Thanks JD. I found the packaging last night and was looking at it and it says to use a 7/32 file so I pulled out my glasses and a big light and well it's not actually square ground chain looks kind of like it because of how it was sharpened from the factory it has grooves in it. I pulled out one of my untouched cross cut chains out of a box and well it has similar grooves. Until you file it. I just don't buy many new chains and so I've never noticed it before. This new in box chain is at least 3 years old I'm still running the green chain that my ms250 came with although it is close to the end it still cuts. When the green chain goes I'll put my yellow chain back on and put this new in box yellow chain in my chainsaw case. That 250 is now 6 or 7 years old and was my 1 saw plan for many years. Before that I had a ppb4218 poulan pro Walmart special for 10 years hated that thing because it I didn't know anything about chainsaws at the time. It was problematic for a green horn that had to heat with wood raise a family with at the time about 250 dollars a week. Thank God I got a little better job after a couple years. The great recession of 08 sucked around here. That 250 sure made my life easier around here it was twice as fast as the old poulan. I thought I was gonna choke on the $300 dollar I forked out for it. We sure ate lean for about 2 weeks after I bought it.
How are you doing with the MS 880? Have you got to any milling yet?
I have been doing some milling in smaller wood perhaps 20" to 24", some rock hard Beech but mostly just Spruce that tilts in the winter storms. Spruce might not make the attractive table tops and such but I just felt it a waste for those trees just to be left to rot.
So I started with a Farmertec 038 clone, I was impressed how it coped with the Beechwood up to 24" (28" bar) at the bottom 8 feet of the trunk. Mostly I used it with a 24" in wood smaller than that.
But pretty soon the problems started to appear; clutch springs lasted a couple of hours in average, I stripped the bar studs a couple of times atleast, the oiler leaked more than it delivered, and such...
So I decided I wanted something I could rely on and bought a new Dolmar 7910, the way I do things perhaps down a hill side at the spot where the tree is and because I'm not doing any mammoth size Oak trees I wanted something with enough power but still reasonable lightweight.
But there is only so much storm felled trees available perhaps one or two every second year, so in the meantime I had resolved the problems with my 038 that at this point had become a kit buildt Farmertec 381 where I had changed all problem parts with Original Stihl parts or other aftermarked parts and basically this saw now performed flawlessly, I use it at the sawbuck as well.
The result of this is that I continued to use the 038/381 because it now did the job and I did not want to use/spoil that new, nice and shiny expensive Dolmar unless I needed it. Well, now I have sold the Dolmar because I don't need it and I basically got my money back, and I know its in good hands because the man that bought it did need a reliable saw from day one.
So if you dont use the saw that much/often and are not utterly dependant on it, and are prepared to spend some time at the worbench resolving the problems that may appear the first 10 hours of use; then its absolutely worth it.
