I enjoyed myself too Andrew. Good to play with your saws
I'll give everybody a run down on Andrew's saws compared to mine - as honest as I can be.
The most impressive saw I ran of Andrews was his stock MS460. Impressive because it had WAY more torque than I'd have thought.
I also ran his Masterminded MS241C and that was impressive. Not crazy modified but definitely something I'll consider getting done to my 241 in the future. Pulled really well and way better than stock. Nice setup for a work saw and pulled .325" full chisel on a 16" bar easily in green Redgum.
His modded 441C was impressive. It's no secret I don't like the balance of the 441's for falling but that's because I am used to Huskys and Dolmars. This thing had quick throttle response and despite only cutting smaller wood with a pretty dull chain I knew it had some balls. I doubt it would hang with my 7900 with longer bars but I'm pretty sure that by the end of the day in regard to production cutting/falling it would probably beat the Dolmar based on fuel economy alone. Also very very smooth under throttle. Hardly any vibes at all. The builder of this saw did a bloody good job in getting the balance right between speed and fuel economy. I would have liked to try this thing with a 32" bar to see how it went against the Dolmar but 100mph winds and 20" of rain hampered our cutting time a tad
The 461 was the one saw I was really looking forward to. Once again good throttle response and excellent torque. Right there with the Dolmar as far as speed goes but a lot more torque down low. This thing was happily pulling hard down to 7,500rpm. It's been a while since I hung a tacho off my ported and pop upped Dolmar but pretty sure it would start to quit at about 8,500-9,000rpm. One thing I did notice immediately was the vibes - definitely more than the 441C and my 7900. It also pays to remember that my Dolmar is right at the top end for a work saw. At 210psi compression it would be tough to get much more out of it without it getting too hot. I'm pretty sure that Andrew's 461 had a bit more in the tank and if somebody went crazy on one of these I reckon it would hand my 7900 it's arse!
As always Stihl have it nailed with their filtration and spikes. It doesn't matter what angle you are on their spikes on the larger pro saws always seem to find something to bite into.
I didn't play with any of Andrew's other saws. He liked my 200T (as did Danny his crazy mate) and likened my ported 390XP to an MS660 (shame on you you bastard!) but the 7900 probably wasn't to his tastes - for some reason it was also running a bit rich which I fixed later on - must have been the cold weather. All in all he's got some well modified saws perfect for the work he's doing. Mastermind and mweba did a really good job on building his saws.
Also many people don't know this about Andrew but he's pretty handy in the kitchen too
Oh on another note I had a meeting on the Friday morning (agricultural related) and then we both dropped into Ballantine Ammunition where they make shotgun shells. They also have their own shot tower for forming shot (pellets). This was really interesting and they were a good bunch of blokes to boot. I bought 2 x 2kg of powder and 60kg of size 4 shot. The pricing on the shot was 1/2 what I'd pay in my region for Winchester shot and the powder was WAY cheaper too. I only bought so much gear because at those prices it is actually cost effective to reload 12 guages again.
Thanks for a top few days bloke
You'll have to get your arse up my way one day.
