Need sage advice to choose axe

B

big no-no

Joined
Nov 7, 2003
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I am looking for a good bushcraft axe which will see a lot of use in Canada. I need to fell, chop, and split pine wood as well as hardwoods, both in summer and when it is frozen in the deep of winter. I am looking at Gransfors Bruks' Scandinavian Forest Axe, the Small Splitting Axe, plus the Wetterlings line of axes. My issue with the forest axe is that the shoulder is too steep which makes me doubt it's splitting capability. My problem with the splitting axe is that it may not fell or limb as well at the forest axe. I'm not familiar with the Wetterlings. Are there any axe gurus here that can help me out with this? I consider this to be an important decision, and I appreciate any imput.
 
The basic things that make a good cutting axe are wrong for a splitter (thin bit and edge vs. wide wedging bit, thicker tougher edge). However, if you are splitting smallish clear grain rounds, a cutting axe will do nicely. Last year I broke the handle on my maul and had to do a lot of splitting with my regular full size (~3 pounder) axe. It worked pretty well until the rounds got a little gnarly or over 8" or so in diameter. Then, binding was a big problem.

With a SFA, I think 6" might be the upper limit of what I would like to do on a regular basis. Personally, I wouldn't even think about using the small splitting axe for anything other than splitting.
 
I probably don't need to chop or split anything bigger than 6", so the SFA looks like my ticket.
 
IMO the Scandinavian Forest Axe or Snow & Neally Hudson Bay axes are good all-purpose axes. I'm also of the opinion that it's better to try to adapt a felling profile to splitiing rather than the other way around (too much chance of a glancing blow with the blunter splitting profile).
 
I have Gransfors' SFA and like it. It chops very well. Given sufficient time, it makes you think you could chop in half a tree of any diameter.

But it doesn't split very well, at all. It is so skinny in cross section, that it just kind of buries itself in the endgrain, without splitting anything. Yeah, it splits the smaller stuff, but not the bigger stuff.

One reason I like the SFA is that you can actually chop one handed pretty well, as well as two handed, if needed.

Maybe you should get a dedicated splitter maul to go with your axe? That's the way we went, and we're happy.
 
No contest. Go with one of the Cold Steel Hawks. I own 3 and use them heavily. You won't be disapponted.

They are plenty thick enough to split wood. I do it all the time.

Semper Fi!
 
Blue Sky's reply made a lot of sense...
Do you feel the need to only choose one?
If no, I would recommend two, a good chopper AND a good splitter...
 
If buying a dedicated splitter to go with a smaller chopper is out of the question, I'd suggest going with a full sized falling axe. I've read that the GB American Felling Axe is really good, and the Wetterlings of that size and pattern are probably good as well. I use a 40 year old Craftsman that I did a little reprofiling on, and it works great as a chopper and good as a splitter on straight grained wood. Just my 0.02$. Hope it helps.

Todd
 
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