Small Professional Chainsaw Recommendations

Another vote for a 261 here, can't beat it for lighter work like you're looking to do. And it'll drop a big tree or buck your firewood no issues too!

 

Husqvarna 543xp or 550xp.

 

I love my 241

this looks like a great way to clear also
ASV Mulcher, by Fecon

 

Why don't you use your 562? You will save a little weight with a 50cc saw but not enough to justify buying another saw IMO. I'm surprised that you did not log your own land.

 

forgot about your 562xp throw on a 16" bar and let it rip.

 

With your history of saw "longevity"...here's another vote for MS170...they are cheap, you could buy a whole crate of them!
They really are impressive lil saws...my brother bought one, I thought is was gonna be a joke...not so much!
The other end of the spectrum here would be to just put a long bar on your existing saw...so you aren't bending over all day...but carrying an off balance saw around all day may not be fun either...

 

I thought about building one of those, but I think I am going in another direction now; actually mechanically harvesting these small trees and processing them into chunks so I can burn them for firewood in my coal stoves. With a pot bellied stove, I need small wood anyway, so I am thinking small sapling wood might be a great place to start.

 

Cancer has really debilitated me lately, and I needed some quick cash to pay my property taxes. I am only having them log 70 acres so I have plenty of land in reserve if I do get better and get the itch to go logging again. As Katie says, I will be plenty busy converting these 70 acres into field in the meantime.

I have to constantly remind myself that my goal has never been to be a logger. I am a farmer and my goal was to get rid of the forest to make way for more field. The money is in raising sheep; commercial forest just has no return on investment when you factor in property taxes, their slow growth, and a poor economy sadly enough.

 

MS 362 maybe not what some would call a small saw but it's a 'do all' saw.

 

That 2511t is getting some seriously solid reviews from pro climbers. Outcuts the Stihl 150t and is lighter to boot. I'm diying to haul one into the top of a tree and see for myself.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. I'll pray for you.

 

It is okay, the logger that is here has a small excavator; but said during mud season when he is not using it, he would let me rent it out and pull stumps with it to clear my fields. My local rental shop has the exact same tractor (Cat 315 Excavator) and charges $2000 a week, so using the loggers tractor would work. I would pay him the same, just to be fair, but I would not have to pay to transport it back and forth, so ultimately would be a better deal for me financially, and get the same amount of work done. In mud season, on posted roads, just getting equipment here can be tough.

It is a smaller machine than I prefer, but in mud season, stumps pull better too, so I might get something done. I had a 34,000 pound Hitachi excavator, and that would average around 2 acres per day. So that would be around $2000 for every 10 acres. Of course it depends on a lot of things, and here stumping is a lot easier than it was with the Hitachi because it was 18 acres on the side of a mountain, where mine is very flat and the stumps pull better because they are hardwood and hemlock.

I probably cannot get the entire 70 acres cleared this year, but just getting another ten cleared of stumps, graded, the rocks removed and seeded down will be an undertaking. But at $3500 an acre as field, instead of $300 an acre as forest, will make my farm more valuable too in the long run.