I'm with ya buddy, yeah it battons to split wood just fine, crazy as it sounds you can split most wood even with a butter knife. The only time you have big problems is when you have to go through a tough knot that's when you pray your knife has what it takes !
Truncating through the wood like I did with the ML is much harder on the knife as you are going against the grain.The ML is a forged blade and from what I understand the forging process makes the grain structure more compact resulting in a tougher edge.