Hand-Forged in Sweden: The Hultafors Classic Hunting Axe

Hultafors has built its name on a simple promise to outdoorsmen: an axe that works as hard as the person swinging it. The Classic Hunting Axe sits near the center of that lineup, a hand-forged tool from Sweden meant to do double duty — splitting firewood at camp and helping a hunter break down game in the field.

The story behind the steel is a long one. Hultafors owns Hults Bruk, an operation that earned its forging permit near Norrköping back in 1697 and has been stamping out axe heads ever since. Over the centuries the business outgrew nails and anchor chain and settled on blades, eventually shipping to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Hultafors bought the works in 1992, though in the United States the same heads still carry the older Hults Bruk name.

The modern axe isn’t cut from a single billet without character. Each head starts as a section of Swedish steel that gets heated in an induction furnace to around 1,200°C. One smith rough-forges it between dies, the block is reheated, and a second smith brings it to final shape. The eye is forged rather than drilled, which gives it more strength where the handle meets the steel. The equipment is old — machines from the 1950s and 1960s for which no replacements exist — so the company makes its own spare parts. Heads are hardened and tempered to roughly 54–56 HRC.

The Classic Hunting Axe carries an 850-gram head on a 500mm American hickory handle treated with linseed oil, for a total of about 1.21 kg. Its convex-ground cutting edge and smoothly worked neck make it useful for chopping, limbing and light forestry, but also for game preparation and skinning. The balance is deliberately heavy at the head and short at the haft: more bite than a hatchet, still compact enough to carry on a hunt, a camping trip or an overlanding expedition. A leather sheath is included.

For buyers, what matters is that the tool is meant to be used. The edge arrives sharpened and polished direct from the factory, and the construction is designed to be repaired rather than replaced when the handle eventually wears. That philosophy — old machinery, new hands, forged eye — is why Swedish axes still hold a reputation as something worth keeping for decades.