Hard_Yakka
ArboristSite Member
Oak, madrone, fir
Stihl MS250
- Thread starter JA600L
- Start date
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Madrone is a beast. Thanks for sharing.
I see and talked to a lot of tree services that use ms250's in their fleet. My experience, if properly maintained and not pushed hard through very large wood they usually last pretty near as long as many pro saws.
Hard_Yakka
ArboristSite Member
I bought it from a saw shop I work with on referrals, owner is a vet (marine, I was a corpsman) and I've known 15 or so years, he carries one as the other part of shop is a tree service. It's a go to saw for small to medium stuff but I've learned my lesson not just to take it alone to a job, never know it's mood that day. No small engine on our farm sees E10 either.
Open up the muffler and adjust the carb plenty rich, that it burbles wide open, no load but clears up under load, keep the air filter clean and it should work flawlessly. And don't lack any on chain maintnence if you want to be really happy using it. If you have fresh good mix in it and do that it would mean something is wrong or not quite like it should be if it is not performing well.
I’ve beat the crap out of mine between work and home for 10 years. I don’t know how many crane jobs it’s done.
It gets finicky every couple of years, gets a good cleaning, lines, filters, and a tune and goes back to work.
I brought it to the shop that works on our saws and the owner said “you would really be better off with a 261”. I reminded him that we had 4 of them but this old girl just keeps on going.
I sent it to Randy when I first got it for a little pick me up so I’m sure that has something to do with how well it runs.
I have the Stihl 025 which I think is the direct ancestor of the 250. I've had it 20+ years for 4 acres. I heat with about 3 full cords of hardwood a year and remove a lot of brush and softwood. I find it to be a reliable strong saw. A few years ago I thought of getting a bigger saw after I used a friend's but then going back to my 025 I realized I didn't want to be hefting a heavier saw around so at this point this is probably my forever saw. No regrets.
ms250 is a good little saw that can run up to a 18" bar, its a clamshell engine but stihl clams last a long time and have plenty of grunt. No its not a pro saw so it cuts larger stuff slower than a pro saw but you wont care its taking a few seconds longer per cut. Just do not pull or leverage the saw too hard when cutting, keep it reasonably clean, sharpen the chain often and change the consumables, filters and run good oil/fuel and it will last a very long time.
For the others crying about their saw running like *** or being hard to start, take the saw apart and clean it well then look it over carefully. replace the fuel hose and filter, impulse line, spark plug and replace the carb guts then properly adjust it, this literally solves 90% of issues I find. Ask in the manual thread for the repair manual and parts list if step one does not solve or expose your problem.
I hear so many stories full of excuses from shops parroted by people who just took their car/saw/mower/blower/truck to a shop and PAID good money to have it fixed but it still has the same problems or even more of them! Everything I repair comes from word of mouth, people ask me before sending others my contact info and I have to say the stories and crazy billing without a repair have gotten much worse over the last year and a half. The worst part is the shops are buttering these folks, treating them like a friend yet charge huge sums to diag but never find the root cause, very often over and over again.
For the others crying about their saw running like *** or being hard to start, take the saw apart and clean it well then look it over carefully. replace the fuel hose and filter, impulse line, spark plug and replace the carb guts then properly adjust it, this literally solves 90% of issues I find. Ask in the manual thread for the repair manual and parts list if step one does not solve or expose your problem.
I hear so many stories full of excuses from shops parroted by people who just took their car/saw/mower/blower/truck to a shop and PAID good money to have it fixed but it still has the same problems or even more of them! Everything I repair comes from word of mouth, people ask me before sending others my contact info and I have to say the stories and crazy billing without a repair have gotten much worse over the last year and a half. The worst part is the shops are buttering these folks, treating them like a friend yet charge huge sums to diag but never find the root cause, very often over and over again.
sbhooper
Addicted to ArboristSite
Yep. It is often for easy stuff that about anybody could figure out, if they bothered to learn a little bit. I guess that it is really no different than vehicle shops. They prey on ignorant people.
