Chain preference on a 550XP

[Spike60]

Bob, I have more fun pulling out a 181SE from the back of my Old Bronco or an old Lever action Winchester or Marlin.  They will start a conversation and spark interest.  Like I said I have more fun with the vintage stuff.  I suppose a person making a living dropping trees or guide on a hunt needs the assurance of newer equipment, but I trust my old equipment.  That old Suburban with the winch I bought new in 1993.  

Same here. Love cutting firewood with the old girls. My favorite vintage 50cc/70cc 2 saw plan is a 49sp/70e Jonsered combo. Almost makes me wonder why I own newer saws. ProMac 60, XL925 for the home team is another. We're back on topic.    

[Old Greenhorn]

Cripes, we really need a new thread. Barbender, I hear you, but I was raised by a gunsmith.  My Pop loved his 03A3's which he made a nice little business out of sporterizing for others. His is a work of art. But he would be the first to tell you, as he taught me, hunting in these woods with the heavy cover, you will miss a lot of shots. He hunted moose in Newfoundland every September and that was what he built his gun for. He shot 220 grain up there, down here, he would use his 99D Savage in .308. (Dad had a 'thing' for 99's and at one point he had 12 or more in his rack. I don't know where they went. I have a 99D in 30-30, I bought it because it is rare and an elegant gun). But the point is the velocity is so high that any tiny little ting the projectile hits ill send it off in another direction. My carry gun around here, when I was hunting was/is a 35 Remington as Dhansen suggested. I shoot a Marlin 366 SDL That my Mom gave to my Pop on their 5th wedding anniversary. You might say the gun is special for me.
 I was immersed in he gun world as a kid and through my 20's and 30's, then kids came along and priorities. Now I am getting near 70 and I still respect and love the 'hobby' but I have forgotten a lot of stuff, and it's a same that I have a lot of fine pieces I have not laid eyes on in years, but I still have and cherish them.
 You guys are getting me going and I really need to get to bed. Have I mentioned this should really be a different thread? My apologies to the OP.

[chet]

Spike I'll agree on yer old saw choices 'cept one.    Ditch da 49sp for a 52E. 

[chet]

To answer DHansen, yes to the Brass cartridge indicator.

[barbender]

Ok back on topic, there still only needs to be one chain gauge for 325, and one for 3/8. I don't even care what it is. Heck we can make a new one up, just as long as going forward that's all there is. I tend to be a fan of standardization.

 My money is on a narrow kerf .050" on that 550xp. That's what I always ran on my 346xp and it cut great👍

[DHansen]

Society of Chainsaw Engineers!  SCE.   They can standardize Pitch and gauge.  Like nuts and bolts. 

[chet]

Back in my earlier years when money was a little harder to come by, I would outfit all my saws with 50 gauge bars. When da bars got too sloppy for da 50 gauge chain I'd switch to 58 gauge chain. None ever lasted long enough to get to da 63 chain. 

[barbender]

Chet, now you got me thinking I'm missing out on an untapped benefit 😂

[Spike60]

Chet, have a couple each of the 49's and 52's. I'll concede the 52 is a little better choice. Not for the closed port, but really for the "E" part and no points. But 49sp's were big sellers around here in their day. It's amazing how many of them survived and still run. Think I have 5 of them. 

Jonsered was top dog back then in these parts. Al Ostrander took on the line back in 1972. The product was good, but he focused on parts and service. He once told me, "Lotta people are happy to sell you a saw, but they aren't to happy about working on them". Lost Al a few years ago. Still buddies with his son Danny.

[Spike60]

The gauge thing goes back to when saw markets were more regional than national. The 2 big dogs, Mac and homelite on opposite ends of the country went with .058 and .050 respectively. Some old timers refer to .058 as McCulloch chain. Everyone else picked one or the other. Some companies offered both to better fit into whatever trend a given market was dominated by. Jonsered stuck with .058 on both 3/8 and .325 right up until Tilton lost it about 10 years ago. 

I always ordered both Husky and Jonsered saws with .058. In either 3/8 or .325, so we weren't selling the red saw with one gauge and the orange saw with another. Plus I have to admit to the devious enjoyment that none of the stihl dealers around here had any 58 gauge chain to sell these guys. 

[barbender]

Haha Spike that is devious😂 

Jonsered saws were quite popular, more so it seems than other regions and some where they were almost unheard of. My first new saw was a 2165, which I liked a lot but dropped a wrist pin bearing. The local dealer tried to help me out as much as they could on my not long out of warranty saw, and gave me trade in price of a running saw on a new 2171, which I still have. I know the 372/2171 has legions of fans, but in all honesty I preferred that 2165. Nice smooth torque off the bottom, you could just roll into a cut. I remember old Jonsered sales literature from the time promoted the 2165 as a "hardwood saw" because of the nature of its torquey power delivery.

 The 2171 had a spark plug fall apart (right after I was bragging on here how I never change my plugs because they don't foul🤦) and destroyed the top end. At the time, an OEM P&C was upwards of $400 I think, more than I felt like investing in the ol girl so I put a "Big Bore" kit on it from Bailey's. That woke that saw up, it's kind of a cutting monster now😳 I thought maybe it was just in my head, but I had a guy I hired to help me block up a bunch of firewood. He usually runs a 372, I never told him I did anything to that 2171. He came up to me after running it for a few hours and said, "that's a nice cutting saw!". "Yes it is"😁

[DHansen]

ButchC,  The K1 chain you mentioned also looks like a very good choice.  Do you know if it is NK - narrow kerf?  I tried to look it up, it is available but no notes on kerf.  I am suspecting it is not.  The .050" and .058" gauge bars I have are all NK.  

The 23RSP cuts really nice, thanks to SkeeterKiev for the information on that chain.  The 20LPX cut nice, but is not NK and you can tell the difference between the LPX and the 23RS.   The SP33G is smooth and easy cutting, it has safety bumpers.  I like the 23RS and am glad I asked this question.  I think the Carlton K1 will perform like the 20LPX.  

Helpful information from all and much appreciated.

[Spike60]

@barbender , your description of your 2165 experience is pretty well spot on. Those generally neglected 48mm top ends are way better than most people think. Most people suspect that the 4 different top ends for that chassis were little more than an effort to create different models. That was part of it of course, but there was a lot more thinking behind those top ends than just displacement. The 48 was intended to have that low end grunt you described. In fact it's recommended top speed was 12,500 even though it could easily do the 13,500 like the others. 

The 47mm kit on the 2163/362 was designed for quick acceleration and also spun at 13,500. Walt ran his 2163 last time I was up there and it went a LONG time on one tank of fuel. And that's the other hardly talked about advantage of both the 47 and 48 mm top ends: noticeable improvement in fuel use. Not important if you are cutting near the truck and the gas can is only a few steps away. But walking off into the woods, the extra run time could come in handy.

[Spike60]

To add a little to the NK discussion, I ran some on my 560G the other day. 20" versacut with the TXL hardly felt like there was even a bar on the saw it was such a light package. And being it's a 60cc saw, I went with an 8 pin rim. 

Really quick and handy saw to run. Very smooth. Actually the whole thing came out better than I expected, and it'll get more than the occasional use I was planning. I was cutting a 16" white oak, so it was a decent test for the new member of the family. Nice option to have with any of these small mount saws. Think some similar experiments are in order on the previous 2 chassis, 262/257 and 357/359. 

[Old Greenhorn]

That narrow kerf chain is smooth and quick; a nice combo. I usually run 21LGX on my 50cc saws. The better ones get an 8 pin rim.

Understand that I am posting the following comment with quite a smirk on my face: All the guys who are gonna jump in here and say you should run 3/8 chain on 50cc saws are wrong. And they're probably no good at sharpening .325 chain either.  

That oughta get a few people worked up, huh?

I resemble that remark!  I have thought of converting my 450 to 3/8 and at the same time converting it to a rim drive instead of that dang spur drive. I don't know why that would be bad except my .325 bars would become useless. I am way too frugal to do that.
 Back to the original question: I ran 20lpx with great success and happiness for several years after trying all kinds of chains and decided that was the one for me. Besides, I could reconfigure them as square ground and they would cut very well. But then I got the 562 and it came with X-cut. That was it for me. Sharpening was much easier with that zero top angle and they cut great! I switched my other two saws over to X-cut and we are very happy together.
 As a side note Spike, I was cutting mushroom logs today and Bill grabbed my saw to make some cuts and drop the next tree. A little while later he asked me if I was running a new chain or if I sharpened my own. I told him I just sharpened after each days session. He said "well, you've got that thing cutting really nice." I take that as a sign that my sharpening skills are acceptable since I had hit some dirty bark earlier in the day and I wasn't happy with it even though it wasn't really that bad. That x-cut is the cat's butt if you ask me.

[Spike60]

Tom, I don't think the 450 would like 3/8 too much. Plus, I'm not sure how the oil gear would match up with drum for the rim sprocket. Thing to keep in mind is that the diameter of a 7 pin 3/8 is about the same as an 8 pin. 325. So in addition to the extra drag of 3/8, we got that torque vs speed trade off that Dave covered pretty well with his Husky 61 thread. Few people think of that "double hit" regarding a switch like this. 

Granted, my opinion is based on the fact that I really like .325, and always have. I get it that not everyone shares that view. Some just like to keep everything the same. And I suspect some guys got into one of the lesser .325 chains and just figured they were all junk and wanted no more of them. 

[ehp]

I guess I'm one of those guys Spike was talking about that puts 3/8 chain on those small saws cause I do . Lol.  And ho most likely is correct that I do mot know how to file that .325 stuff but I still think I can hold my own doing that but I do think I can file 3/8 chain quite well but I could be wrong on that to  but the stop watch does not lie if ran correctly.  346 or 550 all ran 3/8 if I'm using them and cut very well

[barbender]

 Yep Spike, I always lived the power delivery of that 2165. I actually felt like it was a bit safer, because you didn't have to have the engine speed up to cut. Right from idle when you hit the throttle, it had nice smooth power. 

 My Stihl ms261cm actually has a similar power delivery. It feels kind of odd at first in a small saw, but again, it makes it easy to run and user friendly imo.

 The Husky 390xp has a nice smooth bottom end too. But that's getting where you're carrying something😁
 
 I used to follow motocross, and one thing that always struck me was that when the magazine guys would get to ride a pro rider's works bike, the thing that typically jumped out at them was...nothing. The power delivery on those bikes tended to be smooth and predictable. Sure they had a lot of it, but no big barking midrange or anything. Just roll it on and let it rev if you didn't feel like shifting. Well that's how I like a saw, too. Especially since it only has one gear😊
 

[SkeeterKev]

The nose is smaller on the 325 bar vs 3/8.  

When I bore cut smaller maple the smaller dia. bar is required to leave holding wood.  RSPro is also very smooth when entering the bore cut.

Larger maple I use a larger saw with 3/8 chain.