A little advice

[trying]

Thanks for all the replies.

Should probably have said, my use is for firewood at home and the larger saws some milling to make furniture, partly a hobby but a small (but fun) part of my business.

I tend towards simpler and I guess old fashioned so features like tool less chain adjustment and auto tune etc aren't really of interest and non metallic clam shells too I suppose. I guess I'm just happy with old school but each to their own.

I had bad experience with stihl some years ago so haven't been back so don't know much about their current offerings or indeed customer service.

In truth I'd look at any saws in the 45-50cc/ 16-18" ball park, having been happy with my other saws led me to look first at Husky and Echo.

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by trying

[Husqvarna King]

Although probably getting difficult to find, have you thought about seeing if there is a half decent 357 or 346 used husky around. Harry the cat on eBay was always the go to guy. 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Husqvarna King

[pleasant]

6 minutes ago, Husqvarna King said:

Although probably getting difficult to find, have you thought about seeing if there is a half decent 357 or 346 used husky around. Harry the cat on eBay was always the go to guy. 

Just sold my own personal 2011 ms261 pre mtronic. 4 hours use since new. I bought it off the wife of an old boy who passed on a week after buying it. I used it for an afternoon taking out some laurel at my new house when we moved in. Been a shelf queen ever since. Would have done the op just fine. Never mind...i got a decent price for it locally, but there might be another out there for him

Edited December 28, 2022 by pleasant

[Husqvarna King]

1 minute ago, pleasant said:

Just sold my own personal 2011 ms261 pre mtronic. 4 hours use since new. I bought it off the wife of an old boy who passed on a week after buying it. I used it for an afternoon taking out some laurel at my new house when we moved in. Been a shelf queen ever since. Would have done the op just fine. Never mind...i got a decent price for it locally, but there might be another out there for

I seized my 357xp and replaced with 560, it's a good saw but i wished I'd kept the older one too and got it going

[trying]

Funny you should say that, in the same vein, I had looked for a 3120 but only found a couple of very poor condition ones and one odd ebay listing which wouldn't allow in person collection and something just didn't seem right so I pursued that no further.

[trying]

9 minutes ago, Husqvarna King said:

Although probably getting difficult to find, have you thought about seeing if there is a half decent 357 or 346 used husky around. Harry the cat on eBay was always the go to guy. 

Funny you should say that, in the same vein, I had looked for a 3120 but only found a couple of very poor condition ones and one odd ebay listing which wouldn't allow in person collection and something just didn't seem right so I pursued that no further.

[Johnpl315]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

My advice ( as it always is ) is to buy the best pro saw you can currently afford . Once you get it , a short period of time will pass  and you won't understand how you ever managed with just this one saw . You will then need another , bigger pro saw , and then another etc etc . Then you will need to get them ported coz that's a thing , and then the snow ball keeps on rolling ! 🙂

My experience is a little different. For sure it's useful to have a spare saw but I have kept saws thinking I will use them as spares, they sit in the container for years and then when you take them out they don't run right anyway... 

 I also tend to use the smallest saw that's efficient for the cutting I am doing. My go to saw for my line of work (coppicing chestnut) is the husky 550. I tried using a larger saw (stihl 400) which is way more powerful but it didn't increase productivity over a day and I used 5.5l of fuel instead of 3.5l

 With regard to husky 545 and 555, I used to have a 545, it was a fantastic saw, I cut thousands of tons of timber with it and it never missed a beat, unlike my 550 which suffered a broken crankshaft and my 560 which sized. Personally I think the xp saws rev a little higher which actually renders the more prone to breakage. 

[coppice cutter]

Might be too wee but if Echo is your thing see if anywhere still has a new 390esx.

 

On paper it looses out to the 501 being less powerful and not much lighter but they get a good rep on here and my own is just coming up to 2yr old and I can't fault it (apart from lack of a primer bulb!)

 

Non-strat engine, standard carb, light and handy, but 15in bar is as big as you'd want in it. Any bigger than that and look elsewhere.

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Johnpl315 said:

With regard to husky 545 and 555, I used to have a 545, it was a fantastic saw, I cut thousands of tons of timber with it and it never missed a beat, unlike my 550 which suffered a broken crankshaft and my 560 which sized. Personally I think the xp saws rev a little higher which actually renders the more prone to breakage. 

 

I think you are right about the 545 it is a nice saw, the 550 is more revvy and powerful and probably won't last as long but would pay for itself in extra production in old school forestry

[Dan Maynard]

There's still a few Makita EA5000 around, not mtronic. At the moment still ok for spares but they have stopped production. Don't have one myself but the people who like them really like them.

 

I am of the view autotune is like fuel injection on cars was in the 70s and 80s - when it first came out was unreliable and treated with great suspension since you couldn't adjust it. Nowadays people wouldn't know how to balance a pair of SU's, fuel injection is taken for granted.