TBH I've kind of resisted asking for views/ideas here as I know you'll all encourage me and really I know I don't need a bigger saw, its just this ****** ash which is a bit bigger and problematic!
OK, situation as you know is I get my wood from a nearby tree guy. The ash I've been battling came from another source and I won't use that again. What I get from the usual source is all clean, and if its big diameter rings (I've had upto about 24" oak) he has already ringed it short (shorter than I'd ring it myself) so the saw only comes out to buck smaller diameter stuff. The largest I deal with is normally about 12 to 14" and the ms180 copes fine. Things get more painful when i get a super knotty bit. These get put to one side and then as the pile grows i get the saw out and cut them up, and but the ms180 copes and (Ash aside) its only a few pieces a year so slow cutting isn't so bad...but the Ash has been more work and that makes me think about a bigger saw. Hence the idle browsing of ebay. I did consider a new but cheaper saw and you may have seen me asking questions about the mccolloch version of the poulan pro 5020 over in the 'saw forum. We don't get poulan here but do get muccolloch. however it isn't a strong or supported brand here so I've gone cold on that. Instead I've started to look for a second hand stihl capable of pulling an 18" bar ok. Not knowing the saws well my research is watch ebay, see what the different saws go for and check the specs. I've seen 034 go as low as £85 up to about £250+ with little reasoning regarding condition that i could see. I suspect it was more down to location and the vagaries of ebay auctions. I started looking at , 034s,034AV Supers, ms340s, and moved to browse bigger saws like 036s and 038s just to see if they were cheaper through some weird quirk. Even looked at some 440s. As far as I can tell there is a leap in price for the 440/044 but the 038s aren't much more than the 034s, I'm watching a user refurbished 038AVS with a buy it now of £266 after postage (seller says new seals and gaskets, piston and pot in good condition, excellent compression and photos appear to back that up). My gut says that is a bargain, but my head says i don't need it so I've not hit 'buy it now'. Awkwardly I don't have the time for project saw yet don't want to risk more cash on an ebay purchase where I can't check the saw out myself before bidding.
Dancan do you have a Hutzl/Famertec saw? I came across the kits on ebay and although it seems naughty with 660 kits at about 25% of the real item it looks interesting. I googled and found youtube reviews plus read the various threads in the saw forum on the 440 kits and other kits. Clearly there are both fans and haters. My intuition says the alloys and plastics won't be good quality, the qc won't be there, and unless you're lucky the saw won't last and could be a frustrating experience. However I'm still intrigued.
So currently I idly browse and I've put some pretty low ball bids in on a few 034/034avs saws, if i get lucky in a semi 'you suck!' kind of way then great, but in the meantime I use patience and the ms180 and watch the pile of ash go down...I've done 3/4 of it.
Yeah, I get all that. But...
You know, I was at the footy last week with a mate of mine and we had a coupla beers. It was a good game, 70,000 people in attendance, and in the end my team won in a thriller. After the second beer, he said to me, "You know, that second beer went down better than the first" And I said, "Yeah, you're right! So it stands to reason....." . I can't actually remember the end of the game, but those extra beers definitely went down better as they went.
Let's be honest. You have a tiny saw. Sure, it's a Stihl which makes it awesome. But still tiny. You need a bigger saw. It stands to reason.
I started out with a 50 odd cc saw - the landowner MS310 Farmboss. Started off liking it, but liked it less over time. It was ok, not great. Didn't necessarily want to start. Couldn't pull a 20 inch bar happily in aussie hardwood. Air filter was stupid. Anti-vibe next to non-existent. Eventually I told Cowgirl I was going to buy some new tyres for the Subaru and went and bought the 460 workhorse as well.
70-something cc's, way better anti-vibe, easier to start despite being a bigger saw, happy to bash through aussie hardwood. But then I thought ... "Well, if 70cc is that much better than 50cc, it stands to reason that a 90cc ..." . And the Subaru needed some new tyres again anyway.
Let's face facts. Your wife likes being warm. The heater you've installed looks great. But it doesn't heat itself, it needs fuel. As it happens, the fuel it needs does grow on trees. But since you can't insert a whole tree in the heater, it needs to be cut to size. Cute and lovable as your MS180 is, it can't handle the big stuff. Besides, your wife wants you to be happy. And, it has been scientifically proven beyond all doubt that your wife will be absolutely happy for you to have a bigger saw as long as she doesn't know you bought it.
You know you need it. It stands to reason.
Hey, I think the Subaru needs some new tyres again too...
nice piece of locust that will need about a year to dry. sorry about the locust 
and I did.
