Chain pruner or shears: which of the two you actually need

Whoever buys their first battery shears calls a year later about the chain pruner. Whoever starts with the pruner sooner or later buys the shears. It is not a coincidence and it is not the salesman being good: they are two tools that do two different jobs, and in an olive grove you need both.

So the right question is not “which of the two”, but which one first — and from there, which model.

The threshold is 45 mm, and it is not a sales rule

The largest battery shears in the catalogue open to 45 mm. That is the physical limit of the blade, not of the motor: beyond that diameter you do not cut cleanly, you force.

The chain pruner starts where the shears stop: 120 mm for the smallest model, 200 mm for the largest. In between, from 45 to 120, there is no gap: at those diameters you use the pruner, simply without pushing it.

The real point is another one, and we wrote it when talking about which shears to choose for the olive grove: in a day of pruning the cuts under four centimetres are in the thousands, the ones above are in the tens. The shears are 95% of the work, the pruner is the 5% that stops you without it.

Which pruner: you choose the bar, not the motor

All our chain pruners follow the same logic: the bar changes, and with the bar the maximum diameter and the weight.

Model	Cut	Price	When it is the right one
CS-1 SE 6"	120 mm	€169	A few trees a year or the garden at home. Same machine as the CS-1, with 2.5 Ah batteries instead of 4.
CS-1 6"	130 mm	€219	The step above: same bar, more runtime.
CS-2 6"	130 mm	€289	The first of the 21V class: more power, and above all the same batteries as the professional shears.
CS-2 8"	190 mm	€319	The same machine with the long bar: for those who cut firewood, not just branches.
Falco X-PRO 6+8"	130 or 200 mm	€349	Two bars come in the case: you change them in the field depending on the job.

The 6-inch bar is handier and works better inside the canopy; the 8-inch one is for when the branches to remove are thick or when you also cut firewood. If you do not know which one you need, the answer is almost always the 6".

If the branch is high up: the two pole models

Here the discussion changes, because it is no longer about diameter but about height. Two models are born with a fixed pole:

• CS-10 8" (€339): 270 cm of pole, 600 W, cuts up to 19 cm. With your arm raised you reach around 4.2 metres.
• Skycut 315 (€369): 315 cm, 800 W, cuts up to 20 cm. Same batteries as the CS-10, more power and half a metre more.

One thing has to be said before you buy, because it is the question we get most often: the Falco X-PRO does not mount on the telescopic pole. The batteries do, they are the same across the whole 21V line, but the tool was designed to work in the hand. Anyone who has to cut at height takes the CS-10 or the Skycut, which are made for that.

The batteries decide the order you buy in

This is the part almost nobody looks at with their first shears, and it counts for more than thirty euros of list price.

The 21V class is the only one where shears and pruner swap batteries: the 8605 Pro, SW-758, SW-768, PRU-40 and EVO 1 shears use the same cells as the CS-2 6", CS-2 8", X-PRO, CS-10 and Skycut 315 pruners. One charge in your pocket serves both tools, and you only need one charger.

Outside that class, no: the PRU-45 PLUS and the EVO 2 and 3 are 25.2V and share with no pruner; the CS-1 SE uses the batteries of the PRU-28 and SW-718; the CS-1 6" has its own.

So if you already know that within a year you will buy the second tool, choosing the pair inside the same class is worth more than any discount. And if you take them together, the discount is there anyway: two tools in the basket mean 10% off both.

The chain has a cost the shears do not

Shears ask for a clean blade and a film of grease. A chain pruner asks for three more things, all small and all daily:

• the chain tension, to be checked cold: loose it jumps, over-tight it wears the sprocket;
• the chain oil, which needs topping up far more often than you would think — the oiler is automatic, the tank is not;
• sharpening: a tired chain does not just cut more slowly, it heats up and tears the fibre. With the chain sharpener it is five minutes.

It is not a flaw, it is the nature of the tool. But anyone moving from shears to a pruner should know: it is ten minutes at the end of the day that the shears do not ask for.

In short

• It is not one or the other: the shears do 95% of the cuts, the pruner the 5% that would otherwise stop you.
• The threshold is 45 mm: below, shears; above, pruner.
• 6" bar for the canopy, 8" if you also cut firewood. The X-PRO carries both.
• At height: CS-10 (270 cm) or Skycut 315 (315 cm). The X-PRO does not go on a pole.
• If you will buy both, stay in the 21V class: shared batteries and charger.

If you want an opinion on your own case, the configurator asks three questions and suggests two models, or write to us at assistenza@gardenmac.com: we will tell you which of the two to start from, and it is often the cheaper one.