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It's hard to know how well an axe will bite, split, and deliver force without swinging it, so we purchased 12 top contenders to test blade-to-blade. We cleared birch trees in Maine, split oak rounds into firewood, and stacked kindling for a long northern winter. Down south, we bucked up fallen locust logs and chopped down and limbed every invasive autumn olive tree we could find. We did the hard work for you, testing their balance, precision, and ability to hold an edge in real-world conditions. Whether you need a top-notch splitter, an excellent camp hatchet, or a new all-around favorite, we found a great option for you.
We've also tested folding saws and pocket knives, and if you need to get serious about your wood-cutting endeavors, check out our reviews of the best chainsaws on the market. If you want to use all that firewood to get cozy in your backyard, check out our review of the top-rated fire pits.
Editor's Note: Our axe guide was updated on November 26, 2024, to share more purchase info and comparisons in our award section.
If you need a tool that can put up a stack of firewood and take down mid-sized trees, the Fiskars Chopping Axe is the best option we've tested. The 28-inch handle and sharp blade lend enough power to make quick work of the 6 to 10-inch trees we cut down. This axe is also light and compact enough to work in the small spaces and awkward positions that felling trees requires. It serves as a passable tool for putting up firewood as well. The head has Fiskars' signature low-friction coating, making it easier to back out of a round if you bury it. There is also a subtle flair that helps to wedge wood apart. It's too small to turn rounds into firewood as effectively as our favorite splitting axes — like the Adler German Axes Long Splitter — and too large to be the best option for kindling, but it can do both in a pinch. The sturdy, carbon-reinforced plastic handle (made of a material called Fibercomp) and insert molded head make for a durable tool that handles accidental overstrikes well.
We like this axe less for limbing. It's large enough that it's hard to control with one hand, forcing you to choke up on the handle. It gets the job done, but several smaller, sharper options with thinner blades perform the task with far less effort, like the lightweight Gransfors Bruks Small Forest. The hard plastic handle is also slippery, but some light etching improves your grip. The true saving grace is the flared knob at the end, making it relatively easy to hold on to. Overall, this is your best bet if you need a well-rounded option that excels at felling trees.
This mid-size axe excels at felling trees and can handle a range of tasks from chopping firewood to clearing limbs.
The Gransfors Bruks Small Forest is hand-forged from recycled steel with a hickory handle. It looks beautiful and works beautifully. The thin blade arrived razor sharp (seriously, we shaved our forearms with it), it's lightweight, and the curved handle balances the head nicely, making it feel effortless in hand. This axe bites with every swing, and the handle is long enough to give you plenty of leverage. The Small Forest is our favorite option for precise tasks like limbing a tree or chopping kindling. Despite its small size, it transfers power well enough to tackle larger tasks like cutting down saplings and chopping them into firewood when necessary. The tanned leather sheath will also loop onto a belt for an effortless carry.
After all our testing, we feel this axe is best for experienced foresters. The blade cuts deeply but doesn't pry wood apart like the more user-friendly Fiskar models we tested. Precision and power are a must to use this axe effectively. Newer users also tend to overstrike, hitting a target with the handle rather than the blade. The sturdy hickory handle would suffer more than reinforced plastic or steel models. Though the Bruks Small Forest will split rounds into firewood and fell larger trees, it's too small to do so frequently. We used it to fell a 6-inch diameter birch during testing and wished for a larger axe halfway through. If you plan to use your axe to fell trees, check out the Fiskars Chopping Axe, which earned top marks in our felling tests. The recycled, hand-forged, and Swedish-made Bruks Small Forest is pricey, but for the right person, the good looks, environmental ethic, and incredible accuracy will be worth the investment.
The Small Forest Axe offers an incredible weight-to-power ratio. It's among our favorites in the test.
The Estwing Sportsman's Axe 14" is a classic hatchet made of a single, solid piece of steel. Its ergonomically curved handle and impeccable balance make it easy to place the blade exactly where you want it. We've purchased it twice now for testing. Both blades arrived well-sharped and ready to work, covered by a sturdy nylon sheath that's made to attach to your belt. The hatchet slides out of the top of its holster, allowing you to pull it free with a single snap. The narrow, sharp, and dexterous blade excels at detailed work. It's one of the best we tested when it comes to slicing up kindling, clearing saplings, or limbing a downed tree.
The steel handle is wrapped in lacquered leather that feels hard to hold when new. It's meant to break in over time, eventually molding to your hand and offering an improved grip. The second Sportsman's Axe we ordered for testing also arrived with a very small chip in its sharp blade. It wasn't big enough to hinder performance, but it is a good reminder that thin, sharp blades require care to maintain. This axe is too small to split enough firewood for more than a single small blaze and can't cut down much more than a sapling. If you have a cabin to heat or plan to split firewood frequently, the Adler German Axes Long Splitter is the best tool for the job. But, if you are looking to get the most value out of a small, sharp, and effective blade, we recommend the Sportsman's Axe.
Sharp, small, and durable, the Estwing Sportsman's axe is a stout tool that's great for splitting kindling and trimming limbs.
The Fiskars X11 17" is a stellar all-around tool that works wonderfully as a farm multitool or a camping axe. Impeccably balanced and compact enough for most adults to use with one hand, it's great for small jobs like splitting kindling or limbing trees. Its sharp blade widens into a wedge with a pronounced curve in its cheeks. Instead of simply biting into a piece of wood, it forces the grain apart for an efficient split. The geometry and a low-friction coating help you back the blade out easily after each swing. The orange, rubberized grip provides plenty of purchase, and the hollow carbon and plastic handle absorbs the shock of a blow, keeping your hands and forearms fresh. A clever sheath doubles as a handle, making it easy to cart around camp. Its balance keeps the axe feeling light in hand, and its low price offers a great value.
Made in Finland, the X11 is solid, and the blade holds an edge. We've wielded it regularly since 2021 and have not encountered any issues. The spinning lock on the plastic sheath seems like a weak point, but it's held out so far. At 17.5" and 2.4 pounds, the X11 is larger than many camping hatchets, but we don't consider it heavy. A longer handle also lends you more leverage and power, which helps when splitting firewood. But, while this model is a serviceable spitter, it's too small to keep up with demand if you burn wood with any regularity. The Gerber 14-Inch Freescape is a lighter, more compact version of the same axe (also made in Fiskar's factory) and is a good alternative if you're worried about weight.
The X11 offers the most user-friendly performance for a compact, camp-friendly hatchet.
If you have visions of stepping up to the splitting block and sending firewood flying with every axe fall, we'd steer you to the Adler German Axes Long Splitter. Working through your woodpile with this high-quality steel blade is a pleasure. The head is heavy enough to make the most of every swing and well-balanced enough for even our smallest tester (a 5'6", 130-pound woman) to handle with control and precision. The aggressively wedged head works through your woodpile with minimal effort. It cuts like butter, making quick work of dense, tight-grained oak rounds, even the knobby ones. A red metal guard protects the burly, ergonomic, and US-sourced hickory handle from accidental overstrikes.
There really isn't anything we don't like about this axe. That said, our test proved it's built for splitting firewood and too big to work well for kindling. It's also not meant for detailed tasks like felling or limbing trees. We prefer the Fiskars Chopping Axe for felling and the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest for limbing. In its element at the chopping block, though, it's the best we've tested. Rust bloomed quickly on the blade in our rainy Eastern climate. Such surface rust is normal and harmless, especially given this tool's dense and hardy C45 steel head. Oh, and we forgot to mention: that long strip of sanded black paint on the handle grips like a handshake. If you need to stack firewood, no option will serve you better.
The Long Splitter from Adler German Axes impressed us again and again at the chopping block.
With a waterproof compartment in its handle to keep matches dry and hold a few wraps of paracord, the Gerber 15" Bushcraft Hatchet is a multitool well-suited to backcountry use. Made of a single piece of carbon steel with a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating and a rubberized grip, this hatchet appears built to last. The curved handle transfers the power of your swing directly to the blade. It works well for light tasks ranging from cutting limbs to downing saplings and cutting kindling — though a heavy-duty task like felling is better left to the Fiskars Chopping Axe. The sturdy nylon sheath sports a loop, so you can fashion a sling or leash to carry it if you'd like.
Upon unboxing, our testers realized this hatchet arrived with a dull blade. While that's a quick fix (if you're comfortable sharpening a blade), we don't appreciate purchasing a tool that doesn't arrive ready to do its job. Among the smaller models we tested, it isn't the best choice for splitting firewood. The Fiskars Chopping Axe is much sharper and better at splitting and felling, for that matter. However, the Gerber 15" Bushcraft Hatchet works fine for kindling and could get through a stack of wood if needed. We'd purchase this axe for hunting or camping trips in cool to cold climates where dry matches and a sharp blade really are matters of survival.
The solid Gerber Bushcraft Hatchet can take a beating.
Credit: Clark Tate
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The wide range of axes we tested demanded a wide-ranging test protocol and we were up for the task.
Credit: Clark Tate
How We Test Axes
Our testers split rounds, chopped firewood and kindling, felled and limbed trees, bucked logs, and went on an invasive autumn olive tree-chopping rampage (because old habits die hard). Switching back and forth between the blades and comparing notes made it clear which are well-balanced, which are built to split, which are sharp, and which are tiring.
Our testing for axes was split (pun intended) into five key metrics:
Performance (25% of score weighting)
Splitting (25% weighting)
Felling (20% weighting)
Limbing (15% weighting)
Quality of Construction (15% weighting)
We did a lot of hard work to help you have to do a bit less.
Credit: Clark Tate
Why Trust GearLab
Our lead tester, Clark Tate, grew up in a home heated by firewood. That meant spending weekends watching trees fall to the sound of a chainsaw, splitting firewood, and stacking it. While working on this review, she consulted with her Dad, Glen Tate, who cut down all of the aforementioned trees. He grew up felling and milling trees to build fences and barns on the family dairy farm. Clark also tapped Jake Holmes, a former logger, as an expert consultant. Jake grew up in Maine, where having a winter's worth of firewood cut and pilled by June has long been a point of pride and survival. After grad school, Clark turned cutting trees into a living, controlling invasive tamarisk and Russian olive trees on rivers in the West. Needless to say, the level of expertise in this review is top-notch.
We compared these axes head-to-head in a range of tasks.
We also had a range of testers work with each axe, to see how well they worked for people of different sizes and strengths.
Analysis and Test Results
The axes we compare in this review range wildly from dedicated splitting tools meant to live in your woodshed to well-rounded hatchets that can accomplish a wide range of tasks. We break down their relative strengths and weaknesses below.
What's the Best Value?
After we compare these tools' performance in the field, we also rank their value. Models with high scores and low price tags will always be a great buy. The most well-rounded option in the test, the Fiskars Chopping Axe excels at felling trees, can cut firewood, and is nimble enough to accomplish detailed tasks. Costing little more than much smaller, and thus less powerful, hatchets, this option offers an impressive value.
Our top choice for a smaller, camp-style hatchet, the Fiskars X11, is also hard to beat. It earns top performance scores and has a mid-range price tag. The Gerber 14" Freescape is a smidge cheaper and more compact, providing less power. It's a solid investment, but it is a branded Fiskars product, and they sell a similar version for less. So, we're not blown away with the Freescape's value.
If you need a budget buy for chopping kindling and limbs, the MTech USA Two-Tone gives you a sharp blade and balanced performance with one of the lowest price tags in the test. While the Estwing Sportsman's Axe 14" is nearly double the cost of the MTech, it's still one of the least expensive options in the test and earns top scores, providing an excellent value.
The Sportsman's is a beautiful axe at a great price.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Adler Long Splitter is about 50% more expensive than its direct competition, the Fiskars X27 Super Splitting Axe. But it makes chopping firewood an appealing task and seems ready to last a lifetime. If you can make the extra investment, we really think it's worth it.
Finally, the Gransfors Bruk Small Forest axe is far more expensive than any other item in the test. That said, it's also meant to be an heirloom and is hand-forged using processes that are sustainable and treat workers fairly. If you share those values, the price and quality may be worth it to you.
The Gransfors Small Forest axe is one of the best for cutting logs in half or limbing trees.
Credit: Clark Tate
Performance
Cutting wood is hard work. You want every swing to count. A well-balanced and sharp axe transfers power effectively from the handle through the blade. It also works with your body, making it easier to make every swing count.
Balance, Accuracy, and Power
Of the smaller models we tested, the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest offers incredible balance and is our favorite pick for precise tasks like limbing logs or cutting down saplings. The Fiskars X11 is a close second. It's a bit heavier and not quite as lively, though it's ruthlessly efficient, which we appreciate. The hollow orange handle also helps absorb vibrations, saving your forearms.
The Small Forest Axe from Gransfors Bruks isn't made for splitting wood but performs the task surprisingly well.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Estwing Sportsman, Gerber Bushcraft, and Kershaw Deschutes Bearded Hatchet are all well-balanced, though they have very different designs. The Deschutes is incredibly light and straight but still manages to make headway in a hurry. The Sportsman and Bushcraft balance their weight with a power-transfer curve. All three make headway more quickly than the MTech, which has a similar and pleasant swing but less power. The Gerber Freescape is balanced and easy to put where you want, particularly given its compact size. It's more of a chopper than a swinger, though. It's so short that there's not much there to balance.
The Estwing Sportsman's is smart and satisfying to swing.
Credit: Clark Tate
As for the larger axes, the Adler Long Splitter earns top marks. Its winged head flares to pry wood apart. The manufacturers place the heaviest part of that wedge directly above the 31-inch handle, which balances its weight extremely well. The curved wooden handle delivers the brawny blade with minimal effort to maximal effect. The Fiskars X27 Super Splitting Axe feels top-heavy in comparison. The 36-inch handle feels far away from that hefty head, and it seems unwieldy by comparison.
Heavy enough to cause damage quickly, while balanced enough to make it feel easy, it's easy to love The Long Splitter.
Credit: Clark Tate
The mid-sized Fiskars Chopping Axe is in a league of its own. It walks the line between brute force and precision exceedingly well. That's why it's such a great felling axe; you can put the blade right where you want to while maximizing the force behind it.
While the Fiskars Chopping Axe only really shines when cutting down trees, it completes all other tasks competently.
Credit: Clark Tate
Blade Sharpness
We tested these blades right out of the box to compare their sharpness. We were most impressed by the razor edge of the Gransfors Small Forest and Adler Long Splitter. The Kershaw Deschutes and all of the Fiskars models, including the Gerber-branded Freescape, are nearly as good. All of them maintained an impressive edge throughout weeks of testing.
The Estwing Sportsman's Axe is nearly as sharp as the category leaders, with the MTech following closely behind. The Gerber Freescape and Hults Bruk Agdor 20 Splitting Axe both arrived with dull blades that needed immediate sharpening.
Like all the Fiskars models we've tested, the Chopping Axe arrived sharp enough to work on day one.
Credit: Clark Tate
Splitting
Only two of the axes we tested are optimized for splitting stacks of firewood, The Long Splitter by Adler German Axes and the X27 Super Splitting Axe by Fiskars. We prefer the Adler by a long shot. It's simply an exceptional tool. The Fiskars Chopping Axe also holds its own in this category thanks to a sharp, balanced blade with a slight wedge and a 28" handle for a reasonable amount of power and leverage. Many of the smaller hatchets can split rounds into smaller firewood if they have to, but it's overly laborious. Of these, the Fiskars X11 17" and Gransfors Bruks Small Forest hatchets stand out.
The 31-inch handle on the Adler Long Splitter is a manageable length, even for our 5'5" tester. It also balances the axe's burly blade to offer a lot of control. Since splitting wood means striking it along a plain of natural weakness repeatedly, more accurate swings make for better splits. The dense steel head has a thin and sharp blade that widens to 2.6-inch wings to wedge wood apart. Since the widest portion is centered over the hickory handle, it feels light and lively in hand, even though the head itself is made of dense, heavy, high-quality steel that seems to hold an edge exceptionally well.
The Long Splitter had no problem working through tricky rounds will multiple knots.
A dramatic wedge and sharp leading edge come together on The Long Splitter from Adler German Axes to make wood-splitting magic.
The Long Splitter is a truly excellent tool
The perfectly competent Fiskars X72 Super Splitting Axe barely pales in comparison. Its blade is also sharp and flares to 1.5 inches for efficient splitting. A low-friction coating helps you back the blade out for another swing after you bury it in a block. The longer 36" handle offers lots of leverage but leaves the axe feeling less well-balanced. It consistently took us longer to work through a round of oak with this model than with the Adler Long Splitter.
The Fiskars X27 Super Splitting Axe works perfectly well. It just didn't wow us. It's longer than the Adler but has a less dramatic splitting wedge and feels less well-balanced.
Credit: Clark Tate
The 17-inch Fiskars X11 can't compete with the power of dedicated splitting axes, but it's also built to wedge wood apart with curved cheeks that widen out from a sharp leading edge. When combined with its small size and ergonomic build, the flared head makes it exceptionally easy for even beginners to cut firewood into smaller pieces or to split kindling.
This Fiskars X11 delivers an impressive amount of power in a compact package.
You can see the Fiskars' wedge shape, which does a great job of splitting wood, and the slightly convex curve that they claim helps you pull it back out of the wood. It worked for us.
In contrast, the 19.5-inch Gransfors Bruks Small Forest requires more skill to complete the same task. It will split large and dense firewood like oak with surprising ease, but only if you have enough power, precision, and practice to strike a weak point in the wood with adequate force. You also don't want to miss and smash this good-looking hickory handle into a wood block or against the firewood itself. It could weaken or break. The tough carbon-reinforced plastic handle of the Fiskars X11 can absorb such mistakes with less damage.
The Small Forest's sharp and tapered axe head is great at precisely biting into your target and slicing off kindling, but it doesn't do much to wedge wood apart when you're splitting larger rounds.
Credit: Clark Tate
We expected the 20-inch Hults Bruk Agdor Splitting Axe to compete well in this test, but it arrived too dull to be effective. The 28-inch Fiskars Chopping Axe is long enough to give it enough power to chop full rounds or to take bulky firewood down a notch. The head doesn't flare as dramatically as the other Fiskars offerings we tested, though, and it's not our favorite option to store by the chopping block.
The other axes we tested are too small to split much more than kindling. Of these, the Gerber Freescape is a great option. Also made by Fiskars, it's a smaller version of the X11. It works just as well at a smaller scale.
The rest slice into firewood but don't effectively wedge it apart, which works fine for detailed tasks like splitting kindling. The accuracy of the Estwing Sportsman's Axe, Kershaw Deschutes, and Gerber Bushcraft Hatchet help again here. Though, while the Sportsman's and Deschutes arrived with sharp, effective blades, the Bushcraft needed some time at the sharpening station.
One of our favorite options for small-scale tasks like clearing limbs, the Estwing Sportsman's hatchet is less well suited to tackling firewood. It will cut up kindling for you. That's about it.
Credit: Clark Tate
The sharpness and easy swing of the MTech are promising, but we tired faster when using it during testing because it is so lightweight. At the other end of the spectrum is the Estwing Fireside Friend, one of the most confusing axes we've tested. It's a dedicated splitting hatchet on a tiny scale. The dramatic wedge head is very heavy, making it difficult for even our strongest testers to use single-handed. Sure, it busts through knots more effectively than any other small-scale model in the test, but it's such a forearm workout that we didn't want to use it. Injuring yourself would be easy with this axe.
The heavy, dramatically-wedged head of the Estwing Fireside Friend offers plenty of power, but it's hard to control.
We appreciate that it powers through knots that smaller kindling axes can't. But it's hard enough to handle that it feels easy to hurt yourself, or your floor.
Felling
Long before chainsaws ripped through the hush of forest floors, the sharp chop of an axe foretold the crack of a trunk and the crash of limbs through the canopy. If you need a tool to fell a few trees, we'd steer you to the Fiskars Chopping Axe. Its mid-size length and weight make it easy to swing at the awkward angles required to cut wedges out of trees, and the blade is sharp enough to bite with every swing.
The dedicated splitting axes we tested are too large to effectively swing sideways as tree chopping requires. The rest tend to be too small. For example, even the mid-sized Gransfors Small Forest bites effectively and accurately but is too small to tackle even a 6-inch diameter tree without frustration. It does the job, but slowly. The similarly sized Hults Bruk Agdor 20 Splitting Axe has the same problem. It also, as we've mentioned, arrived too dull to be effective.
The Fiskars Chopping Axe is the best in the test for taking down trees with a diameter of 6 inches or more.
Credit: Clark Tate
Limbing
We prefer the thin, balanced blades on the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest and Estwing Sportsman for detailed tasks like removing limbs (aka, "limbing") from felled trees. Of the two, the Gransfors excels. It offers far more power than you would expect from its lightweight feel, and its thin blade made quick work of the birches we took down during testing. We go hunting for tasks to tackle with this tool because it's so great to use.
The Fiskars X11 17" is another of our favorites for such detailed work. Its wedged head helps tackle larger projects, but it's sharp enough to work through small limbs and saplings quickly. The honed blades on the Gerber Freescape and Kershaw Deschutes are also effective. Their 14-inch handles just give you a bit less power.
The Small Forest Axe excels at detailed tasks like taking the limbs off a downed tree.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Gerber Bushcraft works well once sharpened, and the MTech offers less power but a nice edge. Of the smaller hatchets, only the Estwing Fireside Friend is too heavy and unbalanced for this task.
Though the Fiskars Chopping Axe can effectively limb a tree after felling it, you have to choke up on the handle, and the wedged head doesn't slice right through like the Gransfors Small Forest and Estwing Sportsman. The Hults Bruk Agdor 20 Splitting Axe works similarly for the task, though it was dull enough to bounce off limbs the size of a thumb when it arrived. Again, the two dedicated splitting models are too large for such meticulous work.
The 28-inch Fiskars Chopping Axe works for nimble tasks like limbing, but it's not the best choice.
Credit: Clark Tate
Quality of Construction
We looked at how these tools are constructed and how effectively their sheaths work to protect the blade from you and you from it. The hand-forged Gransfors Bruk Small Forest and the Adler Long Splitter are both exceptionally well-crafted.
The Adler Long Splitter is especially burly, with a metal overstrike guard to protect its US-sourced hickory handle. Both the Adler and the Gransfors Small Forest are covered by leather sheaths, though the stitching started to come out on our Adler. You can loop the Gransfors sheath through your belt loop for easy carrying.
A dense, wedged, C45 steel head and metal collar to protect the hickory handle make us think The Long Splitter by Adler is built to last.
The sharp hand-forged edge on the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest is exceedingly effective.
All the Fiskars axes (including the branded Gerber Freescape) also feature quality construction that, though less elegant, probably makes them the hardiest options in the test. Their partially hollow handles are made of Fibercomp, a carbon fiber-reinforced plastic. We've had versions of these axes for years and have yet to detect a crack. The forged steel head is molded into the fiber, making it seem and act like it's constructed from a single piece of metal.
A carbon-infused plastic handle and integrated forged steel head make the Fiskars models we tested some of the burliest available on the market.
Credit: Clark Tate
These Fiskars models will likely handle overstrikes better than any other option in the test and are thus excellent options for newer users. They all come equipped with a plastic sheath with an integrated handle. They each have a flimsy feeling plastic dial to lock them in place. These are the obvious weak points in the system, though we've yet to break one. The handle works well on all but the 36-inch long X27 Super Splitter — it's too tall to be carried vertically.
Fiskars sheaths come with a convenient integrated handle, though the plastic lock seems like an obvious weakness.
Credit: Clark Tate
Estwing forges the Sportsman's Axe from a single piece of steel in the U.S. We don't see it failing anytime soon. While the Fireside Friend seems similarly burly, its wedge construction implies that it can be used as a hammer or as a wedge to be hammered upon. Estwing claims that this is outside the intended purposes of the product and could damage it. But it's so tempting to do so that this axe could be more prone to injury than the rest.
A single piece of steel, wrapped, with lacquered leather, the Sportsman's hatchet doesn't give you much to break.
The single-piece steel construction of the Fireside Friend seems less likely to stand the test of time since it looks like such a tempting hammer/axe/wedge multitool but IS NOT meant to be used as one.
The Hults Bruk Agdor 20 Splitting Axe is hand-forged in Sweden, like the Gransfors Small Forest. It also has a US-sourced hickory handle. But it arrived dull, and the top of the handle, the small section above the head, chipped during use. It still seems like a very high-quality axe, with one of our favorite leather sheaths, but receiving an unsharpened blade gives us pause.
A nicely made axe, the Hults Bruk Agdor 20 Splitting Axe suffered from a dull blade on arrival.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Gerber Bushcraft Hatchet is made of a single piece of carbon steel wrapped in plastic and rubber. It also arrived dull, but once sharpened, seems like it will stand the test of time. The Kershaw Deschutes handle seems well-anchored to its steelhead, but time shall tell. The streamlined MTech hatchet leaves little to break.
The Gerber Bushcraft is a handy hatchet that split kindling well despite its initially dull blade.
A handy watertight compartment is clutch for keeping matches dry. Be prepared to replace that paracord though, it's very low quality.
The blade on the Bushcraft arrived surprisingly dull.
How to Pick the Best Axe for You
We've come up with four important considerations, including size, material, and experience level, to help guide your next axe purchase.
What Type of Axe Do You Need?
Axes come in a variety of sizes and shapes, all with their attributes for effectively chopping wood. Some axes are meant for felling trees, while others are geared towards chopping firewood. Determining your intended use is the first step towards navigating the world of axes. This will help you choose the appropriate size, handle, and head shape. Most axes will come with a title such as a chopping axe, which pertains to felling and—you guessed it—chopping. Splitting axes will excel at cutting rounds and kindling along the grain for firewood. Hatchets are another viable option for one-handed use and smaller tasks such as chopping small limbs and provide utilization while out camping and hiking.
Not all axes are made equal, choosing the right one can provide a lifetime of chopping and splitting.
Credit: Clark Tate
What is the Ideal Handle Length?
Once you identified the type of use your axe will see, it's time to figure out what size handle you need. A longer handle will generate more force and power, ideal for tackling larger pieces of wood, but comes at the cost of accuracy and control. Bigger is not always better, and it's important to consider your skill level regarding axe duties. It's also a good idea to consider the type of wood you plan on splitting or chopping, such as hardwood vs softwood, and the typical size you're tackling. Finding the right size handle will mostly depend on skill level and balancing power vs accuracy.
The correct handle length will provide the necessary power and control to chop away.
Credit: Clark Tate
What About the Axe Head?
The head of your axe is what makes contact, holds the majority of weight, and provides balance when utilizing an axe. It's important to identify key aspects of the axe head that can make one stand out from the other. This includes identifying the weight and balance to make sure it's not overly heavy but also provides enough oomph to cut through wood effectively. A good rule of thumb is to start with a smaller weighted axe head of around 1.5 to 2 lbs and work up from there based on experience and strength.
Does Handle Material Matter?
Axe handles come in different material variations, such as wood, composites, and steel. Handle material decisions are usually based on weight preference and durability. Hickory wood is a common choice due to its strength properties and great dampening characteristics. Fiberglass and composite handles don't swell or deteriorate from weather and can extend the life of your axe, and it's also usually lighter to swing. Preference and feel lead the way here, along with finding the right grip.
Wood is a popular handle material choice due to its simple but durable strength properties.
Credit: Clark Tate
Conclusion
With any luck, we've uncovered an axe that will work wonderfully for your forestry needs. Now it's time to find the perfect option to hang in your woodshed, strap on to your favorite backpacking backpack, toss in your car camping rig, or strap to the outside of your camper van as you head out to the horizon.
