OMNIVIKING: "Would you rather have a 6 or 8 inch b,ock of wood and split out a handle to carve with the grain running the right way for max strength?"....
Actually, when you've got a concentric ringed piece of wood that's as tight as Diospyros texana you've got something that's stronger than the grain structure obtained from a block of wood. Or at least that's been my experience. When making dozens of axe handles from a large tree then grain structure like you mentioned is important...although as others here have mentioned it's not as important as on a large felling axe. But with a small one-handed axe the concentric ringed branch is just fine as long as the wood isn't brittle like some of the faster growing legumes or members of the Celtis sp. family...and a few others.
