4570Man
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2015
- Messages
- 18,451
- Location
- Crossville, TN
- Tractor
- Kubota M59, Kubota L3800, Grasshopper 428D, Topkick dump truck, 3500 dump truck, 10 ton trailer, more lighter trailers.
One of my saws is a Husqvarna 357XP, which is similar in power/performance to your MS360. It wears a 16" bar 95% of the time. I'd rather have the better balance, lighter weight and maneuverability of a 16" bar on this saw when working in the woods felling and limbing trees, and I find it a good match power-wise for that bar. (Of course, my 50cc saw also wears a 16" bar all the time.) Unless I know I'm going to spend a significant chunk of my day felling trees larger than 16", it wears the 16" bar, and I fell those occasional trees of larger diameter by cutting from both sides. It's extremely rare in this part of the Northeast that I would be felling a tree larger than I could drop with a 16" bar.
If I know I'm going to be working in bigger trees a lot that day, or if I'll be bucking up a lot of 16-20" firewood, I'll put on the 20" bar. While the specs say it can handle a 24" bar, I would not even consider putting something that size on it. If I needed 24" of bar for a significant amount of cutting, I'd switch to a bigger saw - probably a 70cc.
All of my cutting is in hardwoods (Oak, Maple, Beech, occasionally Ash or Hickory). If I were cutting large softwoods with any frequency, I might step up the bar size I'd put on a given saw a bit.
I’ve got a 28” bar for my 372xp but I hardly ever use it. The 20” is much better. Even when cutting bigger stuff I don’t usually switch them.