Stihl chain numbers..

[john87]

Hi all,

WTF were Stihl thinking of when they came up with their system for numbering chains.. Now, i am not a stupid man [debateable!] but WTF...

 

First off apparently they have a "Marketing number" this is not very well explained in the bit of the chart i have added below.. Say we want a 3/8 lo-pro 0.050" chain...

 

 

 

Ok, we can see that the "marketing number" is "63P XXXX"

 

When you look in the Stihl catalogue though, you, after very much confusion and hours of trying to work it out, discover that the "part number" is not "63" whatever, but the other way around, "36" whatever....

 

What kind of cretin came up with this???

 

john...

 

 

[Steve Bullman]

I think they have a rough idea what they’re doing 

[Mick Dempsey]

 

 

[bmp01]

I imagine they'd do a better job if it were a clean sheet of paper task.  In reality i expect it has just evolved as time went on...

I dont suppose they had a scooby-do '3/8" lo pro'  (or 1/4") was going to be a thing back in the day when the first chain came off the manufacturing line.

Part numbers etc often throw up coincidental patterns, some useful, some not so....

[Dan Maynard]

Other point, wouldn't rely on that chart too much as saw models stop at MS260 and MS200T so it's at least 10 years old - there have been some new chains since then.