It was a surprise to me! I was 100% confident that it would be slower and I used a saw with only 3hp that I thought would struggle with the bar completely buried in some hard wood. The hard nose is a little more tricky to get the chain tension just right but when you do it appears to make no difference to cutting speed. I'm considering getting a 25 inch hard nose bar for the 880 so I can see if adding more chain speed has an effect.

I made this video because I wanted to see how much was lost with the hard nose and thought using it on a small, low powered saw would get the biggest difference. It sure wasn't the outcome I was expecting either and goes against everything I had read or heard, but 2 cuts with each bar on one saw isn't a definite result. I will try to replicate it on a bigger saw if I get a hard nose and sprocket nose in the same size again. I think the advantage the hard nose has is from the larger diameter of the nose and more belly. It won't work as well for plunge cuts but appears to help with these cuts.

I always thought so as well. I used the same saw, same chain, same log and the cuts were maybe 5 minutes apart. I didn't sharpen it, just swamped the bar over. The sprocket nose bar isn't damaged, it's a GB Arbor Pro bar. Nose is in good condition. I don't know why it was different. I expect the hard nose to be a bit slower. It could be from the chain having less tension on the hard nose or the larger radius on the end. Could be a knot in the wood slowing one down. I don't really know. My experience with hard nose bars is limited to using them on much larger saws than this. I got this bar for a good price and just thought I would compare them to see the difference.

Are the bar lengths the same? The sprocket nose looks a couple inches longer?

@@tyleroconnor2113 I used the same 66DL chain on both bars. Length is the same