Bought a Stihl GTA 26 cordless pruning saw

[John Lehet]

I was in my local chainsaw shop this morning when I saw/picked up a Stihl GTA 26 pruning saw, bought it on the spot. Usually I research such things to death, but at 3 pounds, 4 inch bar, I just got it.

An old habit started when I had a Tulikivi: when I fell a tree I buck every branch up to the point of it being a ridiculous twig. Kindling, small fires. It's a lot of heat, and I don't want to throw it away. Even with the Progress Hybrid I'm throwing a lot of sticks like that onto coals to start a fire, or of course for a cold start, or for a very small fire. As it was I was lifting and angling my 12 pound chainsaw to do those cuts, over and over, which definitely put me onto the diminishing returns formula.

Even if the battery won't last for the whole tree, I can use it for branches and then switch to the gas saw, or maybe buy another battery.

It's still in the box. I've thought about whether to switch it out for the GTA 30, 6 inch bar, more power, dual battery, for $130 more. Some second thoughts.

And in researching a bit, it seems maybe the Milwaukee Hatchet might have been the one to get in this space.

We'll see.

 

[Mutineer]

Got a Milwaukee M12 Hatchet couple of years ago and love it. My non-gas-chain-sawing wife uses it all the time so she doesn't have to be terrified by a belching machine, and the battery life and power is great. Bought it at a pawnshop for about 30% less than retail, single 3 Ahr battery is all we need. Good last year on a big red oak cut down to avert the potential of it eventually hitting the house in a big wind and the little bugger handled up to 3-3.5" branches for a good 35-40 minutes before if ran out of juice. I'm sure the M18 would pack a bigger punch but that's not what the pawnshop had in stock

 

[John Lehet]

In geeking out over this some more, I saw that Makita makes a compelling choice in this space. Which I should have done, since I have Makita batteries. My local shop says I can exchange the littler 26 (+cash) for the big brother 30, which I will do on Monday. Besides lasting longer, the 30 cuts almost twice as fast, at least on bigger diameter, according to YouTube timers. Twice as fast sounds good.

 

[John Lehet]

OK, I got the GTA 30 instead of the 26 (took the 26 back to exchange). I worked with it for an hour and a half, including a small chunk of time running the real (gas) chainsaw. It worked very well, no frustrations. I couldn't believe how much less work it was to lift it compared to the chainsaw, for small cuts. It was fast, didn't seem particularly slower for small cuts than the gas saw I use (Echo). I figured I would work until the battery died, just to see how long that would take, but my own battery died before it did. I had other stuff to do in the day and didn't want to get completely worn out. It's a keeper.