Stihl is the best, period. Stihl teeth are also longer for longer life of the chain. The chains barely stretch if at all. Woodland/Carlton and Oregon all stretch for about the life of the chain, sometimes out of the adjuster's range on a 28" and large bar length, so then you can use the chain or have, to have someone drop some links or up the sprocket to a 8T.
Moral of the story, Stihl makes a chain that you don't have to fuss about, it just cuts and lets you do your job of pulling the trigger on the saw and that is it. You don't get to spend your time perfecting your hand filing techniques, when you could be cutting.
I have used Carlton chain bucking up skidded logs and had both Carlton and Stihl semi-chisel on both saws side by side and the Carlton's needed to be sharpened 5x's more than the Stihl chain, and Oregon is simply a joke when compared to Stihl.
One of the last jobs I cut was 300-400+ trees cut and they were white oak, red oak, hard maple and hickory. I used two 28" Stihl Semi-Chisel chains for all felling and topping cuts and 2 or 3 Stihl 20" chains for the bucking up cuts. Of those chains maybe 2 were not used on the next job and that is just because I needed to give them a little more attention. This would not happen with any other chain maker.
The only way you can justify using anything other than Stihl chain, is if you don't care about cutting production or are cutting soft, clean wood all day (and then Stihl chain will still outlast the others by a lot). I have tried many times over the last 5-6 years to prove this little fact wrong and it can't be done. You will cut more wood with a Stihl chain, than any other maker, anyone that disputes that, is only fooling themselves.
Just the facts,
Sam
