The Council Tool Classic Jersey just got an awesome facelift! Council has received a ton of requests to add this axe to their incredibly popular Sports Utility line and they were happy to oblige!
This axe carries the iconic phantom bevels that make this thing such a beast of an axe. The handle is also shaved thinner than the previous Jersey models.
The Sport Utility Edition Axes are a huge upgrade in both functionality and value compared to their standard predecessors. They sit proudly on excellent American Hickory handles and are hung using a quality hardwood wedge instead of the aluminum wedges they were once fitted with. The robust and resilient finish given to the axe in the drop forging process has been left preserved and the head has been covered in a rust-proofing agent to ensure its longevity. Each Sport Utility Edition is hand finished with an edge that would make any grizzled veteran woodsman proud! Be careful taking these axes out of their boxes because they come ready to take a bite out of your woodpile!
From Council Tool:
- Forged tool steel head. Proudly Made in the USA!.
- Hand sharpened, tapered bit for cutting and splitting.
- ANSI Standards call for bit hardness of Rc 45-60, at least ½ inch back from the cutting edge. Council Tool internal standards call for tempered bit hardness of Rc 48-55 and we target 1-1/4 inches from the cutting edge. The poll and eye walls are not hardened and remain in the as forged condition.
- Head coated with rust proofing agent over the as forged finish.
- 32″ curved American hickory handle. Eye section is dried to below 10% moisture content to minimize shrinkage and help prevent loosening. Hafted high and proud.
- Axe head is hydraulically seated onto handle and secured with a traditional double wedge system.
- The interior detail of the eye is tapered and allows for a strong mechanical bond. Approximately 1/4″ of overall length of the handle is removed during assembly.
The Large Utility mask fits this beast of an axe and can be found by clicking this link!
The HDPE Mask fits this axe also!
** This is a standard axe so grain orientation is not guaranteed. **
Customer Reviews
11/30/24- Gig Harbor, WA:
Beautiful made in USA steel, gorgeous Jersey pattern with phantom bevels. Love it.
Great for cutting trees down by hand, making kindling, cutting branches off downed trees. Just ok at splitting rounds into firewood because the profile is very long and thin. Not wedge-shaped. I CAN split wood with it by flicking my wrist to prevent it from burying itself in the wood. I have split wood with it. It’s fine for that, better at the other stuff.
It comes sharp, too. Very good.
The handle should be scraped down to bare wood, burned with a torch, then give it multiple layers of pine tar mixed with linseed oil then it’s awesome.
The type of wood I was splitting is Douglas Fir in Washington State- and it was green and full of water- meaning tough to split with any axe, especially the trunk’s wood. I love this axe though. Made in USA?! Awesome! Worth the money!
32” handle. I wanted a do-it-all axe. My 4.5 lb maul wil bust a knotty round better, but everything else, this thing is like a lightsaber. This is my first USA mad axe and I’m very happy. I can’t wait to split wood every week.
Nice weight, handle length, and head shape with evenly ground sharp edges. I spent a few minutes taking off the slight factory sharpening burr (even burr is how you know a blade is sharpened correctly). A couple strong chops would have taken off the burr, but I wanted to spend some time with the edge. Cuts well with thin bit. Handle is good quality wood, but not perfect grain alignment since grain alignment is not guaranteed. I did some red oak chopping and splitting, the head stayed tight. Chopping results very good for this weight axe. Splitting is not this axe's strong point, it will go 1 1/2 inched into a firewood round, but not split the round (disclaimer, the red oak round had a large knot at the other end which made the grain twisty all the way through). The log was later split using the FE2 6lb. fireman's axe, on a scale of 1-10 splitting difficulty log was a 7 or 8. I am happy with the Council Tools Jersey Classic Axe.
This axe is an heirloom quality axe despite not being their "velvicut" line.
Thinness of handle was spot on, and QC as a whole surpassed expectations.
It doesn't come very sharp, but after 30 minutes with the Gransfors sharpening stone, it's right where it needs to be!
Great axe, fast shipping! First experience with Whiskey River, and I'll return again.
This is from the "budget" line, so I grit my teeth when someone orders a Sports Utility ax from Council Tool and makes ignorant comments about the sharpness of the bit or yadda yadda boo hoo hoo. I LOVE THIS THING! ... and that's after I went out an punished this thing on a incredibly knotty, multi-bough, Green Ash round seasoned two years. Had figured I'd be chainsawing that thing, no other way to break it down. And I would have never done this to an ax *except* to test it. Know what? It demolished it, one whack at a time. I hit it at angles the ax could not bite deep into, but it never rolled the rough, factory first-pass grind. After a couple hours of chopping and splitting, I noticed I had in fact gotten the head to move. No problem. I took it inside to work on it. I saw it have been forced on to form a shelf. I whittled that away and sat the head deeper onto the shoulder (Council Tool leaves you PLENTY of handle to do this to, always hanging their axes "high" and proud). Then I noticed the wedge could move quite a bit. I sank that deeper, then added a couple barrel, wedges. BAM! Firm as stone. And then I gave the blade the profile I prefer. Came out 20 degrees with the very edge of the bit convexed, "Rooster" style. I torched the handle and gave it five coats of boiled linseed oil over the next couple days. Honey.... this thing is magnificent! It's my favorite ax right now (and I have quite a few).