Outdoors writer John Fenna looks at the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife Hatchet.
Gransfors Bruks Wildlife Hatchet
Gransfors Bruks Wildlife Hatchet
Gransfors Bruks are a Swedish company that produces what are widely held to be the best axes and hatchets you can buy, and I recently decided to acquire one of their “Wildlife” hatchets to go with the Small Forest Axe I already own.
Of a traditional design with a 1lb head that has a 3” face and a 13 ½ ” top quality hickory handle, the Wildlife Hatchet can and is small enough to fit in a rucksack, or even clipped to your belt using the strap on the grain leather mask that it comes with. Ideal for lighter chopping tasks, the Wildlife Hatchet is well suited to backyard and field work.
The hatchet has oil-finished wood and a lanyard hole in the end knob. The head is forged from a special Swedish axe steel, (forged by one smith who stamps his initials into the head), and properly fitted and wedged onto the handle.
Each hatchet comes with a copy of “The Axe Book” which gives care and maintenance information, a history of the Gransfors Bruks company (from 1910), a guide to cutting and storing firewood, limbing logs, making a fire (indoors and in the field), axe throwing, making log cabin logs, and the company philosophy, as well as a 20-year guarantee.
The weight, heft, balance, shape – everything is just how a good hatchet or axe should be and the blade cuts deep, clean and accurately every time.
