Time For a New Chainsaw

After 25+ years of service my trusty McCullough chainsaw failed while I was cleaning up some broken limbs this afternoon. The rod came through the block while I was sawing, exiting out the bottom and spraying me with oil, fuel, and little bitty shards of metal. My first reaction was to think that the chain broke but after settling down and checking my person and the damage to the saw it was obvious that the engine suffered a catastrophic failure. Bottom line, Thank God for Personal Protective Equipment; folks, if you question why you should put on the boots and the chaps whilst using a chain saw let me offer you my lesson learned so you'll never have to suffer the consequences of haste! I should have been burned by oil and fuel and punctured with hot metal, my PPE spared me from injury.

So, what to do next? I can't see any point in rebuilding what's left of the old saw, it served it's purpose and I feel like I got my money out of it. I have a couple of brands in mind but figured I'd run my ideas past the good folk of Mymountiantown.com to see if anyone else has any recommendations or cautions on one brand or model over another.

I'm leaning toward an 18 or 20 inch saw with a 50cc or larger 2 stroke engine. Husquvarna and Stihl have some nice saws but I want to keep the price around $300 if I can get what I what by way of features in the saw. Thanks in advance!

Hubby loves his Stihl bought it for him about 6 years ago Murdochs had a great sale going on.

Might also want to look at the Jonsered cs 2250. You should be able to get into one of those new for around $350