Is one second a long enough duration for my Battleaxe, I'd of thought so as the blow that kills will be instant, any thoughts?

It is. I have an axe and a bow with 1 second enchantments. You'll get a lot of charge out of the enchantment, so you don't really need to worry about it running out. Just swing away and get those souls!

I always wondered this.
I just set mine to 2 seconds just in case it's not.

Yes, at my level I can get 98 if I just do one second.

I've always wondered if the killing blow soul traps, why would we ever need more then 1 second if it where true, but I see lot of weapons with 5 or 10 seconds, my guess is the last hit without killing your enemy is the last time you can soul trap him :S

In case you've poisoned your weapon/arrow, or have elemental damage (such as fire, which burns the target and might kill him more than 1 second after the hit from the weapon, thus not trapping his soul). You might rely on companions or summoned creatures to help you fight, in which case you might not always deal the final blow. There's a multitude of good reasons why you'd enchant it with more than 1 second, but 1 second is fine for most occasions.



Yea, max Enchanting with a grand soul gem gets you well over a thousand charges with a 1 second soul trap. I think it was actually closer to 2,000 charges, but I'm not sure. It's been a while since I enchanted them.