Gransfors Bruk Wildlife Hatchet

The Gränsfors Bruk Wildlife Hatchet 415 is a small, traditional hatchet for the kindling box: thin sticks for the fire, a wedge, a tent stake, a bit of rough carving.

Every woodpile also has one round with a knot in it, and every family has one person who wants to try it with the small hatchet anyway. The small hatchet has opinions about knots. That round needs something bigger. Even a fan in the threads below wished for a bigger one more than once.

What 35 centimeters of hickory is for

Gränsfors makes the Wildlife Hatchet 35 cm long, about 13.8 inches, with a recycled high-carbon steel head on a hickory handle. The whole hatchet weighs about 0.6 kg, about 1.3 lb. Gränsfors gives it the same head as its Hand Hatchet and lists camping and small-wood tasks as its uses. A vegetable-tanned leather sheath and The Axe Book come in the box.

The people in the sources use it for exactly those jobs. One r/Bushcraft owner says wedges and tent stakes are nothing for it, and calls it perfect for little rough carving tasks. A bushcraft instructor who compared it on YouTube with the Gränsfors Outdoor Axe found that the Wildlife Hatchet’s finer profile cut deeper, and chose it because it also carves.

Kindling, stakes and small carving are the jobs it is built around. Everything else on this page follows from that.

Sharp in the box, with an edge owners praise

GearJunkie’s reviewers were “very happy with the grind on this axe, even straight off the shelf.” A ten-year owner on YouTube thinks they arrive almost too sharp.

A sharp edge in the box means the first job is reading the care page, not finding the sharpener. Check the edge the day it arrives, and put it back in the sheath whenever the hatchet is not in your hand.

A chopper, not a splitter

Here is where the owners split. On small wood, so does the hatchet. One owner sold their Wildlife Hatchet and a Gränsfors small forest axe after picking up a Fiskars that split better, and called the pair “great choppers but not great at splitting”. GearAssistant says it splits small logs fine, and adds that there are better hatchets for splitting large logs.

The praise on this page is for chopping: the edge, the grind, the finer profile that one instructor found cuts deeper.

The r/Bushcraft owner who makes stakes with it sizes the tool to the trip. Alone, they bring the Wildlife Hatchet. When the family comes along, they bring a bigger axe that takes two hands.

It is a hatchet for the kindling box, not for the round with the knot in it. That round goes to the bigger axe, or back to the bottom of the pile, where it has spent three summers already.

A hickory handle comes with chores

Gränsfors asks owners to dry the head and the sheath before storage, and to look after the steel, the wood and the leather. The sheath gets the same deal as the good boots by the back door: dry first, then put away.

The sources on the head are few, and mostly good. The ten-year owner on YouTube says it is as tight as the day they bought it, and none of the owner reports on file mention a Wildlife Hatchet head working loose. Outdoor Empire does note owner reports of heads set off-centre on the handle, so look along the handle the day yours arrives, while the box is still in the hallway. Gränsfors gives 20 years of warranty on its axes.

What the price buys

In a 2021 article, Outdoor Empire calls it much more expensive than other hatchets that are 98 percent as effective, and the owner who sold theirs called the Gränsfors pair very expensive. The camping hatchet guide names three other small hatchets to weigh it against.

What the sources support is narrower than the reputation: a small hatchet that arrives sharp, with an edge two owners rate highly, a leather sheath and a long warranty, for small wood. If the last 2 percent is not worth it to you, Outdoor Empire’s point stands.

Make sure it is the 415

Gränsfors sells several small axes with close names and item numbers. This page is about item 415, the Wildlife Hatchet with its leather sheath. A gift kit of the 415 with a ceramic sharpening stone is sold as a separate item, and the Hand Hatchet (413) and the Small Forest Axe (420) are different tools.

The Amazon product title calls it a 13.50 inch hatchet, while Gränsfors gives 35 cm. Check that the name says Wildlife Hatchet and 415 before you order.

Straight from the threads

Who should pick something else

If your firewood comes as big rounds, this is the wrong tool, and a bigger axe is the right one.

If you would rather not look after a wooden handle, the Fiskars Ultra Universal Hatchet U14 in our camping hatchet guide has a composite handle. If chopping is your priority and you can carry a longer hatchet, GearAssistant’s choice for chopping is the Hults Bruk Hultån Hatchet. If you want no head-to-handle joint at all, the Estwing Sportsman’s Axe E14A is one piece of forged steel.

Compare all four

The camping hatchet guide puts the Wildlife Hatchet next to three other small hatchets, and its comparison table lines up length, weight and sheath where they are published, with the source of every number.

The round with the knot can wait for the bigger axe. The kindling box cannot, and that is the Wildlife Hatchet’s job.

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