Pioneer P41: What's with the letters after P41?

[trail dog]

I have a couple of P41 Chainsaws. One's a P41ex, and the other is a P41S. I've also noticed that on ebay, a few folks sell a P41H chainsaw. Does anybody know the difference, or what the letters correspond to? Share your wisdom, chainsaw experts. Thanks.

-Trail Dog

Firewood Saws: Homelite 360 Pro, Pioneer P41

 

[Rotax Robert]

I have an old p41hp. I think hp stands for high performance or huron park, heard both sides. So step up experts.

 

[lesorubcheek]

I'll need to look again in one of the Intertec manuals, but I think the S was for safety, meaning that it had a chain brake, or maybe it was just a hand guard. I don't remember seeing an H. I wouldn't be surprized if there was a letter designation used to distinguish the full wrap handlebar vs. regular. I'd love to find some good literature on the P series. I don't see many of these saws in these parts, but I do love them.

Dan

 

[pioneerman]

The S after the P41 stands for the saws with the safety brake assembly, as the regular P41 came without the brake. I have not seen any reference to ex in any of my Pioneer manuals. The HP designation was introduced in the later saws, early 80's and stood for high performance. The porting on these saws is different than the regular P41's allowing these saws to rev a little higher and produce more power. I think the porting on the HP's is similar to the P42's and Poulan 405's. I have one P41HP, 2 P42's and a Poulan 405 and there is a noticeable difference in power and cutting speed with these saws over the regular P41.

 

[pioneerman]

Checked out my shop manuals this afternoon and came up with the following info. The P41's originally came out as four models, the P41F, P41SF, P41H, and P41SH. The letter F stands for full wrap handle, the letter H stands for half wrap handle. The letter S as I mentioned above stands for chain brake. So the P41F would be a full wrap handled saw without the chainbrake, P41SF would be full wrap with chainbrake. The P41H would be a half wrap without chainbrake and the P41SH would be half wrap with chainbrake.