Ok so I am burning some sticks today welding some 1x1 square stock to the cutting edge of my plow on the truck.. 4 feet total in 3 different places on the blade . Running 120 amps on the ranger with some 6010 and my stinger was so hot you could barely touch it after about half the welding was done... I have approx 50 feet of cable on this side looped and hanging on the welder skid. Now Am I gonna have to yank all that off and run it in figure 8 or something to stop it from getting that hot ?

Are you talking about the stinger itself getting hot or the lead getting hot?

Stinger usually winds up being a bad connection between the cable & stinger.

Cable getting hot is a whole different issue.
Loosely wound and able to move on the coil it generally won't get hot with only 50 feet. Tightly wrapped as in on a reel or pulled into a tight coil the magnetic gaus will develop heat.

I am talking about maybe 4 feet leading up to the stinger. . I do have a twist lock connection maybe 18 inches form the stinger itself.. but the wire and the stinger got pretty dang hot ! Im going to replace the stinger anyway its getting wore enough where 3/32 rods dont fit anymore in it . As for the wire, the loops were not tight maybe 3 feet from top to bottom of them.. 10 loops give or take.. I didnt have alot of wire off the welder to do the job today.. Maybe it is the connections..

My stinger gets pretty damn hot when I'm making lobstah pot anchors. Burning 6011 5/32 @ 200 amps on 4" preheated bar stock. Once I start it's rod after rod after rod and after a while it can get a little tough to hold onto. I solved the problem with a heavier glove.

Walt I'd bet when you open up the twistlock and singer handle you find a lot of discoloration from heat. I'd also bet the connections are loose, and probably no longer movable so they can be retightened.