I have a "black splitter" for my mini skid. It is overbuilt/very well built from Germany. The rep said that the side to side pressure will destroy bearings on an auger style attachment very quickly. I will say that it is a sweet tool, but having it on something like a wheel loader or mini skid isn't the ideal application. longer logs you will need to reposition several times "walking down the log" to split them, unless they are very straight grained. Meaning lots of backing up/turning/repositioning etc. Plus, if it is stringy, even after it is "split" there are lots of fibers connected, and you need to do some "bashing around" so to speak to actually get the pieces apart. If you are using the cone of the splitter to do the bashing (you absolutely will) you want something heavy duty that can take the beating.... I think it would be way more useful on a mini excavator, which I do not own, because you wouldn't need to be tracking all over the place to move the cone around.
I use it to split my own firewood, which I love it for. I use my one mini skid to lay out a bunch of logs, then I pop them with the splitter, then I jump on the other mini and use the grapple to take them apart and pile them for later cutting/splitting. Usually I split logs/stack/let sit for a year, then I cut and split them and put them under cover for a year with great results. Only takes a day or two to dinking around by myself to get 10 or 15 cords split up by myself log length.
That said, if you are buying it in hopes to chip all big logs etc you will be kind of frustrated. It will do it, but its time consuming. I was keeping it on a truck so I could use it to split up one or two big logs on site to avoid having to truck them, but it's almost not even worth it for me.... Easier to throw them in a truck and just dump them/deal with them later. If you don't have any space to bring logs it would be a method to break pieces down and chip them but it will be miserable....
