Gear – Estwing tomahawk

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Tomahawks are one of those niche specialty pieces of gear that either make you a forward-thinking outside-the-box kinda guy or show you to be far too immersed in zombie movies for your own good.

I’ll ignore the utility, practicality, likelihood of need, and a few other criteria about why you would want a tomahawk and instead simply link to the bloody things:

ESTWING BLACK EAGLE TOMAHAWK

Nylon Vinyl Shock Reduction Grip®

American-made Black Eagle Tomahawk Axes are designed for sportsmen and military professionals. The lightweight design makes it easy to carry and with Estwing’s Shock Reduction Grip for comfort and durability. Black Eagle tools are perfectly balanced and weighted, and made to last. American forged in one piece out of genuine American steel.

Estwing makes some nice stuff and I really like the all-metal construction. However, I would imagine that when the apocalypse happens and youre knee-deep in the middle of it, your needs for a chopping implement are more along the lines of cutting cable, chopping debris, busting windows, prying doorjambs and that sort of thing rather than getting your Daryl Dixon on and opening up zombie brainpans. To that end, I found this interesting link over at Zombie Squad: Converting an Estwing into a Tactical Tomahawk.

Nice looking and probably a bit sturdier than the other model.

On the other hand, if youre looking for a tomahawk for getting all Mel Gibson-y on some Redcoats, well the lighter, newer, version is probably a better choice to keep from tiring out quickly as you hack through someones vertebra.

I do find that a very small hatchet or ‘pack axe’ can be handy in the boonies when out hunting or what not. Gerber makes some very lightweight stuff, but I’m rather taken with this Swedish one: Mini-Hatchet… expensive, but I like to think that in this case it’s a reflection of the quality of the product. This would be a nice one to have in my pack for disassembling deer.

Anyway, I figured some of you might find the recent addition to Estwing’s product line interesting and figured I’d share. Big shout-out to my buddy on Facebook who pointed me in the direction of this new offering from Estwing.