Same here in the northeast, most high production logging companies are fully mechanized. Many modern loggers do not know how to properly fell a tree with a chainsaw. Feller Bunchers with a hot saw.

My camp is about four hours southwest of Tug Hill. I'm surrounded by thousands of acres of timber company property. They sometimes clear-cut hundreds of acres at a time. They still do it the old way, drop them with men with chainsaws. I've ever seen a feller-buncher other than on TV.

It's interesting that they use them up your way.

Might just be smaller outfits down here or it might be the steep terrain. I know some landowners hire Amish with draft horses to do their logging.

It's interesting when turkey hunting in spring and loggers are working a ridge or two away and hearing shock gobbles every time the drop a big maple.

When I was a kid , my dad had one made out of magnesium. I don't know if it worked good or not.

Are they made in China? Lots of junk coming from there.

The discontinued ones from Harbor Fright were a disaster.

Mine are husky and white oak.

I prefer 10” k+ h felling wedges, I also carry an 8” if I need more lift, I was taught to use two wedges together, alternating hits, often times a single wedge has to be driven harder.squash is speaking from experience sometimes thinning the hinge will help, but be careful, not to thin.

Dropping trees where you want them can be tricky lots of free falling weight that can get out of hand under many conditions. The best thing I have seen on YouTube was a couple guys that cut a pocket in the side of the tree then put a bottle Jack in the pocket. Then they pumped the Jack to get the tree to fall into the cut notch in the direction they wanted.

Feller Bunchers can take the tricky ness out of it along with most of the danger. A tracked feller Bunchers with a hot saw can cut a 24” hard Maple pick it up and set it where they want, most of the time. Some of our contractors can easily cut upwards to 1000 trees per day.

Always enjoyed yacking with the NY loggers at Pittsfield conventions.
There operations seemed way ahead of anything I had seen.

Does the feller buncher do well in hill country?

Just make your own out of wood.
DENNIS

Yes , good operators can cut on some pretty steep terrain in the Adirondack Mountains. The cabs of some of these fellers can be self leveled as they work on mountain sides.

Don’t know if it changed lately but years ago a young guy had a logging operation up in MI. He said the stumpage price did not change they just had to move more wood to stay ahead of the game.