Weird issue: Bore Cutting with XCut chain.

[DHansen]

On the roller file guides, my guide for the SP33G chain has a light grey body and orange rollers.  It is marked 33 and has the narrow kerf emblem stamped into the base.  The roller guide for my C83 and C85 chain is a grey body and blue rollers. It is also stamped 83/85. 

I do not bore cut often, but when I do with the 550XP, the Stihl 23RS does bore cutting better than the SP33G, but that is just my opinion.  You can compare for yourself and see what you think.  I'd make sure your bar is a narrow kerf bar as a first step.  Just my 2 cents, from non-pro.

[DHansen]

The symbol is in the circle in front of the 33.

[barbender]

 I always liked the 95vp chain on my Husky 346. It cut fast, smooth, and held a good edge. I thought it bore cut fine🤷 

 
 

[Spike60]

Tom, I don't know if there's an official answer on the bar question. I never saw anything warning against mixing narrow and standard kerf B&C's. The key is that putting narrow kerf chain on a standard bar still has enough overhang that there is no binding. It would have been a colossal blunder to design a chain that required a special bar. 

More to the point, in a real world way, is that we never paid any attention to it in the store. We sold countless loops of chain and never gave it a thought. And we never had one instance where mixing these products caused a problem. It would have been ridiculously complicated if we had to ask which bar was on a customer's saw. .050 and .058 is bad enough.

550's might go out with the SP33 on an "Xforce" bar, but the pro guys would usually buy LGX replacements in quantity. They wanted full chisel, as much for sharpening familiarity as the full chisel itself. ( I think the 33 and 95 are easier myself.)

The S93G 3/8 lo pro chain is also labeled Xcut. Comes on all the little saws including the professional top handles. Those dudes won't tolerate a bad chain when working up top. It does have the green label. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well see there, I just learned something new. Thanks Bob. I thought maybe I was working with a mismatch between bar and chain without knowing any better. I went from whatever was stock chain back around 2014 to LPX to X-cut without thinking of bar widths at all. The LPX I would sharpened as square ground for a while and tried that for a year, then just fell back to round. I liked how to square cut though. Now it's all x-cut. Only change I made was putting a lightweight Husky bar on the 562. It's an oddball without a replaceable tip and I have never seen another, I think it was only out for a little while and they had some kind of contest where you go on their website and register the purchase and in 6 months or so they would send you a survey to fill out and be entered to win some stuff (a new saw if I recall). Anyway, I did that and never got the survey, maybe they dropped that design from the line?
 The main thing is that whatever chain you use, it should be sharp (and have the rakers down where they should be). A small saw with a cheap but sharp chain will outcut a big saw with a dull chain every time.

[Spike60]

Found a couple stray items in the old showroom. Another Xcut chain, (they're all called Xcut), SP21G. It's their version of the .325 LP. Which Oregon calls Speed Cut Nano. Maybe we need fewer marketing guys? Never used it but I'm going to put it on one of my .325 saws and see what it does. Mix the old with the new and try it on a 51 I built with a jonserd 490 top end. I think this stuff is intended as a performance alternative for bucket saws. Small cutters like 3/8 lp, but more of them. 8 pin rim ought to make it interesting.

@barbender I also liked the 95. Always lasted longer than the full chisel for me. More forgiving if you hit the dirt and far easier to sharpen.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, just when I thought I understood it, you just upturned the apple cart AGAIN and I am back to being confused. Nano? Pixel? LP? I give up. I think one of the main goals of marketing is to keep everybody confused and buying the wrong stuff. They win! I give up.
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 Just a follow-up on the OP. I was back out today, which was stupid with 20-30mph wing and I dropped a few trees which I had to bore through the center to put a wedge in. Ironically, on a calm day, no wedging would be needed. But, the wind was blowing against the fall and they wouldn't fall over. So I bored 3 trees and it defiantly bore easier, not quite as easy as I would like, but much easier. I may take those rakers down to the 'softwood' level. So in conclusion, I think it was 'me' all along. I have to pay more attention to those rakers from here on out.

[lxskllr]

Nano is a low profile .325, kind of like ⅜"lp. Used on small saws like top handles. Seems to be fairly new, and I've just been seeing saws shipped with that chain.

[Andries]

Maybe I missed it Tom, but have you tried the Stihl two and one sharpener?
For a two-tank, dull blade - one maybe two strokes of the file, and the teeth plus rakers are taken care of.
I'm to the point now where I'll leave a chain on the bar until it's sharpened out.
Just touch it up after two tankfuls and keep on going.

[Old Greenhorn]

Andries, I never got around to trying one and I wasn't interested enough to throw 40 buck just to see. I am pretty sure they don't make these for the X-cut chains anyway. I like taking care of the individual parts where I can see each tooth and make sure it's right, or at least know if it's not right. I started my working career as a cutter grinder and old habits die hard. Maybe someday I'll have a chance to try somebody else's, but I always saw it as a general tool. I know a lot of folks, have, use, and are happy with them, just never appealed to me.
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On the OP, it may not be over yet. Yesterday I said it was 'easier', but that didn't mean 'right'. Well today I didn't drop any trees for other reasons, but I did hack of the rest of the firewood I had by the shop. When I am cutting in a pile I use the tip a lot and I noticed anything I touched with the tip did not cut easy, if at all until I put pressure on it. Not normal. If I slid past the tip (meaning the bottom half of the nose radius) it ripped right through. So I finished up the wood and put the saw back on the bench. I had checked the bar for burrs, but this time I took it off and found there was in fact a bar burr just around the tip area. Not really big, but it might have been big enough. So I dressed it all properly, cleaned everything up (seemed to be dripping some oil) and put it back together, but I had cut all the wood I had here. SO it will have to wait for another day. That bar has a lot of hours on it. I also noticed a tiny bit of shake in the nose sprocket bearing, wondering ho much is too much. If I still have a problem, I might throw a different bar on it, just for giggles. Or I might just swap it for the 450 and worry about it after harvest season. I have to get this done in the next 10 -15 days or so.
I am gonna figure this out, and whne I do, I'll tell y'all. Fair nuff?

[ehp]

So today is was cool in the morning so 20F and we got 4 inches of snow yesterday so the trees had a lot of moister in the wood so a brand new stihl RS 33 chain would not cut at all , just staked across the trees pretty much , I ended up at around .050 racker before the chain started to bite , I'm cutting walnut so chain has to cut so not to split the butts . Now if the wood was not frozen I would run closer to .030 racker . I have video a lot of how a chain cuts where a lot that has been told is wrong , I see so many guys put a 8 pin on a 372 so its faster than a 7 pin and in 99% of the time its not faster at all, Chain speed comes at a cost to cutting speed to horsepower , It all has to work together and tree type,tree diameter ,  bar length , engine horsepower and engine torque all plays factors into cutting speed