Choosing a Bull rope ?

Hello again everyone ! It's been a little while since I've been through here. It's time for me to start practicing rigging and lowering branches,and trunk sections. The one piece of gear I do not yet have is the rigging / bull rope.

First, my thoughts....I've seen some 3/4" polypro rope, rated at app 7,000 lbs, $200 ish for a 600 ft spool. It looks attractive in the sense that the amount of rope for the money is something a friend and I are looking to go halfsies on. My being the more interested of the two, ( not necessarily more or less knowledgable, so I'm not dragging a naive newb into danger ) that would give me 300, which would probably be a good length, allowing a safe working distance for a ground guy. I have only taken a brief look at prices on pro bull / rigging ropes, so I may be able to find a good "bang for buck value".

I understand an extreme strength rating, 12,000, sometimes up to app 20,000, is nice, gives a huge margin for error, allows handling much larger chunks, etc... Even using a 7,000 ish line, smaller chunks, if rigged, caught, etc is done wisely, the minimum slack allows less shock load, and would probably be sufficient....especially if the user is willing to go real slow and steady, and stay disciplined to watching the size of chunks they cut. For instance, a mammoth trunk is gonna be difficult to take small bites....then again, I'm not ready to manage large stuff once it's on the ground either ! I would only take bites out of trunks I can chew....the chunks would be diameter and lengths I've lifted around camp all my life...never over 150 lbs, ( I'm guessing, since I've never lifted and tossed around over that range )

Lastly, thanks in advance for all the advise, safety warning, etc...I have bought a 30 foot length, and will be testing it for myself. As some would be familiar with, if they have read some of my other posts and responses, now that I have a chainsaw, I'm not real quick to jump on the safety chap bandwagon. Anyone else notice the groin area being a chink in the armor ?...closest to the most important leg area ??? A bucking saw can jump loose and land all over the place...head, neck, through the chest...Boy Scouts, ( even while teaching knowledge about sucking snake venom out, which is now known to be ineffective, but it was a nice try ! ) taught the best tool knowledge I've come across so far. Watch your stance when using an axe...where will it swing when it comes through...don't stand there.

Soooooo, has anyone tried using polypro ?..... Even if the strength is sufficient, does bull / rigging rope operate so much better in any other way ?

This is a good topic for the "Working Climbers" forum. I will say that I hate the feel of polypro on my hands. It's much more subject to UV damage than ropes with a polyester cover. As it degrades it becomes brittle and the individual broken fibers are like cactus needles. A long way of saying, it will not age anywhere near as well as a polyester cover rope.
-AJ

You mentioned that you probably won't be rigging anything more than 150 lbs, a 1/2" 16-strand arborist rope will handle that very well.
-AJ

In regard to chainsaw chaps, whenever I'm bucking I hold the saw so that if the bar kicks back it's not going towards my body, one foot forward, one foot back, more like a baseball batting stance. Doesn't cover every situation, that's why chaps are mandatory for ground operations. The chaps significantly reduce injury risk, they are not failsafe, it's your body positions that are most important when running a saw.
-AJ