MOWOOD CHOPPER I agree, we don't have any bass wood here that I know of, but we cut wood every day weather permitting from around October 15th until March and have for years. I don't have the time or patience to play around with a 50cc saw when time counts, we cut oak, mostly seasoned some green and don't take the time to touch up our chain every couple of ricks. With us having a mill and a lathe we have a couple of modded saws, but are on the conservative side, they have to stay dependable and be ready for use. I don't see a heavily modded 50cc saw holding up to the use that we give our saws.
We've tried the smaller saw route in the past, and they are great for the homeowner and guy who cuts wood for himself, we've tried 29 suoers, 034s,
028's, 032s, with the 361 and CS156 being used mostly for wood 16" and smaller and the 660 being used for 16" and up. I've never timed a cut but it sure as hell seems like the 660 will cut small stuff faster than the 361 with chains of equal sharpness, you can just put an unbelievable amount of pressure on the 660 and its just eats wood were you could easily stall a 50 cc saw. The 5100 is a fine saw as is the 346 and others in this class, but there is no replacement for displacement in modern saws, run 8 tooth rim sprockets on the 361 and CS156 and a 9 tooth on the 660. As I said before for the dedicated wood cutter that cuts 30 to 50 cords or more a year a person is better to step up to the 372, 441,460 class of saw. This is one hole in our saw line up we are going to fill soon, I don't think I'd use the 361 much if I had a 441. If I were going to own only two saws it would probably be a 260/346 and a 372/441 or possibly a 7900 because of its weight.
We choose to run saws with long track records of stellar performance as we don't have time to screw around with down equipment, the CS156 was a gamble because of price, the EFCO made saws are a nice surprise, it has held up great, we won't touch it until the warranty is up. We have been calling our local HD to try to find a bargain 6401 to put a big bore kit on to try a Dolmar. There's just none in our immediate area, the closest dealer is 75 miles away. It's one thing to cut timed cookies and another to go production cut, the expectations are different, even the AS saw modders will tell you that, you can always use a big saw to cut little wood, but its a hell of a challenge to cut big wood with a little saw.
