Why Modern Wood Splitting Mauls Suck

If you are looking for a new wood splitting maul, beware of modern mauls. The design of traditional style 6 and 8 lb. mauls have changed in recent years. Apparently the engineers who are designing splitting mauls, don’t spend a lot of time splitting firewood. In every store I have looked at, they all have this new inferior design.

With the old style splitting mauls there was a fairly consistent narrow taper from the tip back. Much wider than an ax of course, but still relatively narrow. But with the new mauls, the tip has a very blunt angle right at the tip. Then back a half inch or so, it goes to the more normal narrow taper. If anything, this is the exact opposite of how a maul should be made if you want it to split wood. With this blunt angle, trying to split wood with the new mauls is only a little better than hitting the wood with blunt sledge.

If you have any old splitting mauls that are actually good for splitting wood, you might want to save the heads when the handles wear out. You will probably be better off replacing the handle instead of buying a new maul. Or if you don’t have a good maul, you may be able to shape the new maul into a usable shape if you have a good grinder and plenty of patience. But this will require removing a lot of metal.

To the splitting maul manufacturers, please start building splitting mauls that are actually good for splitting firewood.