A Tra*tor Supp*y special, bought it when it was at the right price.
Is it a good splitter ? When I put a piece of 14 inch diameter Golden Birch with huge knots in it, i watched its force as it caused water to pour out of the top of it, then it slowed down to a stop and cut it in half. Not splitting it, it cut it in half. As fibrous and knotty the green Birch was, it was no match for 22 tons of force.
The majority of wood chunks I'm splitting are huge, other than what is shown in the video. By no means is it better to lift 90 pound pieces to put them on the splitter in a horizontal arrangement. A three foot diameter log section can be easily split into 14 pieces while in the vertical position.
RELIABILITY :
It sat for 10 years with a 1/2 tank of non ethanol gas. I changed the oil and It started in less than 4 pulls, and ran for a half hour until I filled it with more gas. No stabilizer, nothing. Apparently the seal on the tank was incredible, and wouldn't suggest letting it sit that long, but it worked.
MY SUGGESTION :
If you want your small engines to start every time, use non ethanol gas from a pump that has no other grades of fuel attached to it. Lawn mower, chain saws, log splitter, they all start instantly. I'll go out of my way to find it, the other way is to use ethanol gas and then bring it to a specialist who can clean the congealed corn glue from needle valves etc. even with stabilizer in it.
The splitting knife will bottom out at around 2.5 inches from the base, I thought that was a nice safety feature. My wife suggested many times to use a 4 way head, the reality is that it doesn't work with logs that are green and fibrous. A 4 way works best with straight grained woods with little knots in them like Ash, Locust and Oak etc. Otherwise you're separating the un-split pieces one at a time anyway. Twice the time it takes. Been there done that. This is from my perspective.
The Kohler 3000 series is superior to the Briggs and Stratton engines of the same category in my opinion. The splitter, with no exaggeration whatsoever, starts with one pull every single time.
My thoughts ? I think 25 or 30 tons is overkill, this thing will split anything, so i've found.
I think it's ridiculous they're charging twice the price now than what I paid for it. This one gets my quality approval seal 110%.