Stihl square ground versus Oregon round ground..... who was faster......

[NWCoaster]

Ok, so I have pretty much only ran Stihl chain for ever since I have a great local saw shop and prices are decent. Anyways, long story short, since day one I have run Stihl .063, 3/8ths, full skip square ground on my 461R.... which is what a lot of commercial guys around here fall with ( Long bars, fibrous wood). It seems that Stihl does not make a round ground .063 gauge chain with round ground cutters in a 105 DL loop. ( I could be mistaken , but I have not been able to find it so far, plenty of .050 gauge).
So, on a whim I ordered a loop of the EVIL Oregon round ground LGX to do a comparison.
The Stihl chain has been sharpened a couple times by hand with a file by me and is very sharp and has the proper geometry and raker depth. The Oregon is brand new.
In 3 timed cuts in a piece of 24 inch Alder here are the average times of each chain: Stihl 23 seconds, Oregon 20 seconds....... it was actually FASTER than the square ground........

So, me being kinda partial to Stihl chain, I was pretty surprised..... but that's just the way it turned out. I did note that the square ground cut smoother than the round, the round was a little grabbier. What really surprised me though is that the Oregon chain seemed to carry quite a bit more oil with it than the Stihl!!!! The Stihl chain always looks a bit too dry to me after a cut, the Oregon was fairly wet.... not sure how to explain that - maybe some of that new fangled technology they brag about on the side of the box actually works.....

Anyways, always thought the square should be faster than the round according to what I have read, I would be interested to find out other peoples experiences in actual testing whether the square really is faster all things being equal..... and yes, I do NOT know how to sharpen square quite well with a file with being a Machinist for the last 25 years.

 

[gunnusmc03]

Yep square is generally faster than round. If your square is getting beat by round it's not sharpened properly.

Stihl does makes RS in .063. I run it on my 36" bars.

 

[NWCoaster]

Yep square is generally faster than round. If your square is getting beat by round it's not sharpened properly.

Stihl does makes RS in .063. I run it on my 36" bars.

Square ground?

 

[gunnusmc03]

RS is "round ground"

 

[CascadeHusky]

RS is "round ground"

You might be grinding it round, which is fine and common, but RS stands for "rapid super", and it comes off the roll chisel.

I hate to be another wet blanket, but you're sharpening your chisel wrong if round is outperforming it in clean wood. Might just be rakers, who knows.

 

[Big_Wood]

most square ground chain is pretty hurt'n out of the box and very few can file it correctly. heck, many can't even grind it correctly. i used a ground CJX shake blocking all day today and it's still sharp as heck and cuts great after 7 hours cutting. even after 7 hours it will smoke a fresh round filed chain. no rocks anywhere in this area nice when your used to bringing 4 spare ground chains because of rocks but then don't need them. all old growth cedar but was extra fun cause it wasn't just cutting junk on the forest floor. i actually got to fall green tree's for shake. one of the strangest contracts i ever worked.

 

[Andyshine77]

I'm not at all surprised!! out of the box Stihl square ground is pretty pathetic cutting chain. The quality of the out of the box grind is hit and miss with Stihl RS chain I've seen lately. Properly sharpened Stihl chain does hold it's edge longer than the other brand, and is the main reason I prefer it.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[LoveStihlQuality]

3ware 88

 

[heyduke]

Ok, so I have pretty much only ran Stihl chain for ever since I have a great local saw shop and prices are decent. Anyways, long story short, since day one I have run Stihl .063, 3/8ths, full skip square ground on my 461R.... which is what a lot of commercial guys around here fall with ( Long bars, fibrous wood). It seems that Stihl does not make a round ground .063 gauge chain with round ground cutters in a 105 DL loop. ( I could be mistaken , but I have not been able to find it so far, plenty of .050 gauge).
So, on a whim I ordered a loop of the EVIL Oregon round ground LGX to do a comparison.
The Stihl chain has been sharpened a couple times by hand with a file by me and is very sharp and has the proper geometry and raker depth. The Oregon is brand new.
In 3 timed cuts in a piece of 24 inch Alder here are the average times of each chain: Stihl 23 seconds, Oregon 20 seconds....... it was actually FASTER than the square ground........

So, me being kinda partial to Stihl chain, I was pretty surprised..... but that's just the way it turned out. I did note that the square ground cut smoother than the round, the round was a little grabbier. What really surprised me though is that the Oregon chain seemed to carry quite a bit more oil with it than the Stihl!!!! The Stihl chain always looks a bit too dry to me after a cut, the Oregon was fairly wet.... not sure how to explain that - maybe some of that new fangled technology they brag about on the side of the box actually works.....

Anyways, always thought the square should be faster than the round according to what I have read, I would be interested to find out other peoples experiences in actual testing whether the square really is faster all things being equal..... and yes, I do know how to sharpen square quite well with a file with being a Machinist for the last 25 years.

how about some photos of both chains? also, all that advertising won't make a chain cut better. I've run a lot of both and prefer Oregon and Carlton which i buy by the 100' roll. The one Stihl chain that interests me is the full chisel low profile. Oregon doesn't make that anymore and a climbing saw doesn't usually see much dirty wood.

 

[sunfish]

I used to be sold on Stihl chain, now only use Oregon.

 

[sunfish]

I'm not sold on square filed either.

 

[heyduke]

I'm not sold on square filed either.

it's probably the best chain for the work that nwcoaster is doing. in logging time is money and a faster cutting, more durable chain means a fatter paycheck. the reason i want to see photos of the chain is nwcoasters comments about the square ground being "smoother" than the new round ground oregon. i'd like to take a close look at the depth gauges. i've got no brand loyalty. chains are like politicians, more alike than different.

on the arborist crew i used to work with a guy who worked too slowly was given the name "butterfly," after a woman who spent a year sitting in the top of an old growth redwood to frustrate loggers.

 

[sunfish]

it's probably the best chain for the work that nwcoaster is doing. in logging time is money and a faster cutting, more durable chain means a fatter paycheck. the reason i want to see photos of the chain is nwcoasters comments about the square ground being "smoother" than the new round ground oregon. i'd like to take a close look at the depth gauges. i've got no brand loyalty. chains are like politicians, more alike than different.

on the arborist crew i used to work with a guy who worked too slowly was given the name "butterfly," after a woman who spent a year sitting in the top of an old growth redwood to frustrate loggers.

Yeah I agree. Here in the Ozarks cuttin hard wood, semi chisel hands down is more efficient

 

[gunnusmc03]

Square holds up just fine in hardwoods. It's just everything else with a chain, you can file the angles more obtuse to hold up for a long time or you can file them like a scaple that won't last but 2 or three passes through the softest of woods.

 

[sunfish]

Square holds up just fine in hardwoods. It's just everything else with a chain, you can file the angles more obtuse to hold up for a long time or you can file them like a scaple that won't last but 2 or three passes through the softest of woods.

Yes, I've been all over the sq with different angles and semi just works better here. We have lot of grit in the wood.

 

[Chris-PA]

Are we talking about square vs. round ground chisel or chisel vs. semi chisel? It seems there are both discussions going on at the same time.

 

[sunfish]

I'm the only one talking about semi. OP talkin about Oregon Vs Stihl.

 

[SAWMIKAZE]

The only thing i notice with new square vs round chains out of the box is that square is smoother which i think translates into people thinking its alot faster...in reality its not...and square is also more expensive to maintain with the file prices and all that stuff.

I dont really care for square chisel chain , i can make semi chisel cut pretty good after a few swipes with a file.

 

[NWCoaster]

Sorry I was gone, honeydo list was keeping me occupied. OK, so I learned something valuable from this little discussion...... I really can't hand file square as well as I thought I could.... I mean, the top plate looks good and the corner/tip comes together where it is supposed to, but in taking close up magnified pictures I noticed that my side plates sucked..... the file is maybe too coarse??? I dunno, but the side plate cutting edge is irregular. I am sure that that does not help with the cutting/shearing action. Its funny that I couldn't see it that well with my eyes, but magnified by the camera all the tooling marks from the file and the edge looks a bit rough.... I think I could do a better job with a bit thicker file ( For the side of the cutter) and a bit smoother file would help also.
Great discussion though guys, Stihl vs Oregon, Round vs square, all discussion points are great, Thanks!!!!! Explains why the round was faster though..... Lol.

Oh, and I edited my original post to ensure accuracy in previously made statements.....

 

[Woos31]

Both have a place and are very effective in different scenarios. There are guys that can round file a chain as good or better than a grinder and that works for them and I'm also NOT one of those individuals. Growing up great grandson, grandson, son, nephew, cousin and you name it to pnw timber fallers.......... I'm on side of square ground crowd because as mentioned above time is money, 5 minutes to tickle an edge back on a chain with a silvey pro sharp is all I've known till about 10 years ago. I can round file a chain sharp but not like others can be a Damn sight. In my opinion a square ground chain running full house (full comp) depending on species is gonna take a round filed chain all day long. In fact a year ago I did cutting fire wood with friends.......... My ms460 32" skip chain square ground vs a 385 and a ported 372 both running 28" skip round ground on a stihl usg grinder and the 460 cleaned house with the huskies. We were cutting a 3' fir and even switched around were everyone ran all 3 saws and my 2 buddies agreed it was faster. Again I'm certain guys can hand file better all day any day but I think generally speaking a square ground will be quicker more often because it's consistent each time where people generally are not exactly the same with each stroke of a file........... Just my two pennies though and people use what works for them, so safe cuttin everyone and I would enjoy seeing timed cuts with newly filed and ground chains not brand new cuz sometimes factory grinds barely cut a wet paper bag! No matter who was better, faster, or stronger either.......just to see the comparisons