Stihl vs Husqvarna...

This was unexpected. Sure wish Ida tested the 543 before running it.

 

Paint the raised felling sight line black?

 

Thats why they make black sharpies.

 

My red sharpie might not be the best in this case... LOL

 

So I go to do the second 2 minute heat cycle on the Redmax and it won't start. Has no spark. Then I realized an actual non aesthetic difference...not a momentary kill switch like the Husqvarna. Guess what I'll be ordering.

 

I thought about that and just dying the air filter cover black. Its a different shade of red than the rest of the saw. Odd. The fact it has as good of compression out the box as the 543 does with 3 tanks on it is promising. Like I said, if one is a better performer after a gallon of this break in mix, thats the one getting the xtra sausage.

 

another stihl??

 

Blasphemy!


Mike in Okla

 

I bought a husky for my first "real" saw. The very first thing I did was field strip it where I quickly learned if you do things in the wrong order you need a special tool / technique for re-assembly. I quickly boxed it back up and returned it and bought a ms251 instead.

 

I might have to have a European 241....

 

For those of you that may have purchased one of these or the RedMax variant...

His thoughts on its lack of power mirror mine. He akso talks about it's personality change after many tanks of fuel. He got good gains porting it but there is a reason I have Kevin port my saws as seen in his ported 543 vid.

I did this yesterday. Turns out an Earthquake 3816 viper chainsaw has the exact same felling spike bolt pattern and shape of the mounting area. I slightly massaged the spikes to sharpen them, heat treated them and used gun bluing on them. Looks way better and should stay out of the way. That long top part of the factory spike catches on the log when bucking. Irritating.
Im working on another version from scratch. At a minimum, cutting off that top part would help.

 

I guess this is now a Stihl vs Husqvarna vs RedMax thread lol. Last heat cycle completed on RedMax. Raining today so no cutting today. I'm going to a muffler mod on one of these saws and let Kevin do what he does when he ports one.

 

The RedMax has a smidge higher compression after only doing heat cycles vs the Husqvarna 3 tanks. Out of curiosity I'll probably end up checking squish.

 

I will have to agree the xp is much better looking even though I don't like the dark gray clutch covers, I like the lighter gray ones better. For the difference in price I would buy the Redmax if I needed another saw.

 

Outside the color and the momentary kill switch on the XP and not on the GZ, they are identical. Fit and finish. Feel ect. But, as surprised as I was to say it, the orange unit looks much better although id prefer an orange clutch cover myself. Even the squish is pretty much identical. With modern machining and manufacturing processes there really is no reason they shouldn't be.

 

What does the RedMax kill switch look like? Can it be replaced with the xp switch?

 

Redmax just got delivered.
Tomorrow will be a fun day.


Mike in Okla

 

And you are all guilty of being CAD enablers.


Mike in Okla

 

Yes. I had one saw for over 25 years (1986 Husqvarna 50) and was perfectly happy with that until I joined my first forum. Now I have 5 Husqvarnas, a dolmar, an Echo, a craftsman 3.3 and two Chinese kit saws and haven't burned wood since 1999.

 

That was quick.
Now I just gotta decide if I'm going to break it in proper, or just make sawdust..

I've got a bunch of limbing to do in the next few days, so maybe I'll just figure that's good enough...idk.

It does feel good in my hands, and I like it in redmax colors best, on account of it's not being a real swedish Husqvarna saw anyway.

I'll probably run an 18" .325 setup on it for better reach while limbing.