This is what happens when you hit too hard.
The handle had been getting splintered a little at a time for the last few weeks. Sometimes with this cedar, with the twisty grain, you’ll make a deep split through the middle, but leave a chunk on the near side that catches the handle just below the head. That is what damages the handles of axes and mauls, hitting the handle itself with the momentum of the head continuing on past the object that was struck.
No worries. It takes about a minute to remove the old handle fragments, and a new handle is not terribly expensive.
The new handle is replaced, this time with a wooden wedge, glued in, rather than the metal wedges. It will still come loose eventually, but when it does we can simply add a metal wedge.
In the old days, when you would have had to carve the handle yourself out of a hickory pole, this would have taken a lot longer.
Little Farm in the Big City 