replicate claypans on 'Bokhara Plains' in the semi-arid rangelands of western New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Two years following the interventions, results show a significant increase in plant cover (up to 50%) and diversity for both the cattle and ripping treatments, compared to the control (initially 0% cover), and a reduction in salinity of the upper soil profile. Differences in vegetation cover between the cattle and ripping treatments were less obvious, though there were differences in plant composition with higher species richness under the cattle treatments at some replicates. These results demonstrate the effectiveness and need for targeted management to restore scalded areas and regenerate land condition in rangeland grazing systems.