Reach
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Atglen, PA
I don’t know if our trees are harder or not, but we certainly have a lot of very hard woods. We don’t work with much softwood at all; White Pine or Spruce on occasion, but that’s all.
What chainsaw should I buy next?
- Thread starter Eithieus
- Start date
For me, it was crane climbing that brought about the short bar and wanting to have fewer saws by avoiding a collection of mid-range saws that brought about the large climbing powerhead.
Crane climbing is usually a single-saw endeavor with a 20" bar.
I keep an echo 2511t, a milwaukee 16' bar, an ms661, a milwaukee pole chainsaw, and an ms881 in my van. The milwaukee is my only mid-range saw.
- Location
- Portland metro
Thank you for your recommendation. I will look into these models.
flushcut
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Delavan, WI
Stumpsprouts
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Asheville
Crane jobs are where I think the light power head (261) shines.
You’re not cutting notch, so it’s not as much load on a saw.
You’re dancing around the brush getting all your slings tied on and often descending far from plumb to the ball, and the extra weight is a pain in the butt.
A top handle is always a little too little.
You’ll make 3-8 cuts in a 10-16” diameter range and by the time you have a stick, lots less moving about and sub for a much bigger saw.
I ain’t never seen no 16 foot bar!Sorry, just messing with ya.
We all have our definition of mid-range...
JeffGu
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Osceola, Nebraska
Yeah...
flushcut
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Delavan, WI
Do you use that for trenching in irrigation line in the garden?
What'd ya name it - THE COMPENSATOR?
I'll make a guess and say that's NOT a lightweight bar.
JeffGu
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Osceola, Nebraska
It's a rental... the bodies were piling up and it just takes forever to bury them one at a time.
Glad it was only a medium duty pile...
Fivepoints
Carpal tunnel level member
- Location
- East of Huntsville, AL
Sounds like you need a 572. They are awesome with a 24 in bar.
One reason I dont run a longer bar on our 572 is it makes it more difficult to get it in and out of the saw scabbard on my bucket truck.
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
That’s what we call a firewood saw around here. Mostly only used for, well, firewood bucking.
TCtreeswinger
Branched out member
Fuck can it buck though! The chips damn near sting they throw so hard. Only did it in a (bar) pinch though
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
White pine isn't soft, it foam... At least the western white pines. Alder is surprisingly hard but a sharp saw eats that wood better than Western white pine. Western red cedar is pretty soft, big leaf maple is a little harder but softer than alder, and similar to walnut but more brittle.. Now doug fir can be fairly dense, or very soft as in white pine soft. Hemlock can be medium doug fir to freakishly hard for a conifer.
Garry oak, is like a brick.. Madrone, cuts like butter but a CRAZY hard wood.. Sitka is a medium to dense not unlike doug fir... but we do have many planted hardwoods, common more around old farms and cities...
I gotta say, while I have a lot of saws I really like, the 400c may be at the top of the list for the most useful and most fun to run, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for saws around that size. Today I took down a dead doug fir by blowing out a 40' top then snap-cuts on short logs until finishing it with shorter straight through cuts as I walked the saw around the trunk. It has a 20" lightweight, oiled foam filter, barkbox muffler and westcoast dogs. Ripped the whole way.
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Loss of bar length was initially a concern of mine as well but someone on the forum a while back (I forget who) said how much better the saw felt with them, so I gave it a try. Glad I did, the geometry is just perfect and it pivots effortlessly, bites into our thick barked firs better than anything else (you know, being on the west coast...) and really does make the saw much better to use. I've since put them on basically every saw I have where they've got a model that fits.
For comparison sake, here are stock dogs vs westcoast on my 500i. The lower bottom dog, and longest middle dog is what makes the geometry work so much better.
For comparison sake, here are stock dogs vs westcoast on my 500i. The lower bottom dog, and longest middle dog is what makes the geometry work so much better.
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