Choosing your First Chainsaw...it's this easy!

hey there folks this is Josh Stoney Ridge farmer welcome back to the farm today is another beautiful day here on the Stoney Ridge farm we're gonna have nasty weather tomorrow and I've got to get in the woods with the massey ferguson 240 and we've got to get to work so today we're going to be working with a couple chainsaws and i'm going to do a quick review of the steel ms 170 and this will serve as a review for the steel ms 170 or the MS 171 if you're considering a homeowner grade chainsaw running in gun and chainsaw we're going to talk about it we'll go through it we'll put it to work we'll put it through the paces and i already know it's a great saw so come along as we do a quick review of the steel ms 170 alright you mess up my freedom i Tate is well chicken kiss [Music] all right we're in the woods let's talk about this saw and then I've got to get busy man the Sun Goes Down so fast in the wintertime here in the woods so what we have again is a steel ms1 70 I've had the MS 170 and the MS 171 the 171 that I had you know was basically identical to the saw it's just kind of a newer looking model there may be some carburetor differences there I'm not totally sure reason I say that is I had a lot of trouble getting my 1 71 to start and run appropriately I took it back to my Steel dealer he said well some of them start and run good and some of them you know they're just a little harder to start not really something I wanted to hear from my steel dealer if you work for steel you probably don't want to hear that either so this is a 30 cc around a 30 CC saw weighs about eight point seven pounds with the bar probably weighs about nine point two pounds so it's a basically a 10 pound saw this is kind of Steel's entry-level gas-powered saw now I've yet to try the electric saw we're going to get one of those and we'll do a review on one of those very soon here on the farm vlog because I'm curious myself I like electric power tools whether it translates over into the chainsaw market I'm not sure I'm on the fence so hopefully steel will make me a believer and we'll probably try out some other brands like Dewalt steel and Milwaukee or Makita so this is two steel MS 170 it can come with a 16 inch bar or 12 inch bar I believe this is a 16 inch bar the chain needs to be tightened just a little bit I've used this saw man I've used this offer somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four years it's been a little workhorse for me it's been a great saw as you can tell this isn't the look of a brand-new shiny saw when I watch a review on youtube or anywhere I want to watch a review of a guy that's been using this saw so over the past three to four years this saw has been an absolute rock star I have not started it today what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and we're going to they're chained up we're gonna get it all filled up with bar oil and lube we'll show you how all that works and we're gonna start it for the first time for you guys to show you just how easy and how good this sauce starts it's an easy tug in other words my wife who's 120 pounds can tug it and start it so it's an easy start if you've got shoulder issues or something like that if you're a smaller person that's just not really strong or you're not used to using a chainsaw in my opinion this is probably the saw for you that Steel has to offer now I'm not getting paid to do this review I'm just showing you something that I think it's cool the project that we're working on today before we even start working with the saw here I'll tell you about the project that we're working on today let's grab the camera all right so we plugged our way down here we're probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a mile from the house this is our Massey Ferguson 240 tractor it's like a 1986 model been totally restored great tractor I like having cool fun tools to use around the farm we use this as our hay raking and bush hogging type tractor where we are is down by our waterfall area and if you want to skip ahead you can skip ahead till you see me with the saw in my hand this is our waterfall area we're cleaning this up I've got a big brush pile already started here I got down and did a little bit of work yesterday and I thought you know what I should take you guys and do a quick review so if you look it's all cleared out and pretty down here by the creek but if you look back here it's not there's a lot of scraggly old trees I call them scraggly trees so what we're going to do is get in here with this ms1 70 and we're going to clean up this debris this mess and we're going to pile it all up on the on the fire power right there my trail to get down in here is very tight as you can see I've been running around this tree right over here and I've clipped it a couple of times with the Gator so we'd like to be able to get a pickup truck down here if we could that way folks could camp out I've got friends that like to come and hang out and camp so that's our goal for the day all right if you're a too low file get ready this is called the big tool rack this is an awesome tool rack for storing your tools haul them around this thing is rated at a hundred pounds I've jumped up on here I'm nearly 300 pounds it's pretty stout and this is what we're carrying all our tools when we can throw our firewood in here too but we're not cutting firewood today so the first thing I'm going to do before I fill up with fuel is I'm gonna get my fuel tank slash toolbox I'll post a link to this guy in the video description I can't post a link for you to purchase em s 170 in the video description because they don't sell them online so we'll pop this guy out well this thing has a little tool compartment and place for files and all that stuff will pop out our scritch also let's talk about the toolbox slash fuel tank so this is my chainsaw gas and this is my bar oil this has a little safety device but it's not like your safety devices that you typically see on a fuel can this slides back drops right in the fuel tank and when it's full it just stops automatically it's something awesome that I really like here on the farm great Christmas gift idea for that outdoorsman in your house so and so is this really we picked up our steel at a local Ace Hardware and what I'm doing right there is I loosen these two bolts and I'll go air it up here and there is a set screw right there I guess you'd call it a set screw what I want to do is tighten this chain up just a little bit and that's probably good if you look right here we don't want it too tight might be a little bit loose might bring in another half turn but anyway it's adjusted right here so you get the full full rigmarole here you get the full description of what it's really like to run this saw which I think a review should be like that well snug this down but what we'll do we'll only just snug it down so one of the guys at the chainsaw shop said you know what the best thing you can do with this I said what he said cut that off and leave this about that long because what happens is you can tighten these guys down too far and you can strip everything out so you just want to put it snug hand tight you don't have to go gorilla tight and when you're tightening it you should pull up on your bar so your bars in the upward position now you'll see steel is upside down right here so I flipped this bar every time I sharpen my chain or every time I put a new chain in it so that the bar wears evenly as I cut let's fire it up before we even think about firing this saw up I always put safety gear on it's a habit it has to be a habit because it is a must how many people get injured out in the woods or on the farm or running chainsaws when they could have easily prevented it with some chainsaw chaps and a nice face shield and helmet now I know what you're thinking I met a guy in the hospital that had a big scar in a blind spot in that eye right there you know why because the chainsaw kicked back and hit him in the eye he had safety glasses on you need a face shield guys so think about that that's another awesome Christmas gift if I bought a guy a chainsaw for Christmas I'm gonna buy him safety gear so I don't have to go to the hospital with them so this is going to be my first pull here and we're going to take our steel we're going to put it all the way down we're actually going to lock our chain break and we're gonna put this all the way down pull the trigger go to full choke all the way down this is how you start a steel product now put this down on the ground and we'll give her a tug till it fires there we go we got it to fire we're going to click it to the high idle position we're gonna do it again foot in there now we're good to go we'll start it back up it's not cooperating today we'll set that saw down in a place it's not going to set the woods on fire then we'll go ahead and get our safety helmet on and our gloves and we'll probably leave our glasses on and we'll get busy I also forgot to mention one safety feature wear steel toe boots and gloves also okay and they also make steel timber sports gloves that are designed so when this chain hits them it pulls little threads out and clogs it up that's what these chainsaw chaps are designed to do when they hit they pull tiny threads out into the bottom of the saw bind it up and stop it let's get busy [Music] [Applause] man we got a mess let's talk about all this I don't know if you can tell but we cut a whole lot of trees out there and what we're doing here it's just taking out the trees that are all twisty and why me so that the big pretty trees can grow bigger and prettier so that's what we're doing by thinning all this out I have got some work ahead of me so don't need the gym today I need the woods it's good stuff let's go over here and we'll talk about the MS 170 and give you some feedback tell you what I think might be the only real downfalls of this saw and what might be the best part of this saw 45 minutes into using this saw I'm breaking a sweat and it's 35 degrees outside man it is a workhorse this saw has put me to work so the number one thing that I like about this saw the very best thing is that it's so lightweight now you shouldn't be using a chainsaw with one hand but it's really really lightweight so it doesn't fatigue your arms now the one thing that I don't like about this saw is that the dogs on it right here where you grab onto the tree are not really very well they're they're tough but they're not metal I would like to see metal dogs on there but at this price point of a saw I think you're gonna find yourself looking elsewhere and finding an inferior saw with little doodads on it that might make it look better so all in all I've used the pollen Pro saw that's fairly similar to this I've used a whole lot of chainsaws here on the farm and I go right back to the MS 170 it's lightweight you don't have to do a lot of maintenance to it so the average homeowner can use it you just blow it off when you get done with the air hose and call it good or you can just tuck it away run it out of gas and tuck it away for the winter or for the summer however you like to do your chainsaw work so I recommend it it's an absolutely awesome saw it last it's proving itself on the farm and don't trust a guy that does a chainsaw review on a saw that's not dirty trust a guy that's using the saw this is a good machine thank you guys so much I hope you enjoyed this video if you have any questions or comments post them down there in the video description I'll post them linked to that cool gas can it's made by Husqvarna I haven't seen anything like it I love it it's my go to it goes with me everywhere that my chainsaw goes and you can see up here we have our Husqvarna 460 Rancher great saw also already done a review on it this is the lightweight go to best homeowner saw that I have found cool thanks a lot guys please come on back and see me pound that like button subscribe to the channel and remember if you can't get in the gym get in the woods get to work get that heart pumping get strong I'll see you next time almost Oni reach [Music] [Applause] [Music]