Fiskars X17 vs Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe for Splitting Seasoned Beech

Two axes, one beech round about 25 cm across, cut in autumn and stacked under cover for eighteen months. The Fiskars X17 arrives as a composite-handle splitting axe, with the head and shaft moulded into a single overstrike-resistant unit. The Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe is a hand-forged Swedish tool made for general felling and limbing, not as a dedicated splitter. Put them into the same wood and their purposes separate quickly.

Seasoned beech is dense and interlocked. Its fibres hold together more stubbornly than ash or pine, and knots near the pith resist a clean line. At 15 to 20 percent moisture the round rings when struck. The two tools approach that round from opposite design premises, so the useful comparison happens at the block, swing by swing.

Head shape in the first bite

The X17 head carries a convex, wedge-heavy profile. Fiskars grinds the cheeks wide, so the steel begins forcing the split open almost as soon as the edge bites. On a straight-grained beech round about 20 cm across, the head sinks 3 to 5 cm and the round often opens on that first strike. The bit does not need to reach the far side; once buried, the taper levers the fibres apart.

The Small Forest Axe has a thinner, flatter bit ground for cutting across fibre, which is what limbing and felling demand. Driven into the same beech end grain, it penetrates deeper, sometimes 6 to 8 cm, then wedges. The thin cheeks slide into the fibre without spreading it far enough, so the head sticks and the round stays whole.

Freeing a stuck Gransfors from beech and resetting costs three to four seconds each time. Across a full basket of rounds, those pauses accumulate faster than the weight difference suggests.

On clean beech under 25 cm, the X17 opens the round in one or two strikes where the Small Forest Axe needs three to five plus a wedge or a second tool. Geometry, not sharpness, drives that gap.

Weight, speed, and the short hickory shaft

The X17 concentrates most of its 1.55 kg in the head, and the hollow composite shaft keeps the handle light. That head-to-handle mass ratio favours momentum at impact. A full overhead swing lands with enough kinetic energy to finish most 20 cm beech rounds outright. The 60 cm length gives a moderate arc, shorter than a full maul, which suits splitting close to a chopping block at knee height.

The Small Forest Axe, at roughly 0.9 kg total, moves faster through the swing but delivers less energy at the edge. For its intended work, felling saplings, limbing, and cutting notches, that lighter head is precise and controllable over a long day. Against dense beech, the user supplies more of the missing energy, which means more strikes and more fatigue per unit of wood processed. Over fifty rounds the difference in shoulder load is noticeable before the pile is done.

The 50 cm Gransfors shaft works well for one- or two-handed control close to the work. It is less helpful when swung hard overhead for splitting, because the shorter handle gives less mechanical advantage at the moment beech asks for the most force.

Overstrikes

Miss the round and hit the shaft below the head, an overstrike, and the two tools respond in opposite ways. The Fiskars composite handle shrugs off overstrikes that would crack or eventually break a wooden shaft. The Gransfors hickory handle, beautiful and replaceable, is the vulnerable point when a beginner splits firewood at speed and misses.

Edge, coating, and maintenance during a session

Gransfors Bruks forges the Small Forest Axe from a carbon steel hardened to around 57 HRC and ships it hair-shaving sharp with a leather sheath and a documented smith’s stamp. That edge is genuinely superior for cutting tasks and holds a fine bevel through limbing work. On splitting duty against beech, the fine edge matters little, because splitting is a wedging action, and the sharpest tool here is not automatically the fastest splitter.

The X17 uses a hardened steel bit with a low-friction blade coating that Fiskars applies to reduce sticking in the cut. On beech, that coating has more effect than edge angle. It helps a buried head release and pop the round instead of clamping inside it. The coating wears at the very edge over a few seasons, but the wedge geometry behind it keeps working long after the visible finish dulls.

Maintenance separates the two axes almost as clearly as head shape. Touching up the Gransfors is pleasant with a puck stone and the manufacturer’s own guidance, and the convex bevel takes a fine finish in a few minutes. The X17 is not meant to be sharpened to a razor bevel. A coarse file to knock back dings and restore the wedge shoulder is enough. Over-thinning its edge would reduce splitting performance by removing cheek mass that forces rounds open.

Anyone who enjoys the ritual of a sharp edge will get more satisfaction from the Swedish tool. Anyone counting rounds per hour will barely touch the Fiskars between seasons.

A rough worked figure from a single afternoon on eighteen-month beech: the X17 cleared a stacked cubic metre of 20 to 25 cm rounds with far fewer resets. The Small Forest Axe processed a comparable volume with roughly double the strike count and several stuck-head extractions per dozen rounds. The Gransfors edge was still shaving-sharp at the end; the X17 finished with a slightly scuffed coating and every round split.

Where the Gransfors earns its keep

For felling a wrist-thick sapling, limbing a felled trunk, cutting kindling from an already-split billet, or carrying the tool into the woods, the 0.9 kg Gransfors is the better instrument by a wide margin. Its balance, edge, and 50 cm handle are tuned for controlled cutting. It batons through kindling cleanly, while the fat X17 head tends to crush the piece.

The X17 is a one-job tool. Its job is splitting seasoned rounds at a block, and it does that extremely well, with little talent for the rest of the woodshed or forest work that a small cutting axe can handle.

Beech specifically flatters the wedge. Softer, straighter woods like spruce or dry pine split so easily that the thinner Gransfors bit manages them without wedging much, which narrows the gap. Knotty or twisted beech, the kind that resists any single line, defeats both tools and calls for a heavier maul or a splitting wedge driven by either poll. Neither of these axes is built to be struck on the poll, so a knotty round is not the place to test them that way.

Cost and service life

The X17 sits in the mid-range mass-market bracket. The Small Forest Axe costs substantially more and buys a hand-forged head, a hickory handle, and a tool that can be resharpened and re-hafted for decades. Value depends entirely on whether the buyer is filling a woodshed or working in a forest.

Moisture in the same beech

Everything above assumes 15 to 20 percent moisture. Push the beech down toward 12 percent through a hot dry summer under cover and the rounds split more readily under both tools, reducing the X17’s advantage. Take a round that has dried for only six months and still sits near 30 percent, and the fibres stay plastic, absorb the blow, and refuse to shear cleanly; the Fiskars wedge still wins, but neither tool feels efficient.