Anyone seen these or used these? Know what they weigh?


Supposedly the 6" is .26 ounces. (The old ones are .34 ounces)

I'm most interested in how the head is attached, and how much of a beating it can take. (The old style heads are prone to coming off when you pound them with a rock, as I frequently do.)

Edited by greg23 on 06/04/2012 20:32:43 MDT.

I need to lose about 2,000.025 oz. before even considering those stakes.

Guess I'll have to stick with my MSR Groundhogs for a while.

The Easton stakes have always failed on me. The top thing comes off over time..

+1 on the MSR Ground Hog--very dependable with no failures.

The 8 stakes for my Kilo 1p weigh less than 3 oz all in. However, assuming 8 stakes weigh 3 oz, you get .375 oz per stake. Since the Kilo 1p stakes look the same as the one you have pictured, it's a fair bet that that stake weighs less than half an ounce.

As for how well they work, so far they haven't failed me, but I have yet to give them a strong test.

Edited by KC on 06/04/2012 22:21:00 MDT.

ever since I pushed a brand new one into semi soft soil in my backyard with the palm of my hand and it snapped in two gouging my palm. That really hurt. Almost got blood all over my new tent:(
I'll take a sturdier stake.

I have beat the crap out of them (with rocks into hardpan) for the past two years and, aside from loose heads, have never had a problem.

Groundhogs would be my next choice, but I'm trying to shave a couple of ounces.

Hence the search for hands-on experience.

Check out the new msr mini groundhogs. They are 6" long and weigh .35oz on my scale. Seem to work pretty well in my backyard testing, haven't had the chance to take them on a trip yet though.

In the past few months I have bought and tried the Mini Groundhogs, the 8'' Easton Nanos, and the 6'' Easton Nanos.

The heads of 2 out of 4 Mini Groundhogs broke off when knocking them in after just a few uses. I never felt like I was pounding that hard on them nor was the soil extremely hard. I'm also fairly confident that my rock strikes were pretty in-line with the stakes themselves. While their hold is decent, I've deemed them too weak to be reliably used.

The 8'' Easton Nanos I got were junk...I bought a pack of 4 about 3 weeks ago and was able to pull the heads off of 3 of them just by using my hands. I don't think I would trust these not to break in half when it counts.

The 6'' Easton Nanos have performed okay for me, although I've only been able to use them half a dozen times or so. I bought 8 of these and, oddly, none of their heads have popped off yet. I only use these for non-critical, low-stress tie-outs. The weight of these is on par with what Easton specifies.

So maybe the 8'' Easton Nanos I received were defected, but it still doesn't inspire much confidence in my 6'' Nanos. I'll be sticking with my Groundhogs for key tie-outs and probably replacing my 6'' Nanos with something else soon.

John,
The Easton Nanos where what style - old or new ? (refer to the leading photo above)

The Mini Groundhogs - the heads broke at the notch? Or somewhere else?

Thanks

The Easton Nanos were the new style.

And the Mini Groundhogs broke at the neck below the head of the stake (where it's thinnest, of course). I think the neck is too thin and the head too big for these stakes to exhibit any real strength.

I some times wonder if the people at these companies actually ever even try to use the products they "design".

"I some times wonder if the people at these companies actually ever even try to use the products they "design"."

I'm imagining a marketing doofus saying, "It makes a great arrow shaft, so stick a cap on the leftover bits and they should make great tent stakes, right?"

Never mind that the needs of an arrow shaft aren't the same, they're both cylindrical with points on one end, right? ;)

I think it’s more of a case that making something ultralight is a compromise between weight and durability. If you buy something that is made to be lighter than everything else, I don't think you can expect it to hold up to the same abuse, as it's heavier counterparts.

Just my take, YMMV.

I had the head come off a few of the standard ones, a few drops of glue sorted it out :-)

6" is barely long enough imho - at least in bad weather.
Ti wires.

Cheers

Hi John,

Are you absolutely sure the heads popped off the NEW style Easton nano stakes? If so, Easton (and I) would love to know. Easton is/was pretty convinced that the redesign solved that problem and I'm sure they would love to hear from you and examine your stakes (and reimburse you).

-H

Hi Henry,

Yes, these are the stakes that I have:



Unfortunately, I recently used some JB Weld to secure the heads of the three stakes who initially failed. I just tried pounding this one into my yard and it seemed to do fine. Not sure how long the head will stay attached though or if I'll even end up using them.

I should have taken pictures of the stakes whose heads popped off, but it didn't appear like any glue was applied to them.

I use MYOG Ti corkscrew stakes. I won't go into the details here in the gear forum, but I thought I'd mention the option to make your own since they will greatly outperform the Groundhogs or any tubular aluminum stake, and the weight is the same.

The 6" one in the photo below weighs 8 grams (0.25 oz), and the 8" one weighs 13 grams (0.45 oz). I've never found a soil in California, Oregon, or Washington that they won't penetrate. In some soils I can't pull the 8" ones out. I've challenged people to pull them out and it just leads to incredulity and laughing.

Edited by ckrusor on 06/05/2012 20:29:54 MDT.

John,
Do you recall where you bought the new stakes?
And approximately when - days, weeks or months ago?


Edit: BTW, does the cord go through the stake as well as the head?

Thanks.

Edited by greg23 on 06/05/2012 20:20:40 MDT.

Thanks John. I've alerted Easton.

-H

Greg,

I bought them from Campmor on 5/5/2012 (so a little over 4 weeks ago).

The cord is my addition as the stakes do not come with any, but the cord only runs through the head. With the cord-loops and JB Weld, the average weight of my 8'' Easton Nanos is 0.45 oz/per stake. Compare this to an average of 0.52 oz/stake for my MSR Groundhogs.

It's possible mine were some early-production duds, but how hard is it to glue a head to a stake? Actually, why doesn't Easton just weld the heads to the tube bodies? EDIT: found out that 7075 is an unweldable alloy.

Edited by johnnyh88 on 06/25/2012 08:54:44 MDT.