I'm surprised they aren't $250 the way you'ns are goin' apey over 'em.... you'd still pay.
Gonna price me right out of one.
Not sure how much I would have paid for one, I hemmed and hawed at 50 bucks. that's a lot of spare loot for me. After I got it though..money well spent.
Put it this way, if there were a flock of saws all costing X dollars, and buy only spending a little bit more..you got three to five times the performance and mileage out oa tank..what would you pay for such a saw?
I am getting at least 3-5 times as much wood split per my work input, rough guess. It really has been that dramatic an increase. Time and effort, I split much faster, with also much less effort. hard to quantify for ME other than shazzam!
In retrospect, based on my production now, would I have gone a hundred? Yes. If I hadn't read some good reviews first, and really looked close at the design in pictures, and thought "oh well, couldn't be that much better than my 20 buck maul", no, I wouldn't have gotten one. I just took a chance based almost exclusively on what I read on this site. Exactly like I a took a chance on buying a used old poulan mag case saw, I was reading about them here, found a wicked deal, went for it.
Happy with both decisions based on split and cut for the buck, can't be beat by anything out there unless someone gives you brand new free stuff, plus does the work for you.
I personally don't care what other guys want to swing, they want to heft an anvil on a stick and bash wood with it, that's their business, not mine, but I'll offer my personal anecdotals and reviews of products I own and use, plus any tips or tricks I might have come up with. It's all about sharing here..
Some guys just don't see much of any improvement over their semi sharpened anvil on a stick, so be it, I ain't them guys or working their personal wood. There are differences and I can respect that. I know for what I have to work with, mixed generic all species southeast USA wood, fiskars is the berries on the vast majority of it, all sizes I encounter. I have found that whatever is hard or impossible to split with my fiskars, is about equally sucky with a maul and wedge and sledge. I mean *anything* can be split eventually, just you get some it is silly to not noodle them and be done with it. Outside of that, fiskars all the way, until a better product comes along.