The best axe I've ever owned

Reviews: Fiskars 7854 X25 28-Inch Splitting Axe

I've only had this axe for one day and I'm already in love with it. I was able to process half a cord of wood in just a few hours, including stacking time. That's twice my best speed with a maul, and I don't have the muscle ache I usually have after that kind of work. I split sugar maple, red oak, and black birch (which is actually tougher to split than many other woods), and this axe powered through all of them easily. Even with knotty wood I had no trouble - sometimes it took more than one blow, but I was always able to get through it.

I had planned on renting a splitter this year, and I've canceled that plan. I just don't need it, and this axe is MUCH faster once you get used to it. I'm stunned it costs so little. Honestly, I was wishing for a helper to place the wood on my stump. I was splitting so fast without getting tired that the bulk of my time was spent placing rounds and then stacking splits. One thing I appreciated is it didn't get stuck as much as my maul tends to do. If a blow doesn't "crack" the piece, a lot of times it will bounce out and you're ready for another swing. Usually I found I was splitting medium pieces in half in one swing, and quartering big rounds in 2-3.

There's a video floating around of a guy using this axe to split like 15 logs in just a few minutes by chaining them all together into a bundle to keep them from falling over, then walking around hitting each log. I gave that a shot but had no luck with it. It's hard to tell when you've split a round all the way through, and for some of my bigger (20+" long, 20+" dia) rounds I sometimes had to use the age-old trick of flipping them over to complete a split. I like to split bigger red oak rounds - I guess until my back gives out, there's just something satisfying about getting 8-10 pieces of wood from a single round. This axe split things in a few blows that I used to have to get out a wedge to handle.

Other reviews are accurate: you MUST keep this axe sharp for it to work properly, and you can't do it right with a file - get the sharpener. It only takes a few passes and you're going again.