question for the axe experts...choosing a poll axe.

huntnfishin

huntnfishin

Joined
May 16, 2009
Messages
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Hi all...

I am a hunter and camp often via horseback and have been using an old camp ax for years. Its a no name brand some fella made for reenactors years ago and while I like it I am ready to invest in a good tool for camp chores...

I want to buy an axe with a flat hammer poll for pounding metal tent stakes. They are gonna take a beating as I camp in dry hard ground often. I also want it for some limbing and kindling making to start fires in my tent stove etc...from my reading it seems a good axe usually is good for wood processing, but not hammering as well and you can mushroom the head. Axes I am looking at are the vintage collins, grnasfors bruks, wetterlings and the velvicut series that are newer rather than old. Something with a 19-24" handle and is not a heavy tool as I am weight conscience on pack trips.

Any reccomendations?

Thanks to all who respond.
 
Have you considered a half hatchet.
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I think the Cedar pattern Plumb is what you are looking for.
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Those are all hardened polls but the two on the right are cedar pattern Plumb axes. One is a hatchet the other a boys axe on a 28" haft. The head will weigh right around 2 1/4 pounds or so.
No matter what size you would go with hatchet or boys axe there are handle options to get you were you want to be.
A company called House Handles sells a few options for you.

A hatchet handle that is curved at 18".
A 19" house axe handle.
A 20" straight fallers handle that would also require you thin it down quite a bit.

Or you could go down to the hard ware store and buy you a Vaughan riggers axe, made in the USA and be done with it. Its 28oz head on a 18" handle. Tough steel. You will need to sharpen it up a little.

I used to frame with them and also use them on trap lines. They will drive a stake.
 
garry3 said:
Or you could go down to the hard ware store and buy you a Vaughan riggers axe, made in the USA and be done with it. Its 28oz head on a 18" handle. Tough steel. You will need to sharpen it up a little.

I used to frame with them and also use them on trap lines. They will drive a stake.
Click to expand...

Saw a Vaughn at wally world the other day, $19.99. If I did not have the plumb I would have bought the Vaughn, Vaughn makes the Craftsman hatchets too, same price.
 
The one I was thinking of is about twice the size of the half hatchet. Milled face on the poll. They make some good hammers, I like most of there stuff, but not all.
 
Before I joined this forum I was entirely unaware of there being common (?) production axes out there with hardened polls. They do exist and have been available every since there was a call for "rafting" axes, whereby an axe was also expected to perform as a large hammer during the days of river rafts being used to move gathered timber to market. For you (and for me) this is just the ticket when it comes to being able to pound in stakes and spikes.
Bugged me for years that ordinary axe heads were soft and therefore gradually mushroomed and deformed if you used the poll end for anything but pounding on wood pickets, dowels or plastic or aluminum wedges. And so far I have never had a chance to own or use one. Someone will chime in as to whether they are still made (Council Tools apparently did 10 years ago) and where to start looking. Once you recognize the deliberately chamfered edges of the poll of one of these specialty items you'll know exactly what you're looking for. Far as I know all of the prominent n. American domestic manufacturers made these at one time.
 
Garry - you included a CT in your pic. Is that one with a hardened poll as well? - just without the chamfered poll? I have one with the same CT logo I haven't messed with - run a file on it to tell?
 
International Corporation 2006 School bus I'm driving at the moment has an issued CT wood-handled hatchet in it that appears to be hardened from top to bottom. The blade has purposely been dulled and scalloped. But I would trust this thing to break glass, slice through sheet metal and bust things with the best of them in the event of an emergency.
 
Nice find! Man, when the poll is even checkered then you know an axe like this means serious business at both ends.
 
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