RE 590: I like it alot, nice saw. To be honest I haven't completed the top end swap yet... its still in a box in the garage. I'm thinking I'll try to get it back together before my wood cutting trip in the spring.
Not knowing much about jred 590, and 490 I first thought you were putting a smaller top end on a larger saw, I see thats not so, and the two saws are very much the same. The model numbers are very missleading. Do you know what the story is with that, what jred was thinking or how the model numbers work?
Also, good to hear the fellas are getting some deer. Do they ever see any Moose?
You are right it is a slightly smaller top end.... 590 is 45mm diameter, 490 is 44mm. But its really hard to get parts for these saws.... they stopped making them a while back. When I was searching for either a 590 or Partner 5000+ top end I ended up finding someone who had the 490 top end. Really I think I'm only loosing about 2.5 - 3 cc. I'd have to look back into an old thread to find the exact number but its not much... I believe other than the top end there really isn't much difference between the 490/590..... and th 590 is pretty much the same as the Partner5000+ except for colour, and air filter/choke design. (however I'm no expert).
RE Moose.... yeah we are seeing more activity in the last few years.... it used to be really uncommon to see signs of moose. Now we've seen a few and lots of signs....