Hi Guys,<br><br>I went and purchased a pair of the survival hatchets to check them out (@ $6/pair it was not much of and investment) http://www.majorsurplusnsurvival.com/cgi/webc.cgi/store/st_prod.html?p_prodid=305031&sid=8NxGfR0VkA4J0vA <br><br>I received them last week and put them through their paces over the week end. The tool is a combination hatchet, hammer, pry bar & nail puller. I first off noticed the handle was offset on one of the hatchets. I thought this was to facilitate the prying function but I noticed the other hatchet's handle was not offset so I think it was just poor quality control or a return from someone that pried a little to hard. The other thing I noticed right away was the quality of the steel. After just a few whacks on a nail there were visible dents in the hammer head. It seems the factory made little effort to harden the steel. <br><br>Hammer: the hammer head's face is some what smaller than a normal claw hammer's so you need to be a little more accurate with your swings. The weight distribution is some what sub-optimal for a striking tool. While a normal hammer or axe will have a heavy head and a light handle, this tool's head is relatively small and the handle is fairly thick (because it is also a pry bar) so that the center of mass is not concentrated in the head where you would want it to get the striking power. <br><br>Pry bar/nail puller: On both of my tools the teeth of the pry bar were out of alignment so it was very difficult to get the teeth under a nail head or between two boards. With a little work from a 3# sledge and an anvil, I was able to pound the teeth back into alignment so that it would work better. While the pry bar worked fine on smaller nails but as I tried to pull larger spikes I could feel the pry bar's teeth beginning to bend so that the curve of the teeth flattened out making it that much harder to lever out a nail. Once a nail's head is worked up above the surface of the wood, there is a slot farther up the tool's shaft where you can snag a nail head and easily pull it out. <br><br>Hatchet: This was the worse disappointment. One of the tools arrived without much of an edge and the other one looked as though the edge had been intentionally rounded over with a file. It took a lot of work with a file to bring back something resembling an sharp edge. However, even then the edge angle was much more blunt than you would find on an axe. It was more like the edge of a splitting maul. I tried chopping some wood but it was hard going and not much more effective than smashing the wood with a large rock. Also it did not hold its edge for long. As a splitting tool it worked pretty good. Stand a log up on end, place the blade on top and hit the hammer side with a rock or another log and it splits it quite nicely. <br><br>This tool may be suited to breaking out a car window or prying open a wooden door. I doubt it is strong enough to pry open a car door. Over all this tool suffers from the same thing may multi-purpose tools suffer from: in trying to do everything, it does nothing well. It also suffers from poor quality steel, However, even if the steel was stronger and harder I don't think this tool is particularly useful in a survival situation. For about the same weight I could carry a quality hickory handle hatch and an 18" pry bar. Both tools (even of average quality) are much more capable for their appointed tasks.