For anyone looking for Stihl 63PMX lo pro ripping chain in the US

Coralillo Lo Pro · Tuesday at 10:07 PM

This place up the road from me in Canyon Lake is selling off a bunch of 20" and 28" loops they probably got from the local Logosol dealer who I think is out of Canyon Lake. Works out to about 40 cents a link which is what it costs for an entire 100' roll from Baileys, so if you only need a few chains it's a good deal. Can always remake the loops into the sizes you need if you're not running a 20 or 28" bar. https://www.ebay.com/itm/126686914550

Mad Professor · 2024-11-17T23:16:51-0500

Coralillo Lo Pro said:
This place up the road from me in Canyon Lake is selling off a bunch of 20" and 28" loops they probably got from the local Logosol dealer who I think is out of Canyon Lake. Works out to about 40 cents a link which is what it costs for an entire 100' roll from Baileys, so if you only need a few chains it's a good deal. Can always remake the loops into the sizes you need if you're not running a 20 or 28" bar. https://www.ebay.com/itm/126686914550

Thanks for the heads up.

As bad luck would have it my picco bars are 16" and 25". I don't have a spinner or tie straps either......

I've got an older M5 Logosol mill, and the 25" will square up about any log up to the mill capacity.

Coralillo Lo Pro · 2024-11-17T23:57:09-0500

Mad Professor said:
As bad luck would have it my picco bars are 16" and 25". I don't have a spinner or tie straps either......

Dang, I was mostly thinking of you when posting that. I have a 20" bar, but plenty of chain (not PMX) for it for now, and otherwise 36 and 48" bars. I have a spinner and tie straps, so a 20 and 28 would be perfect to make 48" chains from where I most need the quality and strength of the PMX. Have yet to even make up a chain for that 48" bar since I got it, bit of an experiment in seeing where lo pro begins to fail. Will take a soft touch and some custom skip chain configuration to make it work. Stuck in a giant renovation of a future house and property taking up most of my energy, and finding no trees to mill anywhere for awhile. Certainly not any bigger than 30", which the 36" bar can handle. Need to go north and find some big trees.

Mad Professor · 2024-11-18T00:43:20-0500

Coralillo Lo Pro said:
Dang, I was mostly thinking of you when posting that. I have a 20" bar, but plenty of chain (not PMX) for it for now, and otherwise 36 and 48" bars. I have a spinner and tie straps, so a 20 and 28 would be perfect to make 48" chains from where I most need the quality and strength of the PMX. Have yet to even make up a chain for that 48" bar since I got it, bit of an experiment in seeing where lo pro begins to fail. Will take a soft touch and some custom skip chain configuration to make it work. Stuck in a giant renovation of a future house and property taking up most of my energy, and finding no trees to mill anywhere for awhile. Certainly not any bigger than 30", which the 36" bar can handle. Need to go north and find some big trees.

Are you running those on the 880? Curious where you found bars and drive sprockets?

Before they went out of business, Left Coast supplies had great deals on 3003 mount GB picco bars. The 25" was $23 and chains were $21. Should have bought more.

Coralillo Lo Pro · 2024-11-18T01:52:50-0500

Mad Professor said:
Are you running those on the 880? Curious where you found bars and drive sprockets?

Before they went out of business, Left Coast supplies had great deals on 3003 mount GB picco bars. The 25" was $23 and chains were $21. Should have bought more.

I'm running the 36" on the 056 Super. Was initially going to run the 48" bar on the 880 as it comes in an 880 mount, but I fear it's just too much torque and way more power than I need to run it and might snap chains too easily. But I do have to make up my mind because the chain loops have to be made to fit one saw or the other, I think it will likely be different link numbers for the 056 Super and the 880. Then I also have to settle on a lo pro drive rim, as the 10 tooth one I bought from Danzco/6K to speed up and de-torque the 880 was too ambitious in size and will likely cause me to throw chains. Have to decide on whether I want to throw another $50 at an 8 or 9 tooth, or use one of the 7 tooth LP ones I already have. Have been getting the bars from the UK - https://www.chainsawbars.co.uk/product-category/gb-lo-pro-milling-bars/

Before I throw any more money down this "lo pro on big logs" rabbit hole that I barely seem to have a use for, I might as well make up a loop of the Archer LP ripping chain I have, put the 48" bar on my 056 Super with its 7 tooth LP rim (the 48" bar has dual oil and tensioner hole setups for 3002 and 3003 Stihls) and just find some short huge round of live oak around here to test it on. I don't mind doing the alternate pairs "double skip" custom grind on cheap chain in an experiment, but wouldn't want to waste good PMX doing it if I don't really like the result. I can't imagine full comp LP chain working well at all on that bar, I saw one video from the UK on Youtube of a guy milling a 40" oak with the 48" bar with full comp and it looked really slow (though granted, any 40" oak is gonna be pretty slow though with anything). Can't find that but here's someone with an 881 running the 48" GB lo pro bar on 24" ash with 63PMX, which isn't terribly fast for 24" wood but isn't overly slow either and they're also being sure not to push it too much.

Or since I have a 10 tooth rim already and those guys had no trouble running the setup with an 881 (with 7 tooth LP rim I assume), I could just make up a chain to fit the 880 and see if the 10 tooth throws it or not flowing off the sprocket on to the bar. Trick will be to make up a number of links that lets me butt the bar up as close to the drive rim as possible to minimize the distance between leaving the drive rim and entering the bar rail.