My first fully handmade handle, got some persimmon wood and read that it was hard and used as drumsticks and golf club heads, decided that was good enough for a hatchet handle. Just finished with danish oil and will test her tomorrow. My only concern is the persimmon is too rigid and may snap under heavy hits, but I’ll find out.

Used the old, I believe original handle as a template but went chunkier close to the head to ensure longevity. Head sits on an 1/8 in shoulder, making the shoulder at that angle was difficult to get symmetrical.

Hello all, I just re-hung my Hults Bruk splitting axe. It was a handle I already had here, so I thought I would give it a shot. I fully realize it’s not perfect by any means.

The wedge is cherry and obviously the handle is ash. I was curious what the best way of securing the wedge in place would be? I can absolutely cut some metal wedges if that’s the best bet. Just wasn’t certain if there were others.

Also, would adding some beeswax to fill the gaps in the front and back help with stability?

Thanks!

Hello I bought marbles # 5 axe head at a garage sale and I’m looking to see how much it’s worth as I’m having a hard time finding info online for pricing. Any help please !

Got some pitting and missing a claw. Might end up cutting off the remaining claw and use the axe for something idk what though

I've been looking to find the heaviest double bit felling axe head I can find to put on a new 44" Puget sound style handle I ordered recently. I have an axe head but it can't be much more than 4 pounds max. I know they've made 6 pound heads and maybe even 8 but I can't find any. If anyone has one in eastern Canada and are willing to part with it let me know!

Collins 5 pound found in river mud (prob been there 50 years). This is the state of affairs after a 48 hour vinegar soak. Heavily pitted, but rings like a bell. What should we do with it?

I’m hoping some of these recently made handles will make good trading fodder

I restored this old ax that my dad said was either my grandfather or great grandfathers. I think it’s from the mid to late 1800s but I’m curious what y’all think? And I’m wondering if the mark is one you recognize.

Custom chopper I made for a game warden who has to cut down cartel grows.

I found this metal detecting I’m wondering how old it is
Kane County Utah near the Arizona border

Found buried under a huge tree on MILs property. Southern California desert. House was built late 60's to early 70s. Any info would be appreciated.

Snagged this lot for AUD$120 the other day:
Axe - Hytest
Hatchets - HB broad face, Junior, unbranded, carpenter’s
Heavy sickle - Trojan
Pickaxes - one branded but unreadable, one unbranded
Bailihook heads - one Trojan, one unbranded
Ajax edger and unbranded hoe

I’m pretty chuffed overall! Plenty of rust removal fun in my near future.

Been..off and on..with this piece for almost 5 years..

One of those guys who got eight projects on the go

Lol

I re-hafted it on a 21 inch handle i carved from a piece of ash and did a shou sugi ban and put a tarred twine over swing blocker whatever its called on it. Its my first time doing anything of the like, anyone have any tips for future projects? oh yeah, I roughly resharpened it, put an apple seed edge on it. looks like crap. im weak guy but i think it works well considering I can use it for about an hour before tiring.

A friend did some work on my little rally car build , and I built him this splitter as a gift for his help .
Came out alright for a quick build . I hope he enjoys it .

Mild steel wrapped eyes with 5160 bits. Jute wrapped handles impregnated with epoxy.

So I'm working on turning a cheap roofing hatchet into a Shepard's axe I'm almost done with the profiling just need to finalize a few things with my Dremel rather than the grinder at work because of lack of space then polis and sharpen. What I need help with is coming up with a handle. The eye on this hatchet is basically a standard hatchet eye about 2 3/4 long by about and inch and a quarter wide. I'm having trouble finding any hardwood boards thick enough to use to carve my own handle as all the big box places only carry stuff that is one inch thick and none of the pre made handles I'm finding in the length I want (40-48") have an appropriately or oversized eye that I could carve down to size. Anyone have any suggestions?

The best axe is the one that needs the fewest strokes to fell and split any wood. Efficiency, metallurgy, and real models versus marketing.

What we mean by "The Best"

The best axe is the one that does the hard work - felling and splitting any wood - with the fewest strokes possible. It is not the lightest, it is not the most versatile, it is not the prettiest. It is the one that exhausts you the least because you need fewer strokes.

Premises

1. Hardwood. An axe that works hardwood also works softwood. The reverse is not true. Anyone who only splits pine or fir has no way of knowing that their axe bounces on holm oak, ironbark, or jarrah. The best axe is, by definition, a hardwood axe.

2. No Chipping. Chipping depends on toughness, and hardness and toughness are a trade-off. Conventional carbon steel around 58-60+ HRC, without a toughness-oriented alloy (such as 4340 or 5160) and without a proper differential temper, is prone to chipping in hardwood: the edge micro-chips stroke by stroke until it stops cutting. Every knot, every twisted grain, every speck of silica pushes a tiny piece of the edge away. With a steel treated for toughness, around 55 HRC, the edge yields microscopically and absorbs the impact without losing geometry. It is sharpened in the field with a file or a stone: two passes and you keep working. With steel at 58-60+ HRC it takes much more effort: you stop, you get frustrated, and if you push it, you burn the edge. To fix a chip in very hard steel you have to grind down the edge by 3–4 mm: the file barely bites that steel, and resorting to a belt sander or a grinder risks overheating the edge and losing the heat treat. The best axe is sharpened on the spot, with the tool you carry in your pocket, and that is part of why its steel is treated to be tough and sharpenable, not just hard.

3. Penetrates Without Bouncing. A wedge bounces in hardwood. It doesn't matter if it's narrow or wide, it doesn't matter if it weighs 1 kg or 4 kg: if the entry geometry is a wedge (a flat surface pushing the grain apart along its length without cutting it), the elastic fiber of the hardwood ejects it before it penetrates. Bouncing does not depend on the width of the wedge, it depends on the lack of a cutting edge. The best axe has an edge with functional penetration: enough to cut the entering fiber, tough enough not to chip. Neither a razor nor a wedge.

4. Doesn't Bind. A narrow, straight edge binds more than a wide, curved one. The width of the edge distributes the force over more surface area and reduces pressure per contact point. The curvature of the profile helps ensure that, when the edge penetrates, the face geometry pushes the wood sideways instead of sinking into a single point. A 13–15 cm edge with a curved profile binds significantly less than a straight 10–11 cm one.

5. Weight. A light head does not penetrate. And this is not just a hardwood problem: in softwood, a 700–800 g head doesn't penetrate deeply enough either, it just forces you to dramatically increase the number of strokes to break the same log fragment. In hardwood, the problem multiplies: the same light head that already fails in pine, in holm oak or ironbark simply doesn't penetrate at all. Since it's already disqualified for not working hardwood, it's not even worth considering. Maximum weight, on the other hand, depends on the handle: 3 kg with an 80 cm handle is uncontrollable for almost everyone; 2–2.5 kg with an 80 cm handle is at the upper limit of the controllable; with a 65–70 cm handle, there is no issue. Although counterintuitive, a heavy axe as long as it is controllable thanks to a not-too-long handle is much more efficient and therefore causes less fatigue, even if it is harder to transport.

6. Handle Length. There is an absolute maximum (around 80 cm) beyond which a stroke loses directional control, with any head weight. It cannot be compensated for with anything: a 90 cm handle is uncontrollable both with a 1 kg head and with a 3 kg head. It is a hard limit that nothing else can move. And there are very few situations where it is not the most efficient choice to deliver the stroke right where you want it: missing by one or two centimeters heavily penalizes the total efficiency of performing the same work.

7. Weight in the Head. An axe with the weight in the head (center of gravity in the head) is more efficient than a balanced one: each stroke brings more kinetic energy to the edge, fewer strokes are needed for the same work, and fewer strokes mean less total fatigue. An axe balanced along the handle, or with a thick hickory handle all the way down, shifts the weight away from the head. The result is that each stroke is less efficient, more strokes are needed for the same work, and more strokes = more fatigue. Hickory is an excellent wood for not breaking in a hammer, but to avoid breaking it needs thickness, and that thickness shifts the weight out of the head.

It is not an observation of mine, it is a design choice. Hickory is a North American wood (in Europe others were used, like ash or beech) and it became dominant because of its resistance to breaking. There are several factors that intervened in its mass adoption in the US, something that could easily be considered a development contrary to the normal technical evolution of a tool, where improvement is sought. It occurred at a time when asserting one's own national identity and differentiating from Europeans was very important for those who began using it, and that is why hickory is surrounded by much marketing that speaks of its durability and robustness, but not of the fact that those qualities are gained at the knowing cost of striking power and of more vibration transmitted to the user: a handle with a lot of mass absorbs the vibration of the head and transmits it to the hand, and for it to absorb better, more thickness and weight were added, worsening the problem, a vicious circle. It is the fruit of folk research in the field, without scientific rigor: the solutions at hand were adopted without thinking that they were partly counterproductive, since the handle doesn't just vibrate more: a thick and rounded handle forces you to grip tighter to control the axe, and when the body concentrates on gripping it loses the capacity to center the stroke, which is what precision depends on for the same handle length. It also relied on new uses that did not occur in Europe: in US forests, of intensive logging and huge trees, abundance was such that it wasn't necessary to utilize all the tree wood, and they didn't cut near the ground or roots, to cut faster and avoid the trunk base, with its butt swell, rot, fire scars, cracks, and resin, an area that in Europe had no relevance and where cutting was done from the lowest possible part. In that context, springboard felling was invented: one or more loggers made an indentation in the trunk, wedged a board, and chopped standing on it. On a narrow board, the axe could not have large moments of inertia in its movements that would make the logger fall, and that is why those robust hickory handles were used that balanced the weight of the assembly: they lost cutting power and efficiency, but gained the necessary stability to log under those conditions. Therefore, outside of those conditions, it makes no sense to maintain as an axiom that the axe must be a balanced tool, when the technical reality is that it is a tool that seeks and needs to maximize the moment of inertia of the head. If we had the perfect axe, it would concentrate all the weight the logger has to handle at the point furthest from the center of the circular motion of the strike. Since that is impossible, the reasonable approach is to build every part of the axe to prevent the weight from shifting from the head: every gram, the further it gets from it, the more useless it is, and it has to contribute a lot to justify its presence. That is why "the best axe" cannot mount a hickory handle without a customization that thins it so aggressively that it will lose its robustness characteristics.

Furthermore, the union of a hickory handle to the head is by wedge: the head is permanently joined to the handle because it is difficult to remove a handle without destroying it to be able to use it again. As in the case of balance, the wedge union, adopted massively, also sought to differentiate from Europeans, who at least partly used taper fits without a wedge. A beech handle, thinner and with longitudinal grain, joins by taper and centrifugal force, withstands the same impact with less material, preserves the weight in the head where it should be, and can be changed per session, customized in length, or experimented with. Think of the handle as a fuse or a consumable: it is there to break before the head or before you when a stroke goes wrong, and that is why it should be easy and cheap to replace. With 10-20 € you have it solved.

8. Not Multi-purpose. An axe that fells a 40 cm oak and also limbs a 5 cm pine is a compromise between two incompatible extremes. And a compromise between two extremes is bad at both. Limbing and pruning are jobs for a one-handed hatchet. Historically, in Spain and Australia, "the best axe" is used for heavy work and another light one for the rest. In the US, in intensive logging, it was two men with two specialized axes: one who felled and one who limbed. Neither used the other's axe.

What Gets Discarded

• Pure splitting axes and mauls: They do not fell. They are not cutting axes. They cut softwood poorly and very poorly in hardwood, being a source of frustration that can make you abandon your hobby.
• Most Fiskars (X17, X27, X36): Blunt 35° edge, narrow bit, designed for Nordic softwood. In hardwood they bounce.
• Light / trekking / one-handed axes: They do not penetrate.
• Axes with hickory handles or handle-balanced weight: Very pretty shape, but not the most efficient for doing the work, in addition to conditioning precision, control, and fatigue. It is not the best in several important aspects that define "the best axe."
• Gränsfors, Hultafors, and others below 2 kg: High hardness carbon steel (57-60+ HRC) that tends to chip in hardwood and knots, and cannot be easily sharpened in the field because the steel is too hard for quick manual filing. Narrow edge (10-11 cm) and relatively straight, so they bind more than wide and curved edge ones. Light heads (700 g to 1.5 kg) that do not penetrate hardwood. Hickory handles that balance the axe for handling and transport, but make it inefficient in its real cutting work: each stroke brings less energy to the edge and more strokes are needed.

The Efficient Choices Across All Aspects

A cutting axe (felling + splitting), with the weight in the head, 2 to 2.5 kg, with a beech or dense eucalyptus handle of 65-80 cm, wide (13-14 cm) and curved edge, and carbon or alloy steel forged with a hardness around 55 HRC: tough not to chip, penetrating not to bounce, wide and curved not to bind, with the weight in the head and maximum precision so every stroke counts.

• Bellota, Onraita, Altuna, Flores Cortes, Cofán: The modern evolution, respecting traditional forging in many cases, of the working axes that a Basque, Portuguese, or southern French logger took to the woods every day to fell and split holm oak, oak, or chestnut under extreme conditions (mud, cold). They neither want nor can afford for their work not to be efficient they choose "the best axe." Mass production, forged in a single piece of F114 carbon-manganese steel, wide 13-14 cm edge, beech handle. Excellent characteristics at very contained prices. They are not the finest tools that exist, but they are the tools that withstand real work without breaking or losing their edge.
• Jauregi of Urnieta (Guipúzcoa): The extreme example of efficiency due to weight in the head. Hand-forged and individually tempered, each piece individually, with a steel that does not seek maximum hardness but the exact balance between edge retention, shock resistance, and ease of field sharpening. They are the competition axes of aizkolaritza: the axe that, with a harder steel and a more extreme grind, aizkolaris use to fell green beech for 30 minutes of competition. They share with "the best axe" most of its qualities - weight in the head, wide and curved edge, short beech handle - but push the steel and edge beyond what a consumer user needs or can maintain. Proven for centuries both in the field and in demanding long-duration competition. The most efficient, the most precise, the one that tires less while doing the job better than the others.
• Snedden's (New South Wales, Australia): A family-run rural business manufacturing axes since 2002, specifically for Australian hardwoods. 4340 nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy steel (the same used in earthmoving equipment for durability and strength). The head is lost-wax cast and the cutting face is forged under a 75 kg hammer, refining the grain structure where it matters: at the edge. Tempered to the correct hardness. The sharpening is designed for all Australian hardwoods. Spotted gum handle (dense Australian eucalyptus), 80 cm, 2 kg head. Individually numbered.
• Tuatahi (Masterton, New Zealand): Hand-forged in their forge, tool-grade steel individually tempered. Their Work Axe (3.2 kg, 77 cm) is at the limit of being in the range of "the best axe": maximum weight in the head, wide edge, compact geometry, but the excess weight and the hickory handle that costs it precision leave it right on the borderline. It is a formidable tool for heavy work (cutting frozen wood, large-diameter logs).
• The Tasmania Pattern: The wide, compact, and heavy head geometry developed in Tasmania starting in 1908 (originally by Plumb) for woods of 1000-1100 kg/m³ density. Historically manufactured by Kelly (Dandenong), Hytest, Brades, and Wiebelhaus. Currently produced by Helko Werk (Germany, 1.8 kg, 80 cm hickory handle) and Hultafors (Agdor Tasmania Pattern model, 2 kg, 800 mm hickory handle). Without Tuatahi's excess weight, the head imbalance and the longer, less precise handle take them out of the range of "the best axe." They retain the geometry and profile - wide head, curved edge - but the hickory handle shifts the center of gravity out of the head without the head compensating with sufficient weight. They are less efficient due to that shift, although they are better than axes that don't even have the correct geometry. They are not comparable with "the best axe."

The Best Axe

The best axe is not a specific model, it is a set of characteristics. These tools meet all of them simultaneously, at different prices and in different contexts.

In my view, a 2.5 kg Jauregi with its original 75 cm handle is "the best axe." If you cannot get it due to availability or price: with an Onraita or a Bellota you don't have the visual aspect of the Jauregi, but you do have its main characteristics.

Tuatahi catches my attention as an extreme case: it is very close to not being in the range of use of a good axe due to its excess weight and the handle that subtracts precision, and European derivatives, by not compensating for it and lowering the weight, make their loss in power and precision take them out of the comparison, although at least they keep the shape: a €40 working Bellota surpasses them easily. The Tuatahi is very expensive and needs to be imported from New Zealand; the brand itself sells a "China Axe" head at a much lower price, but having to import it just like the original drives its price up in Europe to ~200 €.

It is not the lightest axe. It is not the most versatile. It is not the easiest to transport. It is the one with which you need the fewest strokes to cut the tree and split the wood. And fewer strokes is less fatigue, less frustration, more satisfaction and pride for having chosen well and knowing it is the best to perform your hobby.

Epilogue: The Best Axe For You

Once the best axe that can be bought today is defined, let's see what personal or environmental conditions can modify your choice. You may not really need the best axe, you need the best axe for you:

• You have spent your whole life cutting wood in Canada and have never found anything that a good maul/wedge couldn't solve, and your favorite is a Fiskars X27 which is also trendy. It is logical to think that "the best axe" is not the best, since you have never tried it, but it is, and it would keep doing the job very well if you could test it. But being such a specific job where you only need to chop softwood, the range of possibilities at your disposal changes and focuses on some qualities that the axe you look for must have. This is understood very well if we analyze the hardnesses of the majority woods by territories.

The woods used as firewood mostly by zones, which doesn't mean you won't encounter something harder, but it's not the majority:

• America: red oak (≈1,220–1,290 lbf, 702 kg/m³) and yellow birch (≈1,260 lbf, 689 kg/m³), and in some cases ironwood (Ostrya virginiana), ≈1,860 lbf and 785 kg/m³.
• Northern Europe: hornbeam (≈1,630 lbf, 737 kg/m³) and European ash (≈1,480 lbf, 680 kg/m³).
• Southern Europe: olive (≈2,710 lbf, 980 kg/m³) and encina / holm oak (≈2,590 lbf, 961 kg/m³).
• Australia: grey ironbark (≈3,660 lbf dry, 1,105 kg/m³) and red ironbark (≈3,240 lbf according to one supplier; another gives 11.9 kN, ≈2,680 lbf).

The hardest woods you can find are not split with a Fiskars, they require, however difficult it may be, cutting the twisted, tangled, and never straight fibers of these woods. Chopping dry holm oak could be compared to encountering a knot in white oak. To chop dry red oak it is not vital to count on "the best axe" and a maul solves your problem well.

And even so, you have to look at exceptions, because for example in my case, when I chop dry holm oak for the stove and see that it is a harder log than usual, I don't hit it with "the best axe": I have a 2.5 kg Onraita with a 90 cm handle and I hit it with everything knowing that something is going to burst, the log, the axe, or preferably the handle, after checking that there are no live animals or people in the radius of the possible explosion. If I could run away I would... Speaking seriously, even counting on the best tools and beyond the list of hardnesses, which doesn't take into account when the wood is dry, the specific knot you encounter or partially rotted wood can cause it to jump anywhere. You have to know how to give up hitting it with the stroke you feel comfortable with but with which you can only break something, and use good firewood wedges of 1.5 kg or more, used in pairs, to avoid running unnecessary safety risks.

• Or because you have never bumped into real hardwood and don't know what it entails. Keep in mind that what is considered hardwood in Northern Europe or America, for an Australian in a hardwood zone is soft wood. Here the best axe does apply, and even so it is only just enough. A dry grey ironbark is around 3,660 lbf: three times harder than red oak and 1.4 times more than dry holm oak. That is why ironbark is never chopped dry, it is only chopped if it is green, and green, with ≈2,470 lbf, it remains almost at the level of dry holm oak. Since the best axe cannot be improved with the materials available today, and if with holm oak you already have to renounce sometimes to the stroke you feel good with and resort to firewood wedges, with this wood you renounce earlier. And firewood wedges also suffer, because some of these woods (red ironbark, red gum) have fiber so intertwined that they are practically like a continuous knot in other woods.
• Or because your thing is bushcraft and survival. It's clear that you don't want "the best axe": you look for an axe that is easy to transport, that is not very conspicuous if you happen to run into authorities, and that allows you to do a little bit of everything. Several qualities that "the best axe" has lose a lot of importance, because with those transportable sizes you already know that you are going to give extra strokes, that it will cost you a lot to cut a 10 cm tree and that just to test yourself you will look for something bigger; that to split fine firewood into kindling it's enough to know the technique and that the axe is sharp. In my case, who also likes to stroll through the field sometimes seeing what I can do and how, without getting to spend the night, meaning acknowledging going under-equipped, a Leatherman knockoff with a ferro rod and a 700 g Jauregi with a 50 cm handle is plenty for me - a bit cumbersome because of the handle, but whose handle I take off and put back when my backpack layout asks for it, and which with Jauregi's weight-distribution philosophy can easily work as if it were 1 kg with a 60 cm handle. I carry a handcrafted and pretty axe for 40 €, but what the best axe for bushcraft is is another topic, with other criteria, and it is not the one of this post.
• Or because you have less strength or stamina (age, build, an injury). Here the qualities of "the best axe" do still apply in general, because maybe that day or with your age you no longer dare with a 40 cm log or a 2.5 kg axe, but you do with a 15-20 cm one with a 1.5 kg axe, and you don't want to give extra strokes either, so the geometry, the tendency to bind, the profile and width of the edge matter. With a medium size, penetration drops so much by reducing head weight that it is no longer comparable to that of a 2 or 2.5 kg axe. In my case, some days my arms don't respond or when I'm chopping holm oak firewood that has already been opened once and I want to get less tired, knowing what the best full-size axe is and taking advantage of the fact that I keep the firewood in the same place where I have my axe collection, I use a 1.25 kg Jauregi with a 60 cm handle with the weight in the head like all Jauregi, with which I know I am having the same performance as with a medium felling-size axe of 70 cm mounting a hickory handle, or a 1.5 kg Bellota which also performs very well if that day I don't want to chop firewood premium style, but with much more care, because these types of shorter axes are more dangerous to use: if you miss a stroke it's easier for the axe not to end up against the stump or the ground and end up against the foot or ankle.
• Or because the accessible handles in your area, more popular and cheaper, are 90 cm, then you already know you are not using "the best axe" but you are using the best axe for you, or the one you have access to, but knowing what you are up against: where precision comes from, what is more efficient and what is less, that a missed stroke is much more important than it might seem, so that you can adapt your technique and attention to those details and obtain very good performance from a well-sharpened axe.

We all have in mind what the best axe is, and curiously it usually matches the one we already like. But liking it doesn't make it the best by construction, by results, by appearance, or by the technique it demands. That is why it is important to distinguish between "the best axe" and the best axe for each person according to their use and preferences: the first is defined with criteria, those of this post; the second, with your firewood, your hands, and your taste. With those criteria there is a best axe, even if it is not the one we like the most.

If you have reached this far, thank you. I hope it has awakened your interest in axes and that it has been useful to you.

Repost with correct link: https://youtu.be/mpnfkY-iCQA A short and sweet video by Thibaud Morthelier (@TheudBald on YouTube). He is also on instagram as lafrontiere_outils and posted the clip there too. https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dc004_por-n/