I've bucked the last few cord with hand sharpened skip chain on a 95cc saw on a 28" bar. First time I've used skip chain and I love it. Also the first time in a long time not using the grinder. I've heard that skip chain is only for longer bars but I am thinking about running it on my 70cc saw with a 20" bar. Does anyone do this?
Never used it on 20" bar but its all I use on bars 24" & longer. Have a 28" .050 gauge skip that stays on my 288XPW all the time.2 years old,its about toast now.Hit some buried chain link when ripping a big Walnut stump Sept 2012,4-5 teeth were messed up fairly good.So many filings since then its pretty ''grabby'' since those teeth are much shorter than the rest.Its been retired & now hangs on wall of shed with a couple other old ones.They're saved for fenceline work,grubbing out stumps etc.One more use & its getting tossed in recycling bin...
The hack dealer near me only sells and installs skip yellow chains on 20" and longer bars? So I reluctantly took a semi skip 20" loop. But I think I will return it?
So MM it looks like the full was about 3 seconds faster per cut than the skip chain, but I did notice a hesitation about a 1/4 of the way in with the full.
Tried the skip Good for a longer bar with an under powered saw & twice as easy to sharpen Have it as a back up chain in the tool box. No plan to use it on my 20" 359, but can't make myself throw it away. LOL
Yah, on a 20 inch bar on a 70cc saw I run an 8 pin rim, with full comp or skip. I only ran skip on a 20 inch bar on a 290. On a 361 I use skip a lot with 25 inch bars. On my 044 I use it on 28. I use skip for noodling and falling larger trees. Fallers here use skip pretty much all the time with 60-75cc saws, the most common being MS440 and 372xp saws with 28-32 inch bars.
Thanks for the vid MM. Looks like the tradeoff here is 10-20% on the cycle time for a very smooth predictable cut every time. The smooth predictable cut part was especially noticeable when starting the bore cut while felling. The friend I cut with has a 71 and 95 nearly identical to mine. Might have to set them up for a side by side taste test.
I would expect that full comp will be easier to get started in a bore cut, but I've never tried it with skip.
I have 3 skip chains in 20" that I run on my saws. I don't notice any difference. Dulls faster... But you can sharpen faster. I just tried 20" skip on my 395 today... One word. Crazy. They have there place for sure. Bigger bars is where they shine. But they work well on anything 20" and up. Especially smaller saws running 20"
I've run full skip on a 20" bar mounted to my old 031 and my 361. Didn't notice a huge difference in cut time but I did in sharpening time.
