My New Hardcore Hammers’ Blackout Survivalist Hatchet

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- It is pouring down rain as I sit in my living room reading when the delivery driver walks up and from waist high drops a package onto the wet ground. Had I not seen this, I surely would have heard the thud sound as the box hit the concrete. By the time I got to the door, the driver was long gone, so I picked up the wet cardboard box.

The Hardcore Hammers shipping tape was on the box so I knew what was supposed to be inside, but the box seemed too light to hold a manly survival hatchet. Opening the soaked box and removing the paper-wrapped tool, it still appeared to be too light.

Hardcore Hammers’ Blackout Survivalist Hatchet

Grabbing the 18-inch handle, I let the hatchet slide down inside my hand to about 70% of the length of the tool. Then swinging the hatchet up just above eye level I realized I had a hatchet, hammer, and fighting ax all in one tool that I should have had 40 plus years ago in my Army Infantry days.

It looks big, it looks manly but the hatchet head is only 19 oz. As an 11B /Infantry Officer in training at Fort Benning, Georgia I could have used this tool, many a day in the field. More importantly when you head out for real-world deployments the Hardcore Hammers–Blackout Survivalist Hatchet can and will make work just a tad bit easier and maybe save your life.

As I am writing this I have my old US Army Ranger Handbook in front of me. It was issued to me back in 1982. Major Robert Rogers late of the French and Indian Wars, the father of the modern Army Rangers had a set of Standing Orders he expected his Soldier-Rangers to strictly follow.

• Standing Order #2 was “Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute’s warning.”
• Standing Order #19 is “Let the enemy come till he’s almost close enough to touch–then let him have it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet”.

Reading all nineteen of the Ranger Standing Orders, there is no mention of a requirement for a Ranger to have a knife. I assume they expected every Ranger to have a fixed blade knife but no written expectation to engage your enemy in close combat with a knife.

There has been a place for the hatchet in the hands of Americans in harm’s way since the first settlers arrived on future US soil, to the present day hands of the American military who deploy to hostile foreign lands.

Everyone wants a good knife when they head to the field in the military, but there is only so much you can do with a straight blade knife and even less with a folding knife when it comes to heavy and powerful impact use of a cutting device. The energy a hatchet can wield to chop down a tree, split firewood or re-arrange a “walker’s” frontal lobe will always outperform a knife.

A well-built hatchet, designed by men who use tools in their daily lives to earn a living is what has brought the Blackout Survivalist Hatchet to the market. However, it started as a hammer.

The brothers’ Steve & Rick Spencer, professional carpenters who swing hammers hundreds of times a day, just wanted something better than what was on the market. Steve took an existing hammer and with the help of his father redesigned and then fashioned through welding onto that hammer, a new and greatly improved tool. A crude prototype, but the process grew and expanded to the entire line of Hardcore Hammers (axes and hatchets included).

The concept of Hardcore Hammers was born, patents were filed, and the first Hardcore Hammer was on the market by word-of-mouth to other professional carpenters. 300 units of the original model of the Hardcore Hammer were sold in the first year. Needless to say, the Spencer brothers did not quit their day jobs as carpenters.

Demand was high among those who use quality tools to earn a living and something had to give. Production had to increase on a greatly enhanced scale but the quality could not falter or the Spencer brothers risked losing the professional market. There would be no Hardcore Hammers on the shelves of big-box discount stores.

The assembly operation was moved to Hillsboro, Il in 2019, and production increased by 50% in 2020. That increase in production was over 700% in 2021. A star was born or at least a coming of age party was held to tell the American consumers who use “real” tools, that Hardcore Hammers was well and truly on the market. They were in that market, with excellently designed, tested and quality produced hammers, axes, and hatchets–tools that worked.

The Hardcore Hammers’ Blackout Survivalist Hatchet has a 19oz head, an 18-inch hickory handle and the overall carrying weight is 40oz. Again I go back to my military life and patrolling for days with a large Alice pack on my back. I truly could have had use for the Blackout Survivalist Hatchet. Prioritizing some field items that could have been left back at base camp in order to make room for the hatchet.

Throughout history, man has continued to improve the process of developing and making tools that enhance the ability to work more efficiently and also defend to survive with a much-improved ability. When “they” take away your gas engines and electric-powered tools you are left with basic hand tools, maybe? Better hand tools mean a greater chance of surviving in a crisis. Watch the news and read everything you can about today’s current never-ending list of world crises.

It is time to start thinking about hand tools that could make the difference in your surviving a natural or more likely man-made crisis the likes this country has not seen since 1865.
The Blackout Survivalist Hatchet by its design and its marketing name is sold as a tool to help you survive. If you go back in history to the six simple machines that you learned about in grade school you will remember the “wedge” was one of the six. An ax or hatchet is a wedge designed to transfer force, change the direction of force, and increase the magnitude, distance, or speed of force. All things you need when your power tools are abruptly removed from you.

The human body has a limited force and we all need tools to greatly enhance our ability to increase the force required to work and survive. Without outside mechanical power sources, you need human blood, sweat, and even tears to get life-sustaining work accomplished.

This article is about the Blackout Survivalist Hatchet that Hardcore Hammers has introduced to the American buying public but my suggestion is you take a look at their online catalog. The tools they manufacture are excellent whether it is a hammer, ax, or the new hatchet line.

Tools are how a man survives against nature. Quality tools are how the enlightened survive better, faster, and longer.

Go ahead and “make your day”, and buy a Hardcore Hammers tool.

Major Van Harl USASF Ret.
[email protected]

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:

Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force, was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safety and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” [email protected]