I bucked up a Kodiak sled load of fire killed white spruce this afternoon. Ambient temperature was -45° F. I stuck 1 strip of Tyvek tape on the starter cover the other day and opened the winter port in the firewall of the carb box. It actually ran really good and smoothly at 32 below. At today's temps it was a little more labored but still ran and idled fine. One thing I do when I fire one up in cold weather. I lay the starter cover on my left thigh and play a few tunes with the throttle. As I'm running 5/20 full synthetic motor oil for bar oil. It pumps very well so I have a nice lubed bar and chain when I stick it to the wood. The biggest slowdown is having to hold the saw away from the stack or wood that I'm cutting so the ice fog will clear away so I can see what I'm cutting. Both the engine and the bar and chain. And my breath makes a fog that just hangs in the air in the immediate area of my work. Anyway , the Stihl MS 271 works in the cold.
I cut up over 20 cord with my 271 when I first started cutting. It was a good running saw. I have cut in temps down to -10*. Now when I was in the oil patch in ND we worked in those types of temps, after about -20* it’s just cold, I couldn’t really tell a difference after that.
20 below is pretty easy. 40 below starts getting hard. 50 below Is Hard ! Colder is even harder YET. Maybe part of it now is I'm getting older. I used to go to the woods in the Copper Basin at 45 and 50 below. Now, ah, I'll wait. I'll go @40 below in March as usually it warms way up during the day.
