I didn't do enough chopping to make a real comparison. I just played with it a little bit, and then got down to the splitting.

In my previous chopoff, the M9LE was pretty decent, and the NMSFNO absolutely sucked, but the NMSFNO had a factory edge back then, and it was DULL. I've since put a nice convex on that knife and it's a lot better chopper than it used to be.

I would never use this birch for a chopoff - it's ridiculously hard, seasoned wood, and would wear me out too fast.