Top-Handle Chainsaw Showdown: Gas vs. Battery for Tree Climbing

Hey everyone, I'm Phil from Vision Landscapes. I'd like to take a few minutes of your time to talk about pros and cons of these five top-handle chainsaws that I've climbed with throughout the years.

We have two ECHOs, we have two Stihls, we have a HUSQVARNA. I know HUSQVARNA has a new model—I hope to get my hands on that soon. But until then, let me tell you about what I know about these units and maybe it might help you make a decision.

Now, I strongly don't recommend only getting one saw. I think we're in a day and age where if you have two saws, just think about it—both of them lasting longer, right? You're going to have a backup, which is so important in this day and age. And having two different combos of these saws will give you the opportunity to be a little bit more flexible, have a little bit more enjoyment whenever you're improving.

You don't always need a big saw. It's also nice to have a little smaller one as well. Um, it's a lot more enjoyable whenever you're going up and down a tree. Real quick—we'll talk about that later.

Husqvarna 540i XP

Of all these saws, I've had the HUSQVARNA 540i XP for a very long time. This saw is roughly four years old. It is a very well-rounded saw when it comes to doing, you know, tree removals. There’s a 14-inch bar on it. Great for wrecking as well.

This was one of the best revolutionary chainsaws. I know Stihl was making some as well—I had the 161. I know they have newer ones right now, but I never got those, I just stuck with the HUSQVARNA.

Great, great, great chainsaw for taking down trees. Uh, you know, it has tons of torque, tons of power, never gave us any issues.

What I don't like about it is the battery casing. This battery pops out way too easy—it slides out—and we've had some batteries fly out from the tops of trees. Thankfully no one's ever gotten hurt. But it is one of the down points on this saw. I think the battery casing—I’d like to see a little bit more protection on this battery housing in the future for different generations of this chainsaw.

Nice fine chain. Cuts really good, stays sharp a long time.

Oil dispenser—everything is great. You have to blow out this filter every now and then, it gets jammed up.

Oil dispensing? Never any issues with that. Just maintenance-free, pretty much, these chainsaws. We never had anything break on them—honestly, we've had four in the company for over three years.

So we're very, very happy with the 540i XP from Husqvarna.

And their new one, the 542, has a clutch on it—so we're pretty stoked about that. This is an absolute beast. Let’s talk about it next.

Stihl MS 201 TC

This is the Stihl MS 201 TC. We keep a 16-inch bar on it. It is very powerful. We'll use this to take down big trees until we can't cut anymore. Then we’ll take, you know, a bigger gas saw—a 50cc saw and up.

But this is a nice top handle to have if you're slaying an ash tree and you don't want to fool around. You want to make your cuts as quickly as possible.

Now, that being said, it is a dog to hold all day long. And if you have the opportunity of taking a lighter saw up in the tree, I'm sure you will. We'll talk about that a little bit later.

But this—once again, the only thing we've ever broken on this is the starter cord.

Apart from that, absolute bombproof saw. We have two of these. We use them all the time for removals.

The torque is really, really good. I know a lot of people modify these—we haven’t done that yet.

Stock saw: very good.

Stihl MS 151 TC

It has a little brother. Little bro is the 151.

You know, sometimes we do a lot of conifer climbing—we’ll go and we reduce cedar—and you don't want to have to haul up anything that’s way too big. You need to have a little nimble chainsaw with a small bar.

You know, we have like—what is this, like a 10 or 12-inch bar on it?

Yeah, it's a 12-inch bar. Super tiny. So you can climb up trees real quick, make nice little cuts on conifers whenever you don't have a lot of movement around—in a room to maneuver.

So this is a tiny little... less of a smaller reservoir, so you'll burn out of gas a little bit quicker.

Well balanced—it’s all right. I like the balance on the 2511; I’ll talk about that a little bit later.

But this is a nice little option. You know, if you're going to get a chainsaw, you can get two gas saws like this—you'll have one for little pruning cuts, another one for removals. That’s a nice combo as well.

Echo CS-2511TN

Now if you're looking for an all-in-one saw that'll do it all on the gas side, I really think you should consider the 2511TN.

So the TN is a new version of the Echo chainsaw.

The original—just the 2511—had a .375 chain on it. So it's a little bit thicker.

What that means is that the chain, you know, it takes a little bit too much of a cut throughout the wood. The chain would skip sometimes, and we would find not as smooth of a cut.

So Echo has implemented and has added this chain now to their saws, and they’re selling it as the TN model. So look out for that.

Finer. Less resistance. Cut quicker. Cut smoother. Improved fuel efficiency—and also battery life.

So we have that same chain on this saw—we’ll talk about it later—which is a battery equivalent of the Echo 2511TN. It's called the DCS-2500T.

Long story short—the new chain, the TN models—buy that.

A lot of people will buy the sprocket conversion and change it all themselves on an older Echo model, but just... if you're going to buy a new saw, look for the TN models. They already come ready to go with the proper chain, the proper sprocket and everything to make your cutting life a lot easier.

This saw is a great all-in-one saw. We keep a 14-inch bar on it.

This saw will allow you to reach in the canopy to snip little things that are a little bit further away from you compared to, you know, the little guy—little guy Stihl.

These saws are similar in weight, but having a little bit of a longer bar sometimes will allow you, like I said, just to reach those little things with a little bit more ease.

The balance on this saw is ridiculously comfortable.

It just rolls in your hands. You're not feeling like you're stressing to hold it on the side like you would this big boy over here.

It’s a lot easier on your wrists.

Echo did a really good job of designing the saw, and it has good torque.

A lot of people, they'll port the saw and they'll change the muffler and whatever—we never had to do that, nor do I really want to, ‘cause I feel like it has a lot of torque right out of the box.

So I'm super, super happy with the CS-2511TN from Echo.

Super, super stoked. Every single time I get to use this saw, the tree has some perk to it—which is a lot of fun. Rip, rip, get her going!

Echo DCS-2500T (Battery)

Now, this is its little brother, I guess you could say. Also TN—meaning that it has that new bar and chain, which is great.

When it comes to battery saws, it's really important because you'll get extra battery life.

Think about having that less wood to cut every single time. Instead of .375, you're only cutting .325.

The chain dimension is .325—so it’s that much smaller, meaning that you are cutting a lot less wood with every single cut.

Less wood being cut means increased battery life.

So I’ve noticed that I’m able to make more cuts with this chainsaw with the thinner chain.

These improvements that they’ve made throughout these chainsaws are noticeable, and I salute them for that. They are listening to their end users and they’re coming out with a product that is fresh out of the box, ready to use.

Now, when would I use this battery saw?

I'll use this for pruning—I absolutely love it for pruning.

Whenever it comes to removals, it'll take the wood down, you know, as far as it can go. When it gets to 8-inch wood, I find like it struggles a little bit more—and that's totally understandable.

So I'll go for this saw instead. I'll rip out the B-Gas saw and go for that.

Final Thoughts

Now the Husky—this thing does not care. We have like a 14-inch bar on here.

This saw will go all day long and has a ton more torque, right?

But you're a lot heavier.

So if you just want to do a tiny little micro-removal, this is a great option.

If you want to make sure you can get all the way down to the ground—no problem—you’ll have to either go for a gas saw with a bigger bar or, like, for example, that bigger Husqvarna.

Like I said, these saws—I’ve used them all. I’ve climbed with them all.

If you're asking me, “Phil, what's your favorite one and you could only pick one saw out of these all?”

I'd probably go for this. I'd like to say this saw, but the DCS-2500TN, I find is just not quite powerful enough for me to have the confidence that it could get me all the way down to the ground on a removal.

I know that this over here—I’ve never bogged it down.

You can go through the bar dimension on the wood. You have a 14-inch bar over here—you can go and cut through that wood as long as your bar, and you will get down to the ground on a tree removal if you are cutting in that dimension.

Now, it is a little bit slower than if you’d carry a dog around.

This dog over here will get you through the job a lot quicker with a 16-inch bar.

But you don’t always need that.

Sometimes you just want to have the comfort and the enjoyment of having a chainsaw that is not excessively heavy.

So this saw—and also the Husqvarna—are my two favorite saws here.

All these saws—great power, and I would highly recommend if you are true climbing—if you're climbing…

I don't climb as much as I used to. I feel like I'm climbing maybe once every few weeks.

Running a business with new employees that want to climb as well—you want to give them all the shots that they can, all the opportunities they can, to succeed and learn as well.

But whenever I do climb, I absolutely love having an option to select:

Hey, what job am I doing today? Which saw here would be best?

If I'm doing a tiny little cedar topping or removal—I'm going to take a really small saw.