I had never bought a Stihl product before but one day I needed a chain saw, was at my Ford dealer, also a Stihl dealer, and he had the 16" on sale. Great purchase. Fast forward. Wore it out (got to be hard to start) and was going to do rings and hoses on it and on a couple weed eaters I had; a Weed Eater brand, small one (single piston ring) and a McCullough 35 straight shaft (2 piston rings, I bought from TSC), for which I too have the wood cutting blade.
Did the rings on the WEs first and was not really happy with them in the first place; WE brand was too short, curved shaft, and Mc straight too heavy.....I passed the ¾ century mark, getting old so weight and ease of starting have gotten front row seats at my show. Both had been a chore to get started and I attributed that to worn rings....compression was below 90.
Was in a farm store one day and noticed that Stihl had an easy start chain saw on sale. Wrong time of year for that but couldn't pass it up. Got me to thinking about Stihl, made in the USA, gave me good service on the first one. So I picked it up and did notice their WEs hanging on the wall.
After fooling with the WEs mentioned above, I was back in that store and got to looking at their eaters; in season. Stihl had a lightweight curved shaft made for tall folks with easy start (fuel priming, choke, and easy pull), priced right; FS 50 model which is the long shaft (7" over normal) version of the 40 or 60 forget which.
It only has a 25ish cc engine but compared to my Mc 35cc cuts circles around it. It comes with a shoulder strap and with that long shank, mowing in a nice swinging motion side to side, not trimming; mowing with it is faster than my 20" push mower (40' square dogs pen) and one heck of a lot easier to start and less effort to use.
That's my story. Sorry to bore you. Naw, just drinking my morning coffee and felt like chewing-the-fat. Grin.
Happy clipping.
Mark