This is the new Dewalt DCCS623, a 20V Max compact cordless chainsaw designed for quick and easy pruning tasks.
The Dewalt cordless pruning chainsaw features a brushless motor and 8″ bar.
Dewalt says their new chainsaw is ideal for trimming branches from downed trees, cutting bundles of wood or branches, managing thick brush, or daily pruning needs.
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It has a compact design for easy access in tight spaces, and is lightweight at just 4.6 lbs (tool-only). Dewalt says that the saw is 61% lighter and 3X more compact compared to their DCCS620 12″ compact cordless chainsaw (reviewed here).
Features include an integrated tip guard, auto-oiling, tool-free tensioning.
The DCCS623 pruning chainsaw can make up to 70 cuts per charge on 4″ x 4″ pressure-treated pine when powered by a DCB230 compact 3Ah battery.
Price: $179 (DCCS623B, tool-only), $229 (DCCS623L1, kit)
The kit comes with a charger and compact 3Ah battery.
Discussion
While not the first compact cordless pruning chainsaw, the new Dewalt looks to be reasonable spec’ed.
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61% lighter than the compact 12″ chainsaw? That seems like a lot. This just might do the trick for lighter duty and smaller capacity cutting tasks.
The kit seems aggressively priced, at just $229. $179 for the bare tool also seems reasonable.
In contrast, the new Milwaukee M18 Fuel Hatchet 8″ pruning chainsaw, one of several new Milwaukee cordless outdoor power tools that are launching soon, is priced at $279 (via Tool Nut, via Acme Tools) for just the bare tool.
Thank you to Big Richard for putting this on my radar!
Saulac
All chain saws leak during storage and are supposed to be drained before storage, which most user don’t. This make chain saw sort of need a storage place for its own instead of staying with other cordless tools. I have the Dewalt 20v 12″ chain saw but I found myself using the receptacle saw with a good carbide demo blade instead of the chain saw due to the oil hassle. I wonder how much an 8″ chain saw is better than a recip saw with the proper blade.
James+C
Oil hassle and need for sharpening the chain. A recip is very versatile whereas a chainsaw is pretty limited in use cases. Of course the chainsaw is way more fun… guess it depends on how frequently you’d use it. If not often you’re probably better off with the recip.
Steve S
I have both a DeWalt 60V chainsaw and 20V pole saw.
Storing the chainsaw on it’s side instead of upright keeps it from leaking. If I had to drain the oil after every use… it would never get used.
By luck I stored the pole saw is stored on the wall with the bar angled slightly down. It does leak a little but it is all contained in the plastic bar/chain guard so nothing gets dripped on.
Albert
I found that if you store the saws with the oil cap facing up, problem solved, no leaking!
Saulac
I need to try this. Thanks for sharing.
TomD
For my Milwaukees it’s the other way around, if I store the saw with the cap DOWN it doesn’t leak out the blade.
Rx9
Chainsaw vs. Reciprocating saw is a lot like Rotary Hammer vs. Hammer Drill, where the former does a specific task far better than the latter, but is bulkier and far less versatile.
Newer pruning blades have made reciprocating saws much better at cutting thicker branches.
Nevertheless, if you find yourself cutting a lot of wood, a gas chainsaw is the only real choice. Also, a rendition of Jackyl’s “The Lumberjack” just wouldn’t sound right with any other tool…
MM
I agree.
The chainsaw will excel at cutting clean wood, doing it faster and with less vibration than a recip saw. But it will be terrible for anything else. The recip saw won’t be as good for cutting clean wood but with the correct blade you can cut nearly anything.
I plan on buying one of these as soon as I can. I have exactly one job in mind for it: cutting up any problem branches while feeding my wood chipper. I try and use my big chainsaw to get everything cut up and ready to feed into the chipper before I start it, but there’s always some weird bent or forked branches that I miss and need to be cut so they’ll fit down the feed chute. I don’t like using a gas saw for this because it just sits there idling, wasting gas and blowing sand around while I’m not using it, or I have to start it for each cut, which is a hassle as it takes two hands. I’m currently using a recip saw with a pruning blade but it’s a bit awkward to use one-handed and the vibration gets old fast. I also have to be careful setting it down so I don’t damage the blade. This promises to be the ideal solution: I can build a holster or a hanger so it can just sit there right next to the feed chute on the chipper for easy one-hand-access when needed.
I might end up using it for pruning but I doubt it will replace my ported MS150.
Jacob
Gimmicky as it may be, I really enjoy the Worx JawSaw for cutting down a branch to better fit a mulcher or yard waste can. The downside is you are limited due to the jaw, but for most of my work it is perfect.
MM
The Jawsaw has sufficient capacity for my purposes but it takes two hands and that’s exactly what I am trying to avoid.
Andrew
Damn! Haven’t heard that song in a while. Wonder what they’ll make of it in 50 years when all the gas powered tools are museum pieces. 🙂
Koko The Talking Ape
Yes, though I’ve heard another consideration is safety, and recip saws are safer than chain saws (or so I’ve heard.)
Is that true? What does the fam think?
MM
In my opinion there are two main risks associated with chainsaws and neither of them really applies here.
The first is kickback: if you use poor technique and allow the tip of the bar to contact the wood the wrong way it’s possible for the saw to kick upwards. This is a real risk for a full-size chainsaw but I don’t think it’s much of a risk here thanks to the tip guard on the saw as well as its very short length. Also, kickback risk is more of a thing with older style saw chain, or modern high-performance professional saw chain sold with the yellow color code indicating danger. That won’t be the case with this saw, it will surely have safety chain as all consumer saws come with.
The second is the general hazard of gravity when you are cutting limbs or trees above your head. Felling trees or overhead limbs is a fundamentally dangerous activity. You have to be concerned about the state of decay of the tree, where things are going to fall, how the “hinge” in your cuts is going to perform, etc. But again I don’t think there’s much risk of that here since this is a small pruning saw. Nobody is going to be felling anything bigger than a sapling with this saw, and the risks of falling wood are unchanged regardless of what style of saw you might consider.
In my opinion this tool might even be safer than a reciprocating saw since there is no back-and-forth vibration.
Mxx
Yes, before buying one of these try a sawzall or better yet a M18 Hachzall, both with a carbide pruning blade. Safer, faster, handier, no oil mess, and best in class versatility.
Proton
Not even close to being safer, then this. Not possible to just cut an underside, fellcut, and then just let the chainsaw gnaw away from the top. Then the HUGE plus with no vibration.
David Munson
All chain saws leak during storage? You and me have a different memory of the last 30 year.
And do y’all really feel this is a deal at $180 bare? The 18v dewalt cut enough orchard to totally wear me out moving and stacking everything I fell in the orchard.
Bobcat
Way better than a recip saw these little chainsaws are great I have a craftsman with 6inch bar and chain and cuts like butter I actually took the bar and chain from my pole saw and put it on this which was 8inches it cuts 7inches and smaller with no problems hasn’t stalled out yet
Phil H.
This saw is intriguing to me. I cut, split, stack and burn two to four chords a year for my wood burning stove each winter here in Nebraska. When your dropping 25 foot tall ash and 40 foot tall oaks, (all standing dead) I’ve always known it takes about as long to “top out” a tree like that, as it does to cut up the main body of the tree. As I have become older, I’ve wondered if something like this would work for topping instead of using my Stihl .037 to help out the ol’ back some. I’ve got the 8AH XR battery for it to see what it can do, so if I catch one on sale at around $150 bare tool, I might give it a go. I wonder about their chain quality e.g., resharpening ability, and the anti-kickback nose guard would have to go bye bye.
Bob
Almost guaranteed to be anti kick back “Saftey chain”. Could be swapped out for better more aggressive chain but then again is the saw going to bog down due to lack of torque?
And yes that stupid noseguard has to go. Does this thing even have the chain speed to cause it to kick back? And I wonder if it has enough torque (with proper “green chain”) to bore cut. Either way if you don’t know how to use a chainsaw you shouldn’t be using this one. False sense of security from these “Saftey” features. They are not gonna keep you from getting cut and bleeding out if your using the saw wrong.
Big Richard
Considering this is geared towards your novice homeowner user that will likely be using this tool one handed, and there is not a kickback brake like on a standard chainsaw, the tip guard is not a bad idea.
MM
I don’t know if anyone has done this yet, maybe it’s already a thing, but it seems simple enough in my mind to implement a kickback brake for cordless chainsaws using an accellerometer. If the computer inside the saw detects the saw kicking back then it can instantly brake the motor. No need for any mechanical brake components like in a gas chainsaw, the only thing that would need to be added would be code and that accelerometer–which are dirt cheap these days being found in drones, phones, toys, etc.
I do agree with you Richard, the tip guard makes sense for safety for the average homeowner and it looks very simple to remove, which I’m sure that most people who know how to use a chainsaw safely will be doing.
I’m curious how powerful this saw will be. As others posted below Dewalt’s 12″ saw is has a reputation for being powerful, and the Flexvolt 20″ is a downright beast. Obviously this saw is not meant to be super powerful, but I’m betting it’s not going to disappoint. Might be interesting to see what it can do with some more serious chain or perhaps just with the depth gauges filed down a little.
Big Richard
It does have a higher chain speed, but likely less torque than the 12″ model. Which is fine in a pruner, you aren’t going to be leaning into cuts with a tool like this.
DeWalt already utilizes such anti-kickback technology in tools like their stud and joists drills. It would probably have added to the price, but what you describe is certainly possible in a tool like this.
MM
@ Big Richard
I just realized a way to get an estimate as to the power of this saw, and honestly it seems pretty nice.
Dewalt tells us that it makes 70 test cuts with a 3 ah (54 watt-hour) battery. That works out to about .77 watt-hours consumed per cut on average. For comparison, the 12″ saw is rated to make 90 cuts in the same material with a 5ah (90 w-h) battery, which is 1 watt-hour per cut. So we might conclude that this new saw is 77% the power of the 12″ model?
Big Richard
@MM the only question is how accurate is that estimation. They both use brushless motors, so their efficiency in terms of power input to power output should be similar. If one was brushed the whole Wh/cut metric would be a bit skewed. They also use the same size chain which makes a direct comparison more relatable.
Their 8″ pole saw is rated at 96 cuts with a 72 Wh battery, or .75 Wh/cut. Which is pretty comparable to the .77 Wh/cut you calculated for the pruner. And I would expect them to be pretty similar, so it kinda checks out.
I’m sure there are a number of other factors involved, like loss to gearing, but it is probably not a bad ball park estimate.
Robert
As a non-chainsaw user I always wondered about the safety when I was tempted to buy one to use for DIY, but without training. I had planted a Russian Olive tree because they are beautiful trees and yet hardy in my climate. But they develop the nastiest long thin thorns that turn into branches. With it’s drooping long thorn filled branches I had to have it cut down when rugs rats appeared. I traded tasks with a friend of mine. I would tutor his kid to pass algebra and he cut down the Russian Olive with a gas chain saw. We both thought we got the better of the deal. Good to hear confirmation that I can do small branches with my electric recip saw.
Proton
The nose gard, is to save the chain, when cutting close to the ground, and aswell to prevent kickback from touching other branches, while cutting another.
To even get into bore cutting, with a pruning saw, is like using your car as a lawn mover.
jessy
i bought a makita 10 inch chainsaw that runs off the big fat battery packs that i use for my drill/impact combo.
Its like 8 pounds and a good deal quieter than my other gas powered chainsaw.
Honestly, if you have a battery set up for drills/impacts and other little power tools. Consider looking into the electric chain saw for that brand your buying. They have really come a long way.
Dave
Consider a pole saw so you can just stand straight up and cut the limbs off.
Billy Hendricks
Discount Today DCCS623B $147 free shipping
Micah
Which website? Acme wasn’t reflecting that
Bug
Ooooh, I really want this. It’s a real challenge trying to use my flexvolt chainsaw one handed!
Albert
Stuart, been waiting for you to post about this pruning saw! Can you do a comparison between this and Milwaukee? I am sure so many will be getting into this and being that there is a $100 difference and a few other differences (metal bucking spikes, motor on top vs bottom, etc.), I’m not sure which 1 to go for!
Michael
It looks like the compact reciprocating saw had a three-way with the pole saw and chainsaw. I don’t see why you’d need this if you have the pole saw… I just stand back to cut stuff. I also like the pole saw because I don’t have to crouch after taking the main branch off. I cut it in pieces while standing.
Rx9
I wonder if Bosch still carries that micro chainsaw (Nanoblade EasyCut 12) in Europe?
MM
They do, I was talking with a co-worker about them last week. There are four models, the Easycut 12 (12V cordless), AdvancedCut 18(18V cordless), and a pair whose names I don’t recall which are corded and shaped like a top-handle jigsaw.
Those are quite light-duty tools though, not something I’d consider for pruning unless it was just one or two small branches here and there. IMHO that’s more of a hobby or DIY tool with relatively few serious uses. I’ve thought about picking up the AdvancedCut 18 and using an adapter to run it off Dewalt batts but I’ve never bought one because I’m not sure I’d use it enough to justify the cost.
Lyle
I have the Bosch 12v micro chainsaw. I bought it from Amazon.de. I have a few other Bosch tools so thought I’d give it a try. First problem is that it’s a green Bosch tool and so it uses a different 12v battery than the blue Bosch tools we have here in the US. So I had to buy something else from Germany that included those batteries. What a disappointment. The micro chainsaw is a joke. The chain is so fine that it gets filled with sawdust and eventually can’t cut anything. It is a gimmick.
J. Newell
Comments and opinions, no claim to exclusive possession of The TRVUTH here. 😉
Noseguards – I’ve had doubts about them since they were introduced because I’m not convinced that they don’t inspire untrained users to do even more dangerous things than they would do without them, but I don’t have any data and I’m not an engineer or products liability lawyer.
B&C Oil – I’ve never had any luck preventing leakage with any of my saws by changing the position the saw is stored in but maybe I’m unlucky. I had a Jonesered 2051 that never leaked, but in 45 years or so that was the only one that didn’t leak at least a little (and most just dump the oil tank in a very short time).
Chain speed and safety – again, I’m not an engineer but logic and experience suggest to me that kickback is a great deal less likely with the slower chain speed. HOWEVER, based on what I’ve been able to find, Kevlar (in chaps, gloves and boots) is a lot less likely to prevent injury with an electric saw than a gas saw. Basically, as I understand it, the gas saws are high speed and low torque. The dense Kevlar fibers stall the saw out very quickly. Electric saws are low speed but high torque. They don’t stall the way the gas saws do and they are far more likely to cut through Kevlar. There are some pretty eye-popping videos with destructive demonstration tests on YouTube if you’re interested.
I keep thinking about buying one of the Milwaukee Hatchets. I guess I’ll throw this into the mix.
As a tangent, I have one of the 12″ DeWalt 20v saws and the thing is a real champ in every way, within its intended uses. I love all my gas saws but that little DeWalt is super-capable for its size and exceptionally convenient.
Mark M.
100% with you on that 12″ 20v DeWalt. That thing punches way above it’s weight class.
Lyle
I agree with this. The Dewalt 12” chainsaw is great. I’ve had to sharpen the chain more than I’d like but that has more to do with what I’m cutting. It’s just light enough that with the right battery it can be operated singlehanded. I’m lucky that I got it for $99 tool only.
Eric
I’ve had the M12 Hatchet for a few months (thanks, Toolguyd!), and it has yet to leak a drop of oil. It hangs on my garage wall upright, so it’s seen plenty of temperature swings.
Mark M.
This looks to be a good little niche tool. I bought the very similar DeWalt 20v 12″ chainsaw about a year and a half ago. Put a 14″ bar and a more aggressive chain and I have to say it’s eliminated probably 80% of my gas chainsaw use. It’s surprisingly fast, quiet, and I love that there’s no startup time. I put the big 9ah battery on it which nearly doubled the weight of the saw but I’ll go nearly all day on it. Only downside is, as others have alluded to, is that it leaks during storage but honestly, it’s so darn handy otherwise the leaking is pretty easy to forgive. If it bothers you, either drain it or put it in/over a bucket or on one of those cookie sheet drain pan things. Never thought I’d say so but I’m a BIG electric chainsaw convert. I still love having an 18″ gas for bigger jobs but it’s getting dusty.
Marc
In Toolguyd’s blog on the Dewalt 12″ saw I posted this: “OIL LEAK FIX, at least for my chainsaw as it now doesn’t leak at all. There’s an O-ring groove in the filler cap. Find an O-ring to fit, install and your leak may disappear or at the least diminish.”
I believe I ordered the O-ring from Amazon: ‘uxcell Silicone O-Ring, 29mm Outside Diameter, 25.2mm Inner Diameter, 1.9mm Width, VMQ Seal Rings Sealing Gasket Red’
-Marc
Micah
Thanks for sharing that! I’m going to try it!
J. Newell
Great tip, will check it out!
Dave MD
Where’s the pole attachment? I’d buy it tomorrow if it had that.
Nathan
my chainsaw leaks from the chain not the oil cap. basically given enough time sitting on the shelf it will have a line of oil under the end of the chain closest to the housing.
meanwhile that tip guard is there for the pruning aspect more than anything – picture using this saw in the branches of a dense tree or bush and having the chain tip grabing or pulling at branches you can’t see. It’s like how the end of a quality hedgetrimmer has a blunted end. For this use -great idea. for a 16 inch saw – not needed.
Honestly not a horrible idea for a pole saw either.
Also note the tip guard has a protursion on the top you could use it to help catch the end and use the top of the chain bar as well as you could use the bottom – not sure how well that would work.
all that said though I use a recip for this sort of activity. and irony the motor and handle housing of this looks alot like the compact recip that I’ve thought about buying a few times.
HKC
Since Dewalt mentioned they cut several 4x4s with the saw, I am wondering how it would hold up using it as a demo saw? Well the wood would have to be clean of nails and other fasteners. Occasionally I am asked to remove old decks and wooden playground equipment. Safety wise I would be hesitant to use this I think but I am curious what others think.
Stuart
Do you normally use a chainsaw for demolishing old decks and wooden playground equipment?
MM
I have used various types of saws to cut up an old deck, as well as to cut up shipping pallets so the wood could be fit into a heating stove. They do have some advantages. They’re more efficient than a recip saw. the fact that they cut a wider kerf than most saws is also since since boards are less likely to get jammed as you cut through them. The two potential risks I see with using chainsaws for this are:
1) kickback. That would be a risk if you were standing up using the tip of a full-size chainsaw to cut, but this saw has a tip guard, and it’s also short enough and certainly has safety chain so I don’t think there’s much of a kick risk here.
2) risk of hitting nails and fasteners, just like you said.
This might not be a bad choice actually, if you left the tip guard on then you could cut through the deck boards without worrying about hitting something underneath, kickback is pretty much impossible with that tip guard in place too. Only real risk is hitting metal fasteners and dulling the chain. Even that might be possible to work around, we’ll have to see what the chain size is, it might be possible to fit tungsten carbide tipped chain.
Hkc
No I have not used a chain saw for demolition. But the idea of using the smaller chainsaw from dewalt to cut posts seems like it would speed work along. I always prefer safety over speed for my employees and myself. I am also skeptical the small dewalt pruner saw can make 70 some cuts thru a 4×4 in one battery charge. If it can then the cost might be justified. Thanks for all the good articles Stuart and responses from others.
Dennis Wong
Mine didn’t leak from the cap. It seemed like it was coming out of the holes in the motor area. I took it apart and found the inside of the housing completely covered with oil.
Possible sources from inside the housing: 1. There is a tube that enters the top of the oil tank through a rubber grommet. 2. That tube connects to a Y fitting attached to the gearbox that sucks the oil from the tank – that is a barbed fitting. 3. The other tube from the Y goes to the chain bar – also a barbed fitting. 4. That tube is o-ringed directly to the housing so the oil dribbles onto the chain bar.
I wasn’t able to determine where the leak was. Another possibility is with all the saw dust and debris in the black cover the oil was just wicking out.
Anyways, I cleaned everything up, filled it up, and it has been sitting in it’s normal position and hasn’t leaked. I’ll see what happens when I use it again and the housing is full of debris.
Raf
I’ve been purchasing “medium” Stihl chainsaw oil which tends to have higher viscosity… no leaks.
John+D
Dewalt’s 20V pruning shear has been a game changer for me. It easily cuts the 1” branches I used to get the chainsaw or recip saw out for. Anything bigger gets the pole saw or the big chainsaw.
I don’t see the need for this between the pruner, pole saw and chainsaw. You can only hang so many saws on the wall before the wife complains…
MM
These saws are finally hitting the market! Yesterday I noticed that the big online shops like Acme are showing these in stock. Also, Home Depot’s page went live and the stock status was listed as “check store” yesterday. This morning I checked again and my local HD showed two in stock. I headed straight over and they actually had three on the shelf. I picked one up and I now have it in-hand.
As luck would have it I’m halfway through a big chipping job which I started two days ago. I used a recip saw with a pruning blade to break down branches to feed the chipper, I will be finishing up the job this afternoon and I’ll report back on how the DCCS623B performs.
Right now I’ve just unboxed it and can give my first impressions. Overall it’s a little bigger than I expected, but that is not a complaint. It is well balanced, feels good in the hand, and I’m sure that with the bigger motor it will outperform similar tools like the M18 hatchet. The chain is made by Oregon and it most certainly is safety chain. I have removed the nose guard from the bar. Curiously there were two very thin metal shims between the two haves of the nose guard and the bar, one on each side. I’m not sure what their purpose is, as even without them there is tons of clearance between the chain and the guard, and the shims are extremely thin.
I do have one preliminary gripe: The safety switch which must be depressed to unlock the trigger is not friendly for left-handed users. The switch is on the left side of the tool only and it has quite a strong spring. It can be operated fairly easily with the right hand only: use your thumb to depress the safety switch and then your index finger pulls the trigger. But it is not easily operated with the left hand only–you have to either depress the safety with your thumb, then once the trigger is activated move your thumb over to the other side to complete a firm grip, or you have to use your index finger to activate the safety and then pull the trigger with your middle finger. Both are possible but awkward. Using the saw in a two-handed grip as a lefty is very easy, ironically it feels even more comfortable than using the saw with a two handed grip with the right hand on the trigger. In that case it is simple: left hand holds the trigger, right index finger presses the safety button. But I want to use the saw one-handed as much as possible so that doesn’t help me a whole lot. It is frustrating that this safety switch is not designed to be ambidextrous the way similar switches are on most other cordless tools. I’ll see how it goes when I use it this afternoon, if I find it to be problematic I’ll see about potential modifications.
KC
Thanks for the update on the saw. I had commented on possibly using the dewalt unit for deck demo or old outdoor wooden structures. Since the saw was not available until this week I had to choose another option. I wanted to try a battery option. I purchased a Stihl 170 chain saw which did an awesome job. It is light weight and $199. You still have to purchase mix fuel and lubricant for the chain. You have to make sure you don’t hit any hardware but the saw was great and felt very balanced and capable of safely performing the task I needed it for. I am still curious about the run time and power of the dewalt saw.
MM
I like Stihl gas saws a lot. I have a top-handle model 150. It’s a tiny little saw but it is very powerful for its size. I’ve also made some mods to the engine so it’s quite a bit hotter than factory. I doubt this Dewalt will replace it for most of my chainsaw cutting tasks. But I think the Dewalt is really going to kick butt for the particular chore of feeding the wood chipper.
Not only do I have a big pile of branches yet to chip, but I also have some parts of branches which are too big for my chipper which I’ll be cutting into firewood. So all told I’ve got a bunch of test material to cut ranging from small stuff under an inch in diameter up to 5-6″ diameter in a variety of species. That should be a good test platform for the saw. I also have a variety of batteries on hand, I’ll be starting out with a standard 5ah pack.
Speaking of Stihl, I am a big fan of their OPE in general. I have a larger chainsaw in addition to the 150, a hedge trimmer, telescopic pole saw, trimmer/brushcutter, and a heavy-duty brushcutter/clearing saw and they are all top notch, I can recommend them without hesitation.
MM
I posted my review of the saw over in the Toolguyd forum, I figured that was more likely to get seen than here at the bottom of a months-old topic.
https://discuss.toolguyd.com/t/dewalt-mini-pruning-8-chainsaw-dccs623b-review/3178
Stuart
Thank you for sharing that!
Micah
Great review! Thanks for sharing!