Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Chainsaw Milling: What saw are you using?

Im fiddling with my 30” Granberg mill and up to now have been using my Dolmar 7900 but it’s slinging too much oil off the tip at the highest setting and not enough at the middle setting so I’m considering a larger saw with less RPM & more torque - maybe a saw that’s not primarily meant for bucking/felling like the 7900 is.

Any advice or ideas in the 80-100cc class?

Pints

Regardless of the saw you use, do you have a chain that sharpened for milling instead of cross cutting? Ripping wood with a crosscut chain is not going to produce a smooth cut, and you'll be wasting a lot of power. Sharpen a chain with a 5 degree tooth angle, and use it for ripping only.

I do - I’ve got a couple Granberg 10* ripping chains. World of difference like you say

I've got an attachment I bought years ago, oiler doo dad for the bar nose, works well, solved the issue. You can still buy the Granberg aux oiler, bolts to the offside mill frame, I don't know how well it works. 75 bucks, I think. The ONE thing that made my beams dimensionally better was a milling bar, wierd torpedo shaped bar but it totally eliminated the 'waves'. The torpedo bar already has ports for nose oiling. Grinding oil passages in a standard bar is a pain.

I've got a bunch of pro Stihl saws including several 066's and 084's. The 66ers are your standard high RPM type, but the 084 feels like you're running a Diesel powered saw.
They rev slow, don't run very high RPM, but produce a lot of low end torque compared to the 066/MS660's. You can probably get an old used 084 a lot cheaper than an 088 or MS880.
If you're bucking, the 066/660 will out-run an 084/088 in anything below 40".

Tony

Shown below is an 084 with a short 41" bar on it. I have another one with a 53" bar, but many times guys run 59"+ bars on these saws.

Great post Tony!

I may just get an MS880 and be done with it - I like carb tuning when needed and still not sure about the auto tune saws but clearly that’s where things are going

I’m concerned about parts for anything much older than an 066 but would love one of them if I could find a clean one.

Wanna sell one? 😜

No such thing as too much oil when milling.

I use an echo 800 36" with our Alaskan mill. It works. Rather use our bandsaw mill at the property but doesn't always work out that way

I’ll have to look into the Aux oiler. I’ve seen it on Bailey’s but haven’t upgraded. I’m still using a standard bar but will certainly upgrade along with the new saw.

Thanks for the suggestions!

These two 084's have been sitting up on this shelf for the last 5 years. I don't know if they even run at the moment. They were both running great 5 years ago.
If you're interested in one of them, shoot me a PM. They're just collecting dust and I don't really have a use for them in Oklahoma.

Tony Rumore
Tromix

I know 3 guys that use a chainsaw for milling. One uses a Husqvarna 3120, another one uses an echo 800, and another one uses a stihl 661

Husqvarna 395xp all day everyday.

Now we’re talking!

Instead of buying an ms880 just to mill with, save another $1k and buy a damn band saw mill. Waaay faster, 10x more productive, better cuts, and you’re not tearing up a saw.

PM Sent your way

I hear that 100% but I’m often not able to get the tree to the mill as easily as individual slabs back to the shop for sticking so I have to mill where they are.

What ever you run.
Tune it fat.