Chopper axe

I spotted this for sale.

Attachment 537849

Never seen anything like it, and I was going to ask what it was all about, but I did find some info on the web and thought if there were others like me who'd never seen one, you might find it interesting.

In its heyday, there would have been two pawls. The pawls are not to stop the axe from penetrating but to prise the two pieces apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AmB1rF9Mlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFj4LzRMW7U

Thanks for the research! Didn't know about them... I reckon the Chopper 1 would have won the first round too, had he sharpened it. The edge looked a little rough to me, and the Fiskars edge looked schmick

The wood he was testing the axes on looked very hard. At one point his axe bounced off the stump.

There are other videos of them in use. Of course, we have no idea of how hard these people are swinging. They generally seem impressed by them. If they are so good I wonder why we don't see them in the shops.

Maybe they struggled to find a design which would make it through the warranty period with regular use? As good as it seems to work, the pressure exerted on the moving parts would be pretty intense