I twisted my knee yesterday so I had to stay home from my flight to Iowa this week. I've been watching lots of axe videos and chilling out with my knee elevated....


I have been on a huge axe kick lately but my focus has been lighter weight heads on longer handles. Over and over I have found that a long handle light weight tool with proper edge geometry really seems like a much better option for most bushcraft uses.


I recently mated a 2lb Evansville Tool hatchet head with a ruined boys axe handle and the result is pretty awesome.  The whole package is 23 1/2". I did a 1 1/4# Hults Bruk head with a 18" House Handle that ended up right at 17 1/4".


Here are the two axes.

 



They both bite very deep and feel light in the hand. They both feel great one or two handed. Both seem to carve well with the thin convex I gave them.


Here is the HB with a regular "scout" length handled Super Banko.

 

The more I use light weight axes with longer handles the more I think they are superior to heavy weights in a lot of respects.


I totally get the fact that a heavy axe with a proper grind will out chop a smaller axe with greater brute force behind the edge.


My point is that the light heads on longer handles with good grinds will not be far behind in performance.


Case in point. I had a huge birch branch fall across a shooting lane at a competition I run. The CS Rifleman's Hawk I keep in my truck is pretty light compared to a larger axe but it took down branches up to 4" like they were made of butter. 90% of that was the edge geometry combined with smooth, easy, quick swings.


I have a few more axes coming for free from Amazon.  The Snow & Neally Hudson Bay on a 24" handle and 1.75#,  a Condor Greenland on a 24" handle with 2.25# head (same as the Pathfinder), and a CS Trail Boss with it's 24" handle and 2 lb head. All for the same cost as one of the Swedish super axes if you don't count the free gift cards I had. 


I think that the longer handles are going to be a lot more prevalent in my collection.

Have you seen the review of Rifleman's Hawk combined with War Hammer 30" handle?
There was a youtube vid that looked cool.

That was on Preparedmind101. With the right edge geometry there is no need for it, but it would give it some serious reach for brush clearing.

This is a picture of several axes to give an idea of what light weight, mid sized axes look like.



Starting on top:

Council Tool Boys Axe (?) 27.5" over all and 3lb 4.4 oz over all (2.25lb head?) $10

Cold Steel Trail Boss Modified 27.375" over all and 2lb 14.6 oz over all (2lb +head?) $25

Condor Greenland 25.5" over all and 2lb 12.8oz over all (2.2lb head) $65

Evansville Tool Works 23.5" over all and 2lb 10.5oz over all (2lb head) $12

Snow & Nealley Hudson Bay 23" over all and 2lb 9.4oz over all (1.75lb head)  $65

Hults Bruk 17.25" over all and 1lb 14.7oz over all (1.25lb head)  $12


I happened to cash in a lot of airline miles for Amazon gift cards so I ordered a few axes to go along with my flea market finds. The S&N, CS, and Condor were all bought new.


I added the boys axe to add a size reference. I think that is valuable when considering a long handled, light weight axe. I bought this one at the flea market for $10.


I find that I like thinner handles. The Snow & Nealley has a thicker handle and that is about as thick as I will go without thinning it out.


The Cold Steel Trail Boss was modified into a Hudson Bay pattern. I did that earlier today.

All of these axes are pretty compact and light weight compared to full sized axes. The top 3 are not necessarily pack axe size, but the rest could easily be strapped to a pack and fell trees up to 8" with ease.

I had a pretty big maple branch to cut up so I decided to try out the Evanville Tool on a 8" wide by 10" deep part of the tree. This took about 7 or 8 minutes.



This is a huge test for me because it shows how capable the little axe really is. It would have been easier with a larger axe. It was perfectly doable with the 32.5" axe and the nice thin handle. I was popping chips 1" thick the full width of the notch. I barely made the notch wide enough but it worked out okay.

The tree looked like this to start.

 

With the $25 Trial Boss, it took 10 minutes to do this.



Another 15 - 20 minutes.



Again, a light weight head on a long handle showed how quickly it could finish a pretty substantial job like limbing the main trunk of a fallen tree.

I'd run with the Husqvarna Forest Axe. It has a small bit but the halve allows for good cuts. Surprisingly light weight. I also have the carpenter's axe from Husqvarna but it's weight is a whole bunch of given the size of the halve.


You could use the Forest Axe as a backpack axe easily. It is not heavy at all. I put a nice razor sharp edge on mine.

What is the length to head weight on that?