Opinions on the MS441 ?

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Overkill338

M-Tronicly Obsessed
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I've got the chance to pick up a regular carb, 441 for $100. It has a stripped plug hole. My FIL wants a saw to dedicate to a 24/25" bar. I already have a Hyway 441 kit. I just want to know if it will be worthwhile.

Thanks
 
Buy it Scotty if that's 'all' that is essentially wrong with it. The 441 was the first MT saw Stihl released over a decade ago. Very smooth saw, very early strato design that is not employed today on new saws, its a bit bulky & complicated. But they were great 70cc saws of their day. If its half tidy and was running prior to plug being stripped it is a more than fair purchase. Your dad would love the smoothness of the 441 & it should pull a 24" b/c all day.
 
I have had good luck putting a heli coil plug kit in those stihl top ends I use lots of rock set or red loctite on the insert I have one a ms440 that holds 200psi compression.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
Now that’s the type of deals I wish I could find

Found out more. It was run with a loose muffler, and needs a sprocket cover. Funny thing is, my 261 that I bought to rebuild was run with a loose muffler. Dang folks, check the muffler bolts lol

IMG950179.jpg
 
That particular saw looks pretty beat.

I haven’t had anything stripped on any of the ones I’ve had or the crew has had. Maybe I’m just lucky.

The 441 is a good, solid saw. They are very, very smooth and very operator friendly. Good power, and very good torque for their displacement. They had a good, long production run too, if that says anything. They filter air better than most Stihl saws and did I mention they were smooth and very good with a 25 or a 28 inch bar? Plenty of guys ran 32s in softwoods with these saws too.

They are not so kind to the repair guy. The air box assembly is an act of an engineer who became addled trying to copy someone else’s (Husqvarna) design and finally threw in the towel and just made up some parts using the roughest form of Bernoulli’s equation and the fact Q=VA, plus the Darcy-Weisbach equation that got the right amount of air where it needed to go. The little quick-release pieces that hold the air filter cover on like to come off in the field, unlike a Husqvarna saw, but that’s neither here nor there.

The covers are kind of a pain to put together, and the M-Tronic wiring can be painful to route.

All that said, most 441s after the bugs were worked out, and there were some early on around 2007 or 2008 as Stihl released the saw before, I think, it was ready, don’t require a lot of maintenance. That’s part of the reason I like them so much for crew saws. They take a beating and come back for more.

So, in short, I put the 441 behind the 461 and close to, or tying the 440 in its size class for Stihl of what I’ve used, which includes the current 462. They’re good saws that got a bad rap early on.
 
I like mine that I bought in 2013.

Very little maintenance. I have only cleaned it once or twice a year and changed the spark plug once since I've had it.

I used it to help a friend clear ~65 trees (Oak and Hickory) from his property which I ran everyday for approximately four months. Started with a 20" B&C and now use a 24". Going to swap out the bar with a SugiHara one I got once the current bar goes beyond repair/maintenance.
 
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