G'day Alta and welcome.
I have used saws in our fire dept with the carbide chain. As they are mainly used for urban rescues and cutting things "other than trees". This means cutting anything from floorboards to telegraph poles to bridge pilons. As you can imagine they can have anything like nails, bolts etc in them, and as these are time critical situations, we generally dont stop when the sparks start (so to speak).
I recently cut down an old telegraph pole at an MVA (no wires involed) which the pole had been used to display signs and posters for 40 odd years... it was nail city! The saw was a stihl 034 with carbide TIPPED chain. Sparks started from the word go but she got thru okay. After the job we saw the chain must have cut thru at least 30 nails. Some of the tips had broken off completely but it did its job and save ALOT of time to the benefit of everyone.
Of course it is different in the tree game when you are paying for the chains/sharpening, but as you have highlighted, when it needs to be done and fast, they are the ducks guts.
At our rescue section there is a crosscut of a trunk with a brick in it which has been sawn in half!
Im not sure why they have gone with the tipped rather than full carbide. Will find out.
Cheers
