Stihl ms461 chainsaw

[David31216]

I recently purchased a Stihl ms461 chainsaw with a 25" bar to use at home. My old Husqvarna 55 Rancher with the 20" bar was a little sluggish cutting through big logs, so I decided to upgrade to something with more power. (I have a number of big trees around my house). The bar that came on it was a 25" Duromatic E solid steel bar with a 36RS84 full chisel (yellow) chain, but this made the saw awfully heavy so I put on a 25" lightweight Rollomatic ES bar with a green chain. I know some of you think that I may have gone overboard with getting this big saw, but I have always felt that it was better to have too much power than not enough. My question is this. There is quite a power difference in the old Husky and this new Stihl (3.4 hp vs. 6.0 hp). Some people have warned me that I could experience a lot of kickback with this new saw, especially if I decide to cut smaller logs and branches with it. Do you all think that using this saw will create a dangerous situation for me? Thoughts?

 

[ILENGINE]

My thoughts. I would keep the small Husky for cutting stuff below about 14 inches. Leave the Stihl for the big stuff. The green low kickback chain will give you some protection over the full chisel chain, but the light weight bar can make the kickback worse due to physics of mass and acceleration.

Avoid using the upper half of the bar nose to prevent kickback, but any time you use the top side of the bar you can get pushback and kickback.