The 10 Best Hiking Hatchets

Guns, I get reviews, and today we’re going to take a look at the Fiskars x7 14 inch hatchet stick around. Maybe we’ll learn something together. So after I did my Ozark Trail had to review I got to thinking that maybe I should go ahead and pick up the Fiskars x7 hatchet, which is what the Ozark Trail seems to be a copy of and boy it’s it’s awful close I’ll. Do a head-to-head review and testing of the two of them in comparison here soon, but today, I want to take a look at this on its own, see how well it performs chopping.

This fallen looks like cherry. So, let’s, let’s give this a shot. Well, man I’m about halfway through it in almost no time this little boy does a lot of work. I mean yeah I, think it is cherry. Yep weeks of just fly Wow so far, I got to give it a thumbs up. Let me go use a saw, cut a couple of pieces of downed wood and we’ll see how it splits. Well, it looks like it has a nice wedge-shaped head with these little projections that flare out so that the plastic of the handle doesn’t get caught so we’ll see how it splits- okay, well, first, we’ll see that I’m not very accurate, so yeah now, maybe we’ll see how it splits, because you know apparently I suck I can’t swing a hatchet straight.

Well, that doesn’t do too bad at all. Does it carve it at all, not really I, don’t know if you do well trying to make further sticks with this or not probably not I, think the edge could stand to be sharpened. A bit well looks like it does a pretty good job of splitting kindling anyway, here in an upcoming video I’m gonna, take a look at this head-to-head with the Ozark Trail hatchet that I’m pretty sure copies.

It will compare the two see how they test versus each other, and you know, try and form an opinion on that. You know, as always, if you guys have any questions comments concerns please feel free to leave them below. I will put a link to this axe in the description below. So if you want to check it out, you can go ahead and do that you know, as always, please, if you like what you seen give me a like share subscribe.

You know that really helps me out and lets me be able to bring you more content. I’m Mike. This is a bunch of guns and gear reviews. You know come on back. Maybe we’ll learn something together thanks. You.

Well: hey there! Everyone Aaron here welcome to another episode of Gideon’s tactical today we’re doing a review and field test on our second hatchet to the Gideon’s tactical channel. We’ve already reviewed the Kershaw Camp axe and now we’re reviewing the fist scars x7. This is a finish made in Finland Finnish little hatchet for you that comes in at a very inexpensive twenty-five dollars got a high carbon steel head.

Fiberglass handle comes with a little sheath I mean really a little workhorse for you guys and as you’re about to see here as we go through the field tests and give you some basic specs on this thing. I think this is going to be one of the best bang for your buck on the market. So, let’s go ahead. Jump out there begin to thrash on this sucker and we’ll give you some basic specs and we’ll wrap up the review and you’ll see how much I like the FISC ARS x7.

Oh yeah done those men are making in a bird’s nest. So basically what you’re doing is you’re putting the finish stuff on the bottom about x7 can definitely carve like that check. That out heck yeah, let’s go ahead and talk about the business end of the fist, cars x7. What you have here is a high carbon steel, head, rockwell, hardness of 56/58 a really hard knot.

They can sometimes chunk out on you and chip out on you, so this 55 rockwell hardness is good. You know it’s not ideal, but for a price point of 25 bucks, you know it’s not. That is very, very easy to get an edge back on this thing, guys I use my work, sharp field, sharpener piece of cake, I’ve, already sharpened this blade and cleaned it up.

You can see how well and easy it cleans up. I mean I can get a shaving, literally shaving sharp edge back on this thing in, like a minute and a half with my work, sharp a field sharpener so very easy to maintain this high carbon steel blade. It does have that flat black coating or flat gray coating on the head to protect against rust.

Some of the specs for you on the actual head is the cutting edge, is 2 and 3/4 of an inch or 2 75 inches long. It does have that Scandi grind, which again makes it super easy, combined with the high carbon and the 55 Rockwell hardness, so very easy to edge back on there and again shaving sharp edge 5 inches from the edge to the back of that kind of pommel back there that you can easily hammer in tent pegs and different thing like that, and then the thickness of the head is 3/4 of an inch or 0 75 inches in thickness.

So definitely really nice good quality head there. Nothing to complain about you can easily get feather sticks and things like that with that Scandi grind edge right there, the knife, let me excuse me the axe so used to doing knives here on the channel. The axe is not a full tang. We’ll talk about the handle in a little bit.

The head goes to right here, so there is no, you know core to it. It’s just the head seated in the handle there, but it’s nice and secure and seated really well you’re, not going to really worry about that thing flying out of the handle. So those are the basic specs and overall kind of feel of the head. The business end of the Fiskars x7 next week or next week, first week of marches, alright easy way to split some wood with a hatchet is just get a good pack right there, and then you just lift and swing down and pound through with both the hatchet in the piece of wood.

So just go like that see that crack all the way almost halfway through the piece of wood, again we’ve got all the way down to right about. Here is the split so I’ll just kind of find the crack again try to get a good bite in there. You can see. Maybe I’ll split this wood pretty easy here. So now, another good bite rotate just kind of work with it.

This is definitely you know, softer wood, let’s say other wood out there, so, but it’s what I got around and what I can work with. You really get those pieces of wood there. We go broken up nice and easy I like handling right there. Alright, so let’s go ahead and look at the sheath here on the fist scars x7 and all their fish scars.

She’s come like this. It’s a polymer plastic design comes with the handle here, no belt loop or belt attachment on the back, so you are either just going to have to obviously hold it to carry it to your place or easily. You know, paracord other type of lashing points make a little sling for it and just go through this little hand loop right here, then you just take your axe and slide.

It has this little lip right there into place, seats, nice and snug. Then you got this orange little snap twist. It locks into place a little bit of a rattle, but it’s very secure. It’s not going to come out very, very nice and secure and that’ll last a lot longer than a lot of those other she’s out there, particularly for the price point again right around 25 to 30 bucks for this hatchet.

That’s a really nice design! Then you just take it pop the little latch open tilt out there you go! So that’s the sheath on the X 7. Alright, let’s go ahead and take a little quick look at the handle on the X 7. It is 14 inches long from the top of the head to the bottom of the handle. 14 inches great compact size.

You know so it’s gonna be small enough to be easily put inside. You know a multi-day pack if you’re doing a backpacking trip or something like that very easy to do with the x7. It is a fiberglass, we’re plastic composite, so it’s they say on their website stronger than steel. Obviously, if it was just one piece of full tank, you know steel, I think it’d be stronger, but according to them it’s stronger than a full tang axe.

Basically, so I’ve never heard of any complaining of people having these handles snap and break off on them, or anything like that. You know it’s very, very tough, durable stuff and the axe itself weighs in at 22 point 6 ounces. So that’s a great carry weight. You’ve got some good have to it. You know that’s as heavy as a Nessie humblest.

You know, I mean that’s. Definitely up there with a large heavy-duty, fixed blade. You know that fix blade, cut, cost 160. This thing’s gonna run you about 25 bucks on Amazon or Ebay. So that’s awesome. Then it is a hollow handle. As you can see, it goes all the way through that’s hollow to the head. So that’s just you know kind of cuts down the weight.

So it’s definitely you know head heavy, which is awesome and then extremely organ ama handle down here with a very large lanyard hole. You could easily run 550 through there twice very ergonomic as you’re, seeing as we’re using this I mean it never wants to fly out of my hand, it stays there. It’s gripped and I never really have to reset and extremely comfortable and doesn’t wear out my hand.

This fiberglass handle is really a well designed on this x7 I love with this x7. How the handles designed in such a way I don’t have a lanyard. On this my hand is just locked into place very rarely have to reset your hand and I’m going through this hard piece of pine about five six inches thick. These denominating the piece of wood all right, so let’s go ahead and wrap up this review on the x7 from fish scars and I got to tell you guys, as you have been able to see throughout this video, extremely impressed very, very impressed with the Scandinavian made hatchet I.

Think it’s going to be great for you backpackers. You know just around your home. If you just need to split some, you know kindling and wood I mean any way you slice it. You are gonna love owning one of these things and at 25 dollars, I mean buy a few, throw them around. Put one in your truck. You put one at your cabin.

Keep one in your bug out. Bag keep one in your survival kit I mean it’s really a no-brainer, and if you’re, asking yourself, okay, well, you’ve already done the Kershaw versus this on the Kershaw camp, axe, I’m, going to say v scars all the way. I definitely got deeper. Cuts in you can see here this one to show you that guys, I kept the little tag chops three times deeper, is what they brag.

More power per impact, superior blade design and virtually unbreakable and I would agree with all those statements that they have on their little packaging there. It definitely chopped a lot deeper than the Kershaw. You know, and it may not be a full tang, but it was much more ergonomic in my hand, it was a lot more ergonomic.

Never had to reset didn’t really even need a lanyard, it’s good to have, but didn’t really need it, and I kind of like this design of the sheath a little bit better with how I kind of use a paracord sling to kind of carry it over. My shoulder so I mean all around and it’s you know not made overseas in China or something it’s made overseas in Finland.

You know Scandinavia and those guys know what they’re doing with all the mores that we’ve seen. You know just the the inexpensiveness of the item, but the quality that you’re getting is absolutely there guys. So I love this thing for 25 bucks. You can’t beat it and if you’re not really willing to throw down the big money, you know on a big blade like a BK 9 or an SP 51.

You know around 80 bucks twenty-five dollars. This is basically going to do almost all the same chopping tasks that those big knives will do. It just won’t baton like those big knives do so you know kind of pick your poison big blades versus little hatchets. You know, I haven’t quite decided. You know how I’m feeling yet I definitely dig this I’m.

Definitely gonna. Keep this one. I’m gonna buy a few of these things. You know and just throw them around the house throw around the survival kits and use them in abuse a man because they’re they’re definitely workhorses for the price point. So thanks everybody for watching stay quit stay prepared and we’ll see out there.

Hey guys welcome back to the channel, so one product that I have never had any experience with I’ve never even touched is a Fiskars hatchet ER axe and that’s surprising, because I’ve tried a lot of different types of gear and certainly a lot of different types of actions and hatchets. But I’ve never picked one these up, I guess they never had any appeal to me. I’ve always liked the traditional wood handle tools, I think they’re um a lot sexier than this thing is but branches falling down, but you know I’ve been doing some research online and, and one of these came up and in a discussion and I think the gentleman that I was reading said something like that these are the Mora of hatchets and that look that right there intrigued me so I looked into it and I couldn’t believe the price point on these things.

You know 25 bucks for one of these and I thought: okay, I gotta, try this and see what all the the hubbub is about, because there’s a lot of favorable reviews from a lot of people who use these and swear by them. Like I said, I have no experience with this, so I’m going into this thing completely blind and without any kind of you know, pre predisposed opinions. I will say that once I got this at home, I did some splitting of some wood at home and I was pretty impressed, but now we’re out here in the woods and I’ve cut down some different dead standing stuff that I found and we’re gonna try to do some splitting with this.

Now at this size this is a 14 inches. This is not an axe you’re not going to chop down any big trees or cut during large logs. This is I, see this as a splitter and a splitter, predominantly so we’ll see so stick around the other thing, anytime you’re, using a tool of this size, you have to understand its limitations and what it’s capable of and when it’s not capable of, and certainly with wilderness tools, survival tools years, sometimes gonna be pushing them to the limit.

But for the most part they should have a dedicated task, and a hatchet to me is something that I would use to split down wood. So I can get to the DRI center and I can save my knife. So if I’m taking both I’m gonna go with this instead of using my knife to putana left, the knife is for me only used when it’s an emergency or I. Just don’t have all the tools with me. It’s not something I’m doing all the time, but a good hatchet can accomplish a lot of that.

A lot of that task for you and that’s. Why I think it’s kind of neat to have something of this size and also this price point in this weight, because this is something that’s a lot lighter than some of the other ones that I’ve tried and it’s certainly inexpensive. So it’s something that I can buy, but I could throw in my truck or into a pack and not really worry about it. If I destroy it, if I lose it, I can certainly replace it pretty easily and there’s not too many tools that you can get that are actually made in Finland that or 25 blocks, except for a more knife.

So it definitely is the more of hatchets and first thing you notice is: it comes with this plastic sheath that actually used for display at the store, but really works quite well to hold this thing in it, locks it down nice and solid, and it provides a nice safe carrying method. So you get a handle. I could see wrapping this handle, maybe some paracord, so just additional place to source a paracord.

Now this is supposed to be the x7 I. Think the X 7 is the long-standing Fiskars model. This one is the newest rendition of that I think what they’re doing is: they’re they’ve, updated it by adding this texturing on the handle and the slight texturing on the carrier. The older models, the old rx Evans, had like an orange rubber insert right here on the handle. So you know, I had like I said: I haven’t tried any of these, so it doesn’t really matter to me.

I like this. It does have a good grip to it. Nice feel you could certainly see wrapping this with some type of tape. The hockey tape the friction, tape or something if need be, but for now we’re just gonna leave it stock. So one camp task you might have is splitting down this log into smaller pieces. You could certainly do it a couple different ways. This is this would be a standard method where you’re standing it up and splitting down into it.

Now this edge this cutting edge, it’s a little bit smaller than that log, but what I want to see is I want to seek penetration. How far does this thing really go with us with a good swing? So let’s just check it out here now, I’m doing this one-handed a little bit of an over swing. That’s that’s a dry solid wood in there, and that is really splitting it like a wedge. So that’s another thing, I find really interesting about this hatchet compared to other ones.

Is it has a very short blade and that short blade goes down to a wedge very quickly. You know if you have like a grants for Brooks or something like that, it’s gonna it’s a little bit longer. So there’s a more of a taper in the end, it’s much thinner, but this thing goes from thin to thick, pretty quickly and I. Think what’s happening, is that’s really creating a wedge shape and it’s making this more of a splitting hatchet than it was just a traditional hatchet, because I think it’s really biting in really nice and deep, but it’s splitting the wood pretty quickly.

So let’s try some contact splitting now. What I mean by context wedding is that is where you’re holding the wood and the hatchet like this and you’re, beating it against the surface and a contact at the back of the wood is driving that that hatchet in and creating what I’ve heard it called the triangle split method, but I call it contact. So a nice nice surface to work with and they’re very easily can very easily just split this wood while leaving the hatchet not twisting the hatchet the twist in the world like a piece.

This is almost too thick for this to get my hands around and my passion. That’s a little little punky in the middle and you’ve got some visitors curious how it just shaves around the box when I bought this it was sharp. Now I went back through and touched it up with with my workshop, certainly not anything super fine with us, but because it’s it’s so thick this, the back part but the edge. It’s definitely sharp enough to do some nice light.

Color sticks. These are really light, swings I’m, sitting down another task you might have, as you may want to take down a dead standing if you’re, if you don’t have a saw- or you think this might be the more efficient nothing to doing hung up. So my final thoughts on this I love, it I think it’s awesome. I think this is a big thumbs up and what I really like about this is I think this is a nice option if you were backpacking and we’re taking a light day kit like a small day pack or a fanny pack or something you don’t want to carry a lot of gear, but you do want to hatch it with you, because that’s what you prefer to use I think this is a really great option and for a budget bushcraft tool, it’s 25 bucks and you can walk into a Lowe’s and pick one these up, also on Amazon -, so made in Finland I, don’t see any negatives to it, I mean time will tell how this handles gonna last, but what I’ve heard is with the warranty and guarantee on these.

It’s very good customer service will replace this if you break it fairly quickly. So I don’t see a downside to having one of these in your kit and, if you’re, just starting off- and you want a small hatchet for camping trips or day hike. I would suggest one of these for sure this thing cuts in it has really nice penetration. It’s I love it. It did. A great job in I will say that sharpening it at home with my diamond plate was easy and it’s got a real nice edge to it.

I think this thing will definitely perform in the future, so I plan on having this to my day pack, what it you know, I’ve done, a few other videos on different types of hatchets and axes and tomahawks, and the only other one that I’d say performs just as well as my grants for Brooks wildlife hatch. That I had that. That thing was, of course, a monster it cut really well, but for the price he can’t beat this and that wedge take that wedge shape.

That is, it doesn’t nice job splitting and you saw I took down this little tree pretty quickly. It cuts deep and I wasn’t even swinging hard and I’m only doing with one hand, so I gotta be honest. Today, I think this is a great value for the new-new bushcrafter. So if you’re on a budget check, one of these out pick one up, I think you’ll be happy with it and you can certainly customize it. You know I got this plastic handle.

If you wanted to spray paint this orange for visibility, you want to grab it and tape. There’s a lot of different possibilities for you. I could see. Maybe even wrapping some type of tape up here for overstrike I, don’t know that’s necessary or not, but man, it is it’s a nice little tool and I. Think you combine this with a more like a cans Bowl or a companion. You have a really nice start of a bushcraft kit and then pick up a handsaw and you’ve got the big three that you need so anyway hope you guys found this using.

As always, please like subscribe and share and we’ll see you next time on the pair water.

What’s up youtube, I know I haven’t been I’ve been doing a lot of stuff with camping gear. I haven’t been doing much with technically I’ve been getting into like the camping. So now these right here is, of course we know the survival show, should um shovel axe. This is the one with the wolf head. You know how thick that steel is so I mean I seen some reviews on these mines came in yesterday. I used it today took it in the woods out by the way I worked at you, I put it.

It comes with a beveled edge right here, but I um I sharpen mines up put it to the test. I’m gonna tell you. I got this big cake with me, hiking in the woods. When I go up on uh abolition, trail um, I will not be taking this. This thing is gone off heavy. Well, I will tell you this. This is one badass mid evil set right here I mean this is a straight up. Hacking, zombie kind of show right here. This thing is heavy. Now, don’t get me wrong! Everybody talk about how up in here where everything unscrews right here, I was saying- probably put some teflon tape on it or um.

I might put like drill a little hole in there put a little. You know pressure screw in there to keep it from unraveling, because I mean I use both of them. I mean I pretty much. I was up there, hacking on sampling trees, probably about that thick and just like just slicing through them, just cutting them down. You know, taking taking this just shaving off, you know uh little small branches off of them, cutting through thick vines about taking a saw, cutting new thick fines about that thick.

You know this bad boy right here I mean I just made short work of like a small tree just right down, and I mean so. I would definitely say, for you know, for bug out bags survival. I mean this thing right here. I never seen shovels with less metal right here. That’s some! That’s pretty decent! My last shovel, I just went on a camping trip. This weekend broke because um, and this right here was pretty simple. This is right here.

This is pretty thick and um. You can definitely use this as a defense tool. I mean that’s right. I mean I put a nice edge right on there, so this is my little short tutorial of the survival shovel uh axe system. I like it, but I mean eating myself personally, it’s it’s too heavy to curry, got some weight to it because all the thick steel on it- but I mean this- would definitely do the job for what it’s worth me or what it’s used for, like digging a little shot there.

You need to dig yourself a little poop hole or whatever or take out some shrubbery. It definitely will tackle anything that you’re coming against so um yeah. I mean I’ll, give it two thumbs up. I mean you got your ice. Breaker, slash fishing harpoon! You know your little shaving knife here and I mean everything in this. Damn thing is sharp. As I mean this thing is razor sharp and it came that way. This is the only thing I had to put a edge on, but besides that this act is pretty much be careful you, you won’t seriously cut yourself so yeah I mean for 50 or 49.

I definitely say you cannot beat this for a survival shovel kit. I like this one, because you get really you get that you know getting the axe head, plus the shovel, with the saw and all that other good stuff. You can’t beat it for the price and, like I said, the quality of metal. This thing is not going to break when you. This thing is solid. I mean I took it out and I took it for a test run, and I mean I was anything that I was cutting on.

I made short work of it just right through it. So alrighty.