Ok, call me crazy but I did what I promised. First I had to fire up the bobcat to plow a 1/4 mile path thru the woods to my pile of rounds. Then I cleared a open area to work and got as much snow away from the pile as possible. Then I pushed up the pile of rounds with the bucket to free them up from being froze together. Now I had room to work, took the bobcat home and grabbed the x27 and walked into the woods. The wind howling, temps falling into single digits from a high of 38 yesterday, where it will bottom out in the -20's tonight.
I started off with some 10-12" red oak (90% of the pile). The ax drove right through these in a single hit, as I thought it would, red oak splits pretty easily. Moving into some 15's were not a problem either, some did take 2 or 3 hits depending on the chunk of wood. Some had multiple knots which meant hit placement is mandatory. The first 20 incher I busted through in a single hit, was pretty surprised. But most of the 20's did require 3-4 swings to fully crack in half. Once in half, dicing up was made easy. Overall, I did like what the x27 did. I never expected it to blow through any huge round in a single hit nor do I expect any splitting maul to do either. I like the fact that its lighter than my 8lb'er and I feel it worked better plus I didnt get as tired as I would have swinging a heavier maul. I wasnt swinging for a home run with each hit, sometimes I would anticipate a piece to split easy. So I would swing 1/2 speed, only to be shown who's the boss at times. But the real test will be when I have my buddy, "the human dinosaur", over to test the x27. He loves to split with a ax, and puts all 270lbs into each swing. The handle did get tested a few times, and now shows the battle scars below the head. I like the hook on the end of the handle it keeps both hands in the same spot when swinging.
