TL;DR: I bought what I thought to be a nice chisel but it doesnt hold an edge well and the edge chips very easily. Should I take it back and try another brand, or is this the life of a chisel?

So I have three garbage chisels, Stanleys, plastic handles, probably $9 for the three of them. They work great however, and I sharpen them regularly and they perform admirably for 99.9% of my work. I needed to pare out lots of troughs on white oak and none of the chisels were narrow enough so I excitedly went to get a new tool to do the job. Unfortunately I wanted to get working so my option in nice tools in a B&M is my local woodcraft. They had a couple chisel options but not many really: Stanley SH, Marples Blue handles, Pfeil, Standard Woodriver bench chisels, and new fancy Woodriver socket bench chisels. I liked the octagonal handle of the Pfeil and feel in hand, plus the sales guy was raving about it, so I went with the Pfeil.

In use however, I have to say Im really disappointed. I set it up before use, back was super flat, sharpened and took a super fine edge. But man, just went dull on me real quick after any paring work. And Im talking like not even the equivalent of one dovetail. OK fine, resharpen - great edge, keep working - same thing. Granted its end-grain paring of white oak, so a little slack for it there, but my junky Stanleys were outperforming it on the larger sections they could fit into. The final kicker was any chopping I had to do, or aggressive paring, ended up chipping the edge. Not huge gouges, but the end looks like its serrated and has little micro-teeth. Any prolonged use after the initial sharpness wore off would create the chipping.

So the questions are ... is this normal? Is this the life of a premium chisel? This one is 8mm (5/16-ish) so its not huge. I have a 90 day return window so it can go back, and it probably will. I was hoping to really like it and grab a few more. Is it a bad example of an otherwise nice chisel/product? Give Pfeil another shot? I have half a mind to order the LN 3/8" socket (what seems to be the consensus favorite) and limp along till it gets here and just keep rolling with that product.

What do you guys think?