I bought this machine a few weeks ago and finally got to use it today, WOW what an awesome chipper machine. It starts on the first pull every time, It has plenty of power to chip everything. It cut large branches in the chipper funnel side and shreaded smaller branches/sticks and leaves in the shreader hopper side with ease. The catcher bag is heavy duty and works great to catch the mulch. I like that it has 6 hammer blades instead of only 4 like other brands and has a larger (7.5 hp) motor than other brands. Love the gas gauge built into the gas tank, no guessing during the chipping work. The mulch is great size on the first pass through and for making is even smaller for composting we just ran the mulch and some leaves through the shreader side a second time and got perfect compost mulch. This is a high quality chipper/shreader and assembly/operation instructions are very good with step by step words and pictures. Love this chipper machine, I will look for Bilt Hard products in the future for my residential equipment needs.
