First off I will say that axemen staff were excellent to deal with. Jeremy went above and beyond to answer my questions and send extra pictures to help me decide what axe best suited my use case. They shipped it same day and I had it in a week. Awesome. 5 stars to axemen.
Now for the axe. I will say I'm pretty disappointed with hults bruk in all honesty. The axe showed up with 2 significant dings in the blade edge and the handle had significant run out. This was no biggie for me as I swapped it to a straight handle as soon as I got it (purely a personal preference and use case thing), and I re profiled the edge much thinner so it digs in much better cross grain. The reason I find this a problem is because the box was un damaged, leading me to believe that the axe left the factory/forge that way. For a $200 axe, from a "world class brand" there should be way better quality control. I essentially paid $200 for an axe head that I had to re profile and sharpen myself. End of the world? No, but I wouldn't say I'm thrilled with it. I shouldn't have to spend 45 minutes with a file working out blade damage and re profiling to an edge that should have been on there in the first place (it is a chopping axe, after all).
So in summary, axemen.ca, 5 stars all day long. I would and will deal with them again. Deal with confidence.
Hults bruk, eh, quality control is not what it should be at the price point. They still use high quality components, but the run out on the handle and the 2 sizable dings on either side of the cutting edge in my mind deserves 2 stars lost for a $200 axe.
You smash 5 stars for axemen and 3 stars for hults bruk together and you get 4 stars.
