- Hey, B, what is this place, man?

What are we doing out here?

- So, during the Revolutionary War,

there was a constant need for wood.

Not only for heat but building their cabins.

You know, I mean, you gotta have heat to be a blacksmith, right?

- For sure.

- So the blacksmith wouldn't want to do the work on his own.

He would tell his apprentice,

"Hey, go chop me some wood," right?

Fitting with the theme of this week,

why not see who can chop down a tree first?

- What do you think? - Yeah. Okay. Plus I owe you

from going ice fishing with me in Minnesota, too.

- Yeah, you do owe me a lot. - Yeah, big, big.

- Peter Francisco probably would have had to chop wood

every single day, being a blacksmith's apprentice.

In order to experience everyday life during the Revolution,

I decided to take Nick with me to cut down a tree.

Do you want to make it interesting?

Maybe a little bet or something?

- Sure. - What would you like?

- Loser buys winner a steak. - How big?

- 23, 24 ounces.

- Okay, I'll work with that.

If they're smaller than that, we get two.

- Okay. - All right.

- I want to win everything that I can win

if I'm presented with a challenge.

I want to beat Brian because he's the best there's ever been.

- I've got everything we need right here.

We've got our axes, safety glasses, some gloves.

Ready to do this?

- Yeah, you came ready.

- Safety first, my friend, safety first.

The last thing that I want to do is let Nick Best beat me.

He's never beaten me in a strongman contest.

- So, B, let me "ax" you this. Which tree you wanna chop down?

- Did you really just try to do that?

- I did. - I'll let you pick. Which one?

You want that one, or you want that one down there?

- Uh, I think I want that one. - All right.

Ready, set, go.

[ music ]

- I have never cut down a tree before,

so I have no idea what the right technique is for this.

Turns out cutting down a tree is a lot more cardio than strength.

- It's a lot harder to cut down a tree than people think it is.

It's really difficult to swing an ax into a tree

over and over again for about 10 to 12 minutes.

Plus those were oak trees,

and that's some of the hardest wood you'll ever run into.

It's probably the worst tree to start on

if you're going to start learning

how to chop down a tree.

- I see exactly what you're doing.

Chopping higher on the smaller part of the tree.

I feel like we should have set a rule

that it couldn't be fricking four feet high.

- No, because you swing in a straight line.

It's like hitting a baseball.

See, I can hit it really hard like this.

- I instantly learned a few things about cutting down trees.

Number one, you don't want to chop a tree

necessarily at the widest part.

It's better to go where the trunk is a little bit smaller.

And number two is... wood is not soft.

And my ax maybe is not sharp enough.

But I figured when I chopped the tree

that the ax would go into the tree a lot more than it did.

- If he would have asked, I would have told him,

but he didn't ask, so I didn't tell him.

Timber!

Yeah! Steak!

- Good job, Nick.

- Sorry, B.

I've probably chopped down 50 or 60 of these.

- It turns out that Nick

is really good at cutting down trees.

Maybe it's because he's so old that when he was a kid,

they literally had to cut down trees

to get heat in their homes.

Man, I gotta say, I came out here

wanting to experience all things Revolutionary War.

And if they did this all day, more power to them, man.

You ready to get out of here?

- Yeah. - All right, let's go.

- Thanks, Brian, for the T-bone.

I'll be collecting that within the next week.