So N80, have you decided to go for a bigger saw?
Sort of.
We felled 3 pines today. The largest was about 20" at the base and almost 90 feet tall. The smallest was 16" at the base and around 65 feet tall.
My son in law felled all three. Just for the story all three fell exactly where we wanted them to using wedges. For the third one we also hooked a big come-along to it because it was likely to hang up in the top, which it did. The come-along got it through with very little effort.
He has a Stihl 460 with a full chisel chain (I think). It is not ported or modded or anything but he is thinking about it.
I used it for some of the bucking we did, which was not much since we were cutting the logs at 14' long.
I felt that the saw was quite heavy and he says the weight gets to him since that is his only saw and he uses it for everything. (He is a surveyor and they use 260s a lot cutting lines and he wants something that size for his own use as well.) However, the saw handled well and cut really well. It did not feel like it was too much for me.
So, now I have something to base things on. I think a saw about that size would be just right. A little lighter would be nice.
He used my saw for some limbing and bucking in the tops. Yesterday it was dead dull and I sharpened it well last night. I asked him if it felt sharp and he said it did and he is a stickler for sharpening.......all of which is to say that the perceived weakness in the saw is not because it is dull.
The difference between the two saws was very noticeable both in weight and performance.
I will continue to use my saw for now but if the demand and tree size continue at this level I will be shopping for a saw in the 460 range. All advice given here much appreciated......and I promise to keep my chains sharp.
As a side note, I used a log weight calculator to calculate the size of the largest 14' section and it was around 1300 pounds. We had to skid them out which was no big deal but when I went to put them in a pile I used the pallet forks on my bucket. My tractor is a Kubota
L4400 4wd with the LA703 loader (rated at 1700 pounds at the pin). Well, with bucket forks the log sits just in front of the edge of the bucket and it felt like I was at the limit with tractor even with a 500 pound box blade on the back and filled rears. The hydraulics felt fine but the ag tires on the front (not ideal for this kind of work) were squishy and any inputs on the hydraulics had to be very smooth and slow. My saw mill can handle larger logs but I will have to be very careful with anything bigger.