My brother really needs a new chainsaw. His house of mouse Spear & Jackson is worse than useless.

He needs something for smaller stuff but capable say of cutting something 10 inches in diameter.

Can you get a good saw for under £200?

Husky 240e, maybe around that price?.

stihl MS171 too small?

Husky

First search, you might get it cheaper shopping around. I have one, and its been faultless for 3 years now.

There’s a wee husqy 345 on ebay for 175. Always preferred the feel of a husqy compared to stihl.

Thanks guys.

I hope to be able to get more wood through my local Ranger service. It comes in a variety of sizes. My saw is a Sthil 034 with 56cc. The small Stihl is about half that size. How much of a difference in power would there be cutting stuff like this. Ive never used a Husky saw before but know they come highly rated.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/high-5-fife-ranger-services-caution-predictable-wood-content

I’ve cut right up to 2.5′ diameter sycamore with the wee husky, was a tree down over a lovely singletrack descent in my local woods, so needed shifting. As long as the chain is kept sharp, it’s plenty powerful enough.
Stoner posted up a link to cheap chains on ebay, which I’ll need to get soon, as I’m about to run out of the 4 free oregon staysharp chains I got a couple of years back. Not bad for free, but wouldn’t buy them.

If I’m using a saw for a day I will sharpen the chain up at least once. Carry some files and keep on top of this, lttle and often, and you’ll have a saw that cuts well all of the time.

If the saw starts blowing out dust instead of small shavings it needs sharpened.

Been looking at a saw for mself recently as I plan to do my cs30/31 tickets next month and have settled on a Husqvarna 550XPG

It comes in at double your budget(which is a bargain for what it is) but is 50cc and capable of running a much larger bar, although I need to use a 15″ bar for my tickets. In the past have used a couple of different Stihl saws, the 260 was my favourite, which you might be able to pick up second hand. Just be careful with second hand stuff as a lot of it will be ragged, I’ve been strongly advised against buying second hand and would rather buyy new and keep well maintained so that it runs for years.

In your budget I would be looking at a new Husq 435 (40cc) or a Stihl 211 (35cc) which should both be fine for firewood and small trees but might feel a little underpowered. I think it’s probably worth pushing the budget a little to move up to these and get slightly more power than the stihl 181 and husqy 236.

with the others, husky. many years ago i did a bit of tree lopping and the guy i worked with would only use husky, so when i needed a saw there was no debate.

got a basic 240, use it for sorting firewood, i’ve paid for the thing loads over by not having to buy logs, its a great reliable little saw.

Around here the Stihl ms181 is popular. A bit more rugged than the 171 but barely heavier.

I’ve just last week bought an MS171 For lighter work at the coppice than my MS230. same tensuoning system so I can use any of my existing bars. £160.

Stoner, that’s a cracking price, did you get it online or locally?

husky 236 14″ its great, £169, had it 2 years now and not a single problem. we burn almost exclusively wood that i’ve chopped, so its done some work. also the chains that where recommended on here, from mr solutions, have been great so far. my mate had a stihl 171 at the same time, it had issues with the oil feed right from the start…probably a bad apple

Stihl 211 sounds about right to me. Mine has been flawless and happily deals with firewood and small trees. I’ve also had a bash at a bit of wood carving with it. Bought a quarter tip bar for it and its really worked well considering the abuse saws get with carving.

2 series stihls can feel a bit heavy after a while. mister solutions stuff is great vfm. I get chains, spark plugs, chain oil and stihl 2stroke oil from him.

mine came from a local agricultural suppliers, mcmoonter. there are a couple of different versions out there. mines the cheaper simpler one with two bolt bar mount.

Mcmoonter – I’ve gone from an old Stihl 011 (still runs fine) to an 034 and the difference is amazing. I’m not sure that a smaller engine is such a good idea – why not go with a slightly bigger engine but with a 10″ bar?
There’s a very good chap with a great rep on Arbtalk that supplies chainsaws that he’s refurbished. I bought my 034 from him and it’s been fantastic and fully sorted. He’s quite open about not being the cheapest but a much safer bet than buying some unknown tat off ebay. he really knows his stuff. I can send you his email addy if you’re interested.

I just bought a stihl ms171 for about 175 including vat. It’s a small saw compared to what I am used to in work ms250+ but its more than capable and at the price I am made up with it, can’t recommend one highly enough!

best bit about the 171 for me is that apprently stihl set up a chinese factory to bang them out to the old design. This means that I can use any of my three bars (12, 14, 18) with standard picco chains – as the sprockets are the same and the two bolt bars are interchangeable.

Out of the box however, the saw comes with a micro chain and narrow gauge bar (1.1mm) so Ive taken that off and put it in the spares box.

When I go down to the coppice I can take the 171 with a 14″ on it and I take the 230 in a bag without a bar on as a back up in case the 171 stops working for any reason. Fingers cross it wont, but wasting a day because the saw stops is a pain in the arse.

Cheers guys, the wee saw is for my brother, so it would really just be a back up occasional use saw. I’ve seen the guy returbing saws over on arbtalk, he really knows his stuff. I really like my 034 if I could find him one with a shorter bar, that would be ideal. He’d mostly be using it for cutting logs on a horse so the weight isn’t as much of an issue as it would be in a coppice.

Today’s chainsawing had me wishing I’d gone for the heated handle option.

Brrr…

Another brand worth at is echo, Japanese made good value for money I have a cs270 wes 26cc weighs about 4kg and it goes really well. I think it is superceded by cs 280 wes. Ace little saw!

My dad’s got a fantastic echo. It’s ancient now. No idea how it keeps on going, but it’s tiny yet gutsy. He wont let me have it 🙁 cost a bomb though. There was a nice looking 10″ top handle makita on ebay the other day. Quickest way of losing an arm mind 🙂

Top Handle’s a whole other kettle of fish. Not for dabblers.

I’ve got a husky 236e which has been excellent. Well worth the 160 I paid for it 2 years ago. But stoner’s 171 was a good buy.
Top handles 😯

Today’s chainsawing had me wishing I’d gone for the heated handle option.

They actually get to hot and very rarely ever used it.

Have used both Husky’s and Stihl’s at work and found you get dogs in either.

Got a 181 here with 14″ bar. Like.

They actually get to hot and very rarely ever used it.

Ah, nowt better than firsthand opinions – I won’t get it on the next purchase, then. Probably be good in Canada at some obscenely low temperature…

how do they work, are the electric of exhaust heated?

Electric, I think. Not sure…

*Frantically Googles*

Yep

Heated handles are electrically heated there is s generator on the flywheel and element in the handle. They often have heated carbs as well. Der sausage fingers too slow.

wow – so they stick a dyanmo on the case and drive it form that.

In the world of the chainsaw curious I’m just amazed that this thread was started by mcmoonter – the king of the wood pile himself .

Husqvarna seems to be the weapon of choice, got a mate who swares by them even do heated grips 😉

I found that Husky motors never stood up very well to hard prolonged use. I had two and both blew up. One twice. It may have just been bad luck but I’ve had no such problems with any of my stihl saws.

Husky 340 here, for the last 5 years. Had a slight problem with the fuel tank but easily fixed, but only ‘amateur’ use (1-2 hours intermittent most weekends.)

The cheaper the saws the cheaper the build quality. Low end saws are occasional use only sometimes only expected to be a few hours a year. Spares are available but the saws are such buggers to work on the time required makes repair not worth it. Look at the sections in any saw catalogue and the sections are clear. Pro saws are expensive because they are of such a high quality they can do thousands of hours before needing engine repairs. Premature saw failure is usually operator error, incorrect fuel mix,air leak, lean running,old fuel that has gone off general bad maintainance and such stuff, phew didn’t mean to lecture just my two pence worth.

A productive day for “Junior” and me yesterday.
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Op1DhYjJtw0/USfoq9wIGHI/AAAAAAAAFaE/okDRhzzcorM/s640/IMAG0339.jpg[/img]
As mentioned its one of my old bars hence the not so box-fresh look

Must make a quick correction, I have the MS 170-D not the 171. The 170-D is cheaper because it is basically an older model. This suits me because I have an older model too which means I dont have to figure out a whole new design when tinkering. All the new versions have the single bolt bar tensioning system and not the old two bolt that all my bars take.

The 170 is noticeably lower powered than the 230 – well duh. But at 1.2kW against 2.3kW it means you cant just throw it at everything. You have to be a little bit more mechanically sympathetic and let the saw go at it’s own pace. But it’s very much less tiring by the end of the day when working around tree bases in the coppice. It’s also a lovely weight for snedding felled trees with ease. Only gripe is that it’s a lot slower to pick up revs.

Nice. I’m getting warm just looking at those pics…