Accessories

Workhorse
I'm not sure why all right-handed saws do not have the blade on the left side. This thing is powerful and light. This is my go-to saw. I like the balance better than a worm-drive, but for monster cutting, it's good to have one of those, too. You can never have too many tools, although several saws is a luxury. I also have a trim saw for small jobs, but as a starter I would get this. It will do it all for you.

Great Saw... until you drop it.
I've owned my own a residential construction business for over 20 years. As you can imagine, I've seen and used my fair share of circular saws. Porter Cables previous circular saws (743 and 347) were among the best I had ever used. So I was very happy to buy a few of the newer MAG saws when they came out.

And they performed wonderfully... for a while. All three of them have broken where the table meets the depth adjustment guide. Yes, they were dropped. From 3'. It should go without saying a commercial duty tool should NOT break so easily.

The repair guy at the local tool store that caters to contractors said he has seen 100's of these with the same problem. So, I am back to shopping for the older ones on eBay.

Great Saw
Arrived quickly packed in the manufacturer's box. All good. The saw works beautifully for rips and crosscuts. Accurate (square/flat baseplate from the outset) good power, nice weight/balance in the hand, and the directional sawdust exhaust port is a nice feature. Should have gotten one of these a long time ago!

Overpriced, poor quality
After researching my options, I selected this saw for several reasons. I liked the way it felt, I had used the 325 before, I have several other tools from Porter-Cable and it received top rating from Fine Homebuilding in 2004(?).

After using it to cut 10 boards, the blade clamp self destructed. The saw blade that came with it has dished and hits the guard. The sight does not track with the blade.

I did buy the saw locally and it is under warranty, but I am now on my third blade clamp in less than two weeks (partially because it took 1 week to receive the replacement). Traditional, bolt-style blade clamps are available [...], which I will surely be buying. I really don't know what else will go wrong once I get to use it.

I bought a HD77M to replace it, no problems with that.

Won't cut straight
I don't understand how it can be this way, but...I just can't get the saw to follow a straight line. I've used lots of circular saws without this problem. A friend in the trades tried it (to show me it DID cut straight, it wasn't the saw, and make fun of me) but had the same problem. It pulls to the left!