Hultafors VS Gransfors
Some people that work and play in the woods really care about designer labels.
The first thing that lots of people do after discovering the joy of a day spent amongst tree’s and wood smoke is go out and spend £100 on a knife and £120 on a Gransfors Small Forest Axe.
Brands and labels have become important, sometimes they’re important for the wrong reasons.
Cost vs Performance
Snobbishness in the woods is just not necessary; anyone discovering bushcraft can afford a Hultafors Heavy Duty Knife, superb tools, absolutely functional, great steel, razor sharp and only £6.
The UK’s obsession (?) with Gransfors axes is a bit strange; they’re nice axes, well finished and the little booklet that comes with them is lovely – but, we think, they are not worth the price that people are prepared pay for them.
Size matters
The Gransfors axe is too small to be an effective all rounder and too big to replace a heavy ‘chopper’ like the classic Martindale. The Gransfors Small Forest axe doesn’t do very much, very well. It’s designed to be strapped to a pack but very few people who use axes in the UK actually carry them for any distance in this way.
The short (19”) handle and lightweight (1.5 lb) head on the Gransfors mean that any task heavier than splitting rounds can be inefficient and slow.
Why buy an elongated hatchet if the jobs that need to be done can be easily done by a cheaper, smaller axe.
Buy a tool to suit the job
If you want an axe for medium to heavy work then buy a tool that will do that work well. The Hultafors Felling Axe is significantly longer than the Gransfors and the head is 170 g heavier.
The Hultafors is compact enough to be easily transported and big enough to be efficient; chopping and splitting is easy; using two hands is comfortable and effective.
The steel of the Hultafors is great and the cutting profile of the head is very efficient for chopping, perhaps most importantly the Hultafors is much cheaper than the Gransfors Small Forest Axe.
The Gransfors costs a mighty £120;
The Hultafors gets you more axe for less money at £45.
Buy a tool, not a showpiece
The finish is better on the Gransfors, the supplied cover is better quality and you get a lovely booklet with the axe – but, honestly, we don’t think these things are very important.
Buy a tool, not a show piece; buy something that is designed to do a job really well. If we could give you one piece of axe related advice it would be to consider buying a Hultafors axe.Hultafors make axes our of Swedish Steel in Sweden : https://www.hultafors.com/products/axes/
Gransfors Bruk make axes our of Swedish Steel in Sweden: https://www.gransforsbruk.com/en/butik/products/forest-axes-en/
Land & Wave trains Bushcraft Instructors in Dorset. We also run the Ultimate Stag Weekend in the woods.
Enjoy the pathless woods…
26 June 2013 by Owen Senior
