I have an old Ryobi Chinese POS that needs to be upgraded to get rid of some 1" brush.  Any thoughts?  I was looking at a Husquevarna.  Instead of the plastic chord, it has to be something like a lawnmower blade...

36 minutes ago, Underdog said:

I have an old Ryobi Chinese POS that needs to be upgraded to get rid of some 1" brush.  Any thoughts?  I was looking at a Husquevarna.  Instead of the plastic chord, it has to be something like a lawnmower blade...

We have something like that at work made by Husquevarna. The blade is like a circular saw blade. It's a bit heavy but it works pretty well.

I have no idea what it's called.

I picked up an Echo PAS unit last spring, you can swap out the heads as needed. I have the string trimmer and a blade holder one. I can attach various style blades to it based on what I need it for. I've also picked up the chainsaw/pruner attachment, extension pole & blower for it.

Was so happy with the easy & reliable starts last year and beginning of this year after it sat all Winter that I picked up an Echo chainsaw this spring.

The Echos have not given me 1% of the trouble my Stihl equipment used to give me.

10 hours ago, brucin said:

We have something like that at work made by Husquevarna. The blade is like a circular saw blade. It's a bit heavy but it works pretty well.

I have no idea what it's called.

I have one that i made myself out of an old circular saw blade. Its pretty dangerous because I dont have any guard on it but it works really really well for clearing  heavy brush and would probably work equally well for rioters. 

Stihl Kombisystem is awesome for me, I have a few attachments for it and the things a beast. 

https://www.stihlusa.com/products/multi-task-tools/professional-kombisystem/km91r/

https://www.stihlusa.com/products/multi-task-tools/kombisystem-attachments/

Looks like they are running a special on it, comes with a free attachment when u buy one. 

 

58 minutes ago, kc17 said:

I picked up an Echo PAS unit last spring, you can swap out the heads as needed. I have the string trimmer and a blade holder one. I can attach various style blades to it based on what I need it for. I've also picked up the chainsaw/pruner attachment, extension pole & blower for it.

Was so happy with the easy & reliable starts last year and beginning of this year after it sat all Winter that I picked up an Echo chainsaw this spring.

The Echos have not given me 1% of the trouble my Stihl equipment used to give me.

All of these companies make cheap versions of their products, Stihl probably offers the greatest range in quality vs pricing... 

I wont buy anything but stihl after using their orange head products, which is anything above their residential lines. I buy all my products out of Power Place in Rockaway and they gas and tune everything before it leaves their store. 

I think ECHO is a great brand for the residential line up of products and fits a lot people needs well in that price range, but if you up your budge Stihl will most likely have much better offerings in their Farm and Professional line ups. 

My Stihl trimmer & chainsaw were both in the "Farm" category, plenty of power, but royal PIA to start. The chainsaw leaked bar oil sitting around, but wouldn't send any oil to the bar where it was needed so I went through chains as fast as the fuel.

 

9 minutes ago, kc17 said:

My Stihl trimmer & chainsaw were both in the "Farm" category, plenty of power, but royal PIA to start. The chainsaw leaked bar oil sitting around, but wouldn't send any oil to the bar where it was needed so I went through chains as fast as the fuel.

 

Did you check the oil channel? They get clogged with sawdust on every brand I have seen. It should be part of your maintenance cycle to clean that muck out of there.

43 minutes ago, JackDaWack said:

All of these companies make cheap versions of their products, Stihl probably offers the greatest range in quality vs pricing... 

I wont buy anything but stihl after using their orange head products, which is anything above their residential lines. I buy all my products out of Power Place in Rockaway and they gas and tune everything before it leaves their store. 

I think ECHO is a great brand for the residential line up of products and fits a lot people needs well in that price range, but if you up your budge Stihl will most likely have much better offerings in their Farm and Professional line ups. 

I have a stihl commercial string trimmer, 2 still chain saws ms291 and ms150 farm and ranch models and a stihl hand held blower. The saws take allot of abuse but I maintain them properly. I cut and bucked 5 chords of firewood with one chain on each of my saws but I clean them every day of use, sharpen the chain every 3 logs and flip the bar every time I sharpen and only use non ethanol fuel in them. The leaf blower litterally fell off a truck and I found it in my lawn in NJ, the priming bulb is cracked and it still starts up no problem. I'll never buy anything but stihl! 

51 minutes ago, kc17 said:

My Stihl trimmer & chainsaw were both in the "Farm" category, plenty of power, but royal PIA to start. The chainsaw leaked bar oil sitting around, but wouldn't send any oil to the bar where it was needed so I went through chains as fast as the fuel.

 

There is a procedure for starting them.. i hope you followed it! 

You pull on full choke 1 or 2 times, and then move to half choke and it should start right away.. if you kept pulling at full choke you flooded it.. 

I have the ms271.

I had a similar experience until I figured it out, and I mean very similar like I wanted to return the damn thing... starts on 3 pulls now. 2 to prime, one to fire up. With high and low carb adjustments there is no reason to have starting and running issues with them.

I do recall some people complaining about the chain oil feed clogging, but never experienced it, at leaet mine eats through chain oil pretty regularly. Then again I cleaned it pretty good every time I sharpened a blade and flipped the bar. I think this is pretty normal for all chainsaws, and can be effected by different types of wood.

45 minutes ago, Mr.Stu said:

Did you check the oil channel? They get clogged with sawdust on every brand I have seen. It should be part of your maintenance cycle to clean that muck out of there.

 

15 minutes ago, fishnut said:

I have a stihl commercial string trimmer, 2 still chain saws ms291 and ms150 farm and ranch models and a stihl hand held blower. The saws take allot of abuse but I maintain them properly. I cut and bucked 5 chords of firewood with one chain on each of my saws but I clean them every day of use, sharpen the chain every 3 logs and flip the bar every time I sharpen and only use non ethanol fuel in them. The leaf blower litterally fell off a truck and I found it in my lawn in NJ, the priming bulb is cracked and it still starts up no problem. I'll never buy anything but stihl! 

 

7 minutes ago, JackDaWack said:

There is a procedure for starting them.. i hope you followed it! 

You pull on full choke 1 or 2 times, and then move to half choke and it should start right away.. if you kept pulling at full choke you flooded it.. 

I have the ms271.

I had a similar experience until I figured it out, and I mean very similar like I wanted to return the damn thing... starts on 3 pulls now. 2 to prime, one to fire up. With high and low carb adjustments there is no reason to have starting and running issues with them.

I do recall some people complaining about the chain oil feed clogging, but never experienced it, at leaet mine eats through chain oil pretty regularly. Then again I cleaned it pretty good every time I sharpened a blade and flipped the bar. I think this is pretty normal for all chainsaws, and can be effected by different types of wood.

 

The chainsaw had to have had a crack in the case. It would seep bar oil out. I kept the saw in a Stihl case and the bottom would be full of bar oil. I replaced the oil tube and other parts in an attempt to get sufficient oil delivery.

I babied that saw, it only ever saw Stihl branded pre-mixed fuel and Stihl branded bar oil. Removed the bar to clean it out after every use etc... Followed directions for starting etc... It was not my first two cycle power equipment. Even the dealer fought getting it started when I complained to him about it. Once it did start he said see, it runs. One of a few reasons I don't support that dealer anymore.

The only time the Echo has not started on the 2nd pull was when I had a brain fart and tried to start it with the kill switch in the off position and flooded it.

I've just had bad luck twice with Stihl so I switched brands. No different than someone preferring SIG or S&W or even Glock.

 

22 minutes ago, kc17 said:

 

 

 

The chainsaw had to have had a crack in the case. It would seep bar oil out. I kept the saw in a Stihl case and the bottom would be full of bar oil. I replaced the oil tube and other parts in an attempt to get sufficient oil delivery.

I babied that saw, it only ever saw Stihl branded pre-mixed fuel and Stihl branded bar oil. Removed the bar to clean it out after every use etc... Followed directions for starting etc... It was not my first two cycle power equipment. Even the dealer fought getting it started when I complained to him about it. Once it did start he said see, it runs. One of a few reasons I don't support that dealer anymore.

The only time the Echo has not started on the 2nd pull was when I had a brain fart and tried to start it with the kill switch in the off position and flooded it.

I've just had bad luck twice with Stihl so I switched brands. No different than someone preferring SIG or S&W or even Glock.

 

I would say that's more of an issue with your dealer. Stihl supposedly only uses qualified dealers so they take care of these issues and offer better customer support... sounds like you got a lemon and a lazy dealer.. 

I'm pretty sure my dealer wouldn't let a product leave their store if you had to break a sweat to start it. And would acknowledge that its not supposed to leak bar oil, ever.

I have a stihl dealer around the corner from me, but its a mom pop hardware store.. i don't go there because I don't expect them to have the small engine experience if issues come up. Power place sells repairs and maintains all sorts of yard equipment, need to keep some of that in mind when buying. And, they test and tune if needed before delivery... which is really important QC step