Seachaser, after you mentioned Logrite I visited their website. I remembered I had looked at their hookaroons a couple years ago and had completely forgotten about them !!! Thanks for refreshing my memory... I bought the 36" Logrite hookaroon.
Logrite was very friendly on the phone. The hookaroon shipped promptly. Arrived in perfect condition. The build quality was perfect. I used it on some live and some dead red oak. Worked nice.
You will have to sharpen the point a little bit more so that it is not quite as blunt. With the factory ground point, in softwoods it works great, in hard woods you have to swing it pretty hard to snag it. So sharpening it a bit makes it easier to stab the wood with fewer deflections, or multiple swings. Swinging it at 3" or smaller oak rounds is kind of like playing croquet. Works better on bigger stuff. Also works good for snagging brush and pulling it, or using it as a cane to bend down when picking up small stuff.
The Fiskars maul works great. Most of the time I could split rounds without even putting energy into it when swinging. and just letting the weight of the maul do the work. I did have a giant red oak knotted crotch that was like rock. I hit it about 15 times to split it... and about swing number 7, I must have hit it cock-eyed. It really shocked my right hand, wrist, and thumb. Really hurt. So the Isocore works great when used properly, but its not invincible, and not a guarantee it wont jar you.
Got some pics of my beater Echo CS-4400, favorite gas can, and our firewood truck that we are putting a battery in and fixing tire !!!
I think this one widow maker tree over the driveway is maybe a river birch, maybe elm, have not looked that closely at it yet.