Need new hatchet

B

blade dude

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Nov 8, 2015
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Okay so I have a bear grylls survival hatchet. It has done me good *gasp* but hitting the back with a hammer to chop wood is main use. It's nice but I'd prefer a longer handle. Budget is $30 but I can go up a few if needed. Requirements
Must hold up to being continuously hit with a hammer because the crappy bear grylls one has so that's my standard.
Comfortable handle. I have used a Coleman sub $15 one and the handle is horrible plastic crap.
Must be good at chopping. The bear grylls one has done good crappy Coleman can't chop worth a damn.
Will up budget to $40 only if American made.
Preferably available on Amazon.


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They may exceed your budget but you won't go wrong with an old school Estwing full tang axe. These are not 'flavour of the month' made offshore designs and have been around proving themselves useful for well over 1/2 a century. And rest assured you can find 'previously enjoyed' ones on flea bay.
Failing that you can poke through Council Tools USA website and order yourself a real axe with a wood handle and a conventional head.
 
hi Bladedude, if you want a longer handle then maybe you should try a boy's axe instead of a hatchet. Going up from the two lbs (or so) of a hatchet to 2.5lbs gives you some different options.

I don't know of any boy's axes or hatchets that have hardened polls that you can pound on with a metal hammer - wooden baton of sorts, yes, but everything short of a hardened poll is going to deform.

American made? Council Tool has offerings. I think their boy's axe runs about 40$ or so on Amazon.

If you go the boy's axe route then hanging your own head on a handle might be a better bet. There may be some members here that probably have more advice and even "resources" for you :

300Six said:
Failing that you can poke through Council Tools USA website and order yourself a real axe with a wood handle and a conventional head.
Click to expand...

There ya go.
 
With a budget of $30, I'd give the local Flea Markets, Pawn Shops or Yard Sales a shot. You can probably find older Axes (maybe better metallurgy?) and save yourself some money.

IMHO, anything 'new' in the $30 range will be of questionable quality.

JMHO, YMMV.

SJ
 
I think you should look at Estwing. They are available on Amazon and will stand up to what ever pounding you throw at it. 300 is correct. The handle is 14" and could stand to be 2" longer but even at it's current length it manages to get all my jobs done. DM
 
One winter I found myself living in Page AZ and working on park service housing at the south rim of the Grand Canyon all I had was an Estwing dry wall hatchet and a 3# maul for splitting wood, seemed to work OK. Really hated the dry wall hatchet and it just flatted the waffles.
FWIW
 
I'm confused, are you wanting to chop wood, like chopping a limb off a tree or split wood, like making firewood from bucked logs. My advice for what it's worth would be to get a maul and a wedge or two if you want to split wood
 
Hatchet and axe polls are not for hammering on. If the Poll is hardened it's so it can be used as a hammer, and you never want to hit a hammer with another hammer.

If you really want something to hammer on, get a splitting wedge and have someone weld a steel pipe to it.
Other than that I'd say find a vintage hatchet to restore and learn how to use it properly.
 
if you wanna hammer on it, do what i do, take a framing hatchet and cut/sand down an ax handle to fit it, heads for a framing hatchet are, at most $15, and handles are about $10. You will need a saw and a sander to do this, but these are very nice cutters if done right. Make absolute sure that the head will go on straight. and you can hammer on these!
 
phantomknives said:
if you wanna hammer on it, do what i do, take a framing hatchet and cut/sand down an ax handle to fit it, heads for a framing hatchet are, at most $15, and handles are about $10. You will need a saw and a sander to do this, but these are very nice cutters if done right. Make absolute sure that the head will go on straight. and you can hammer on these!
Click to expand...

It's never a good idea to hit a hammer with a hammer. If it was designed to hammer softer materials like nails, then it was probably only speced to handle that type of hammering.

If your gonna hit a hammer with a hammer you better be wearing a face shield, my brother made the mistake of hitting a hammer with a hammer and got a chip of steel.stuck in his cheek.
 
phantomknives said:
if you wanna hammer on it, do what i do, take a framing hatchet and cut/sand down an ax handle to fit it, heads for a framing hatchet are, at most $15, and handles are about $10. You will need a saw and a sander to do this, but these are very nice cutters if done right. Make absolute sure that the head will go on straight. and you can hammer on these!
Click to expand...

I have a little pile of worn out rigging axe heads that I will use on occasion when I need more than a couple wedges. All but one is a Vaughan and it was the only one that broke.

Blade Dude,
Vaughan rig builders hatchets can be found on Amazon and your local lumber yard some where between 30-40 bucks. They are American made and a good tool. Nobody could guarantee the tool against your use or abuse. That statement is completely non judgmental. I myself have subjected them to plenty of tasks that they were not designed for.
 
well, it sounded like hickory thought it was a terrible idea, I didn't know that the polls on framing hatchets were hardened, but the handles, they hold up beautifully.
 
Well, yeah he's right about striking hardened tools against each other - axes or otherwise.

I just didn't see a need to derail your question though.

A friend of mine has a cheapo 6lb maul with a handle just under 2ft long. He simply uses the handle to hold the maul while he strikes it with a small sledge hammer. Both the maul and his hammer are holding up. It will ultimately do damage to one, the other, or both. I would worry about catching a piece of metal in the eye or face.

It works for him.

The other night I was splitting out sections of juniper using a small hatchet and a rubber mallet.
 
that's why i thought it would be okay to do that agent, but, i guess differential heat treats are a luxury to hatchets and ax's
 
For what he's doing, it sounds like a handled tool is the best option.
That's why I suggested an old wedge with a pipe welded to it.
They're made is such a way that they'll deform instead of chip and are made to hit with a hammer.
On a tool like a riggers axe, only about of an inch of the hammer head is hardened and has mild steel cheeks just like any axe. So I suspect that the force of hitting it with a sledge hammer might transfer through the head and eventually deform the eye over time.
They're designed to stand up to the force from hammering stuff, but not hammered on by other objects.
 
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