Possibly many of today's backwoodsmen are a little embarrassed to carry a tomahawk, but I wouldn't think of leaving mine at home. In camp, I'm always looking for an excuse to use it. This very affordable Trail Hawk from Cold Steel weighs a little more than my expensive custom hawk, but it works almost as well.
The Trail Hawk weighs 1 pound 3 ounces, and you won't have a problem justifying all of it. In fact, you can leave the big Bowie knife at home and take something smaller for the light cutting work, because the Trail Hawk is better at just about everything else. From hammer poll to blade edge, the axe measures 6-1/2 inches with a cutting edge 2-1/4 inches wide. The high carbon steel is properly tempered with a hardened hammer face and resilient blade. Common sense uses of the hammer side would include driving nails or wooden tent stakes.
The American hickory handle is plain straight-grained wood, smooth but unfinished. That's the kind of handle I like to see, since lacquer ordinarily just hides poor materials and dissolves if you wear DEET. A little sweat and elbow grease will give the handle all the shine it needs.
The set screw which helps hold the handle in the head seems pointless, and if the handle doesn't fit properly, it makes sense to get rid of the screw and put in a new handle. Otherwise, Cold Steel's Trail Hawk is an economical choice and well-designed for today's needs.
See the SOG Fusion Tactical Tomahawk for a modern, lightweight trail axe.
Find this Cold Steel Trail Hawk:
Find this axe on eBay:
| CURL error code = 6. (Could not resolve host: rest.ebay.com) |
Twitter
RSS