sram, shimano???

Hi,
I'm slooowly building up a better bike for myself and have come to the drivechain part, what's the deal with sram and shimano, do they have different chain guages? what's better? can I use sram parts with shimano or should I stick to one particular make and model of parts. I've looked at the shimano range but there's so many it's hard to know what to go for. Tourney, Acera, XTR....... I have very limited budget so I'm looking at second hand parts.
Any ideas
I'm slooowly building up a better bike for myself and have come to the drivechain part, what's the deal with sram and shimano, do they have different chain guages? what's better? can I use sram parts with shimano or should I stick to one particular make and model of parts. I've looked at the shimano range but there's so many it's hard to know what to go for. Tourney, Acera, XTR....... I have very limited budget so I'm looking at second hand parts.
Any ideas
No matter where you are, that's where you've been
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as to where things come in each range look at the new prices and that will give you and idea.
Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
Between 7/8 and 9 speed chains yes but if you mean are shimano 9 speed chains a different guage to sram 9 speed, then no... theyre the same.
As a basic rule Sram does not work with shimano and vs versa (there are exceptions to this but just go with this basic premise).
If you want cheap and cheerful I'd personnaly go for deore or X5/7 as your base and upgrade from there
(yes Acera & below does work fine, but it tends to be a lot heavier and a bit censored IMO).
Sleep is for the dead, but I sure could use some.
I'll probably go for shimano deore and work my way up from there.