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| My Cold Steel Trail Hawk |
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I used to have a Cold Steel Trail Hawk Tomahawk in my bushcraft kit as a tertiary cutting tool, and as you have seen it is absent from my bushcraft kit. Why, you may ask? For me it was a failure. Tomahawks have been a tool/ weapon for Frontiersmen and Native Americans for many decades. They are characterized by light weight heads and longer shafts in relation to hatchets. They only Tomahawks I entertained thoughts on using were poleaxes. Poleaxes have a flat surface for hammering, or a hammer like projection opposite the axe head. The appeal of the Tomahawk proved more romantic than practical for me. I know know that a hatchet is the way to go.
Pros: romantic, historic, cool factor, hammering tool, chopping tool, and light weight.
Cons: insufficient mass for chopping efficiently, small cutting surface, and long handle was a little unwieldy.
I tested the Cold Steel Tomahawk in the freezing cold of the Maine winter and it did not even make more than superficial cuts in a two inch thick frozen pine tree. I was actually able to chop better batoning the Becker BK2 I had with me through the branch. Even chopping in a cleaver-like fashion I did better with the Becker BK2. Subsequent tests proved that a ten dollar Walmart hatchet outperformed it by a wide margin. So now I am looking for a hatchet with a forged high carbon head, leather sheath, and wooden handle. The Condor Knife and Tool Greenland Axe look good.
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| Batoning With Becker BK2 |
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| Greenland Pattern Axe |
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| Huqvarna Hatchet |
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| Longhunter | |
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| Voyager | |
I did luck out that day, because even thought Tomahawk was a failure it was not an epic one. Sean, my girlfriends son, got to learn to use a tomahawk and hatchet safely that day. I shorted the tomahawk handle with the laplander saw and let him use it to learn. Sean loves the current Assassin's Creed game and the main character uses a tomahawk, during the Revolutionary War period. Even though tomahawks were a failure for me, he still wants one so I am thinking the Voyager and Longhunter tomahawks by 2Hawks are the only viable options for tomahawks. They look like their heads have twice the mass of the cold steel tomahawk I had.
Remember to learn from your failures, and evolve your techniques and kit as a result. Until next time keep you knives sharp and your powder dry.
You're full of shit. That's my cold steel trail hawk. I was about halfway through polishing the head. You stole the photo. As to your post on Tomahawks... The trail hawk sucks. It's not the mass, it's the short cutting length. If you know how to put a decent convex edge on, it will bite as deep as anything else. The Cold Steel Pipe Hawk (with a proper edge) is a close second to my GB small forest axe (best chopper I've found in it's size and weight niche.
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