Well, I'm a new guy here, but I'll throw in my 2 bits anyway. I cut my teeth on a Stihl 041 farmboss. From '78 until about '95 we heated our home entirely with wood, and that ol farmboss cut every piece of it. The owner of the farm, his son in-law (our neighbor) and one of the grandsons ran homelites. The farmer owned 4 of them, and they had a hard time keeping any 2 of them going at one time. The Stihl never let us down. Around '92 dad traded the 041 in on a new 028 AV super. He had some back problems and the 041 was needing a general overhaul. The 028 ran just fine. More than enough power to pull an 18" bar and cut hickory like it was butter. Well, when I went to college dad started haveing major back problems and the wood furnace was replaced with natural gas. Since then he's only cut 3 or 4 truck loads a year, but the 028 is still running strong, and good as new.
After college I bought an 025 just for some general clean up work. I loaned it to a friend, and he dropped a limb on it, and it was totaled. From what I understand about the 025, that's probably the best that could have happened to it in the long haul. I replaced it with an 024AV, which works great for limbing, but not quite enough umph for hardwoods over 8" or 10". It will do it, but not as quick as you would like. I was finally able to move out of the city and back into rural america 3 years ago, not far from my old college stomping grounds. I hooked up with some of the farmers that I knew back then and started "researching" what saw I was going to get. I knew that I would end up putting a wood furnace in our home. The story that I got unanimously from all the die hard Stihl owners goes like this. When they changed the numbering from 036 to MS360, Stihls marketing finally beat out their work ethic (by the Stihl standard anyway) and the saws went to junk. Small and mid range, the Huskvarna saws now out last the Stihl dollar for dollar. Big saws, Stihl is still the best, but not by much. I was essentially warned to avoid the new Stihls like the plague unless I just liked blowing money.
So what did I do? I kept my 024AV for limbing and some felling, and I just bought an 038 AV Mag off of ebay. It's not here yet, so I can't coment on how it runs, but from what I've read around here that model is a hoss.
Just because you own a piece of land doesn't mean you need the bigest saw on the block to take care of it. When dad bought his 028, the land owner was getting too old to be able to take care of much of anything any more, so dad was taking care of the farm for him in return for all the years of free firewood we cut, and all the hunting we did. Besides, their our friends. He was able to do everything he needed with that 028 AV Super, and you should be able to buy a good one off of e-bay for under $200. The only reason that I didn't go that route was because I wanted something that would cut faster in order to get enough wood cut to heat the house all winter. If I wanted just one saw, the 028 would due. Since I already have the 024, I wanted a bigger saw to do the heavy work quickly, and I wanted something that wouldn't need to be in the shop every other weekend, and would last me a LONG time. The 038 Mag seemed to fit the bill.
If you're patient, now that the holidays are over, I've noticed the prices on e-bay are starting to drop back down a little. If you watch closely, you should be able to find a good deal in a month or two.
Just my to bits (from a new guy),
Mark
