Lazr Hi-Vis Titanium NAIL Tent Stake

Yikes! :-O
I hope it is an isolated incident. I just bought some.

Hmmm. Spot the failure point in that design. The loop attachment point has got to be *much* weaker than the rest of the nail. Still, maybe you were just unlucky.

EDIT: The vargo Ti nails have the same hole in them

Well, if you want to make your pack weight as light as possible, they are great for your bragging rights. If you want to actually drive a stake in the ground for some reason, you might try an MSR Groundhog or similar Y stake. They are terribly heavy though, at .7 oz each, and they are super expensive at 1/2 the cost. Also, I've nearly lost a few of those orangish stakes, in the brownish leaf litter where I stomp around, but have had better luck with the reddish groundhogs.

Regarding the vargo nail alternative… Vargo makes 2 versions of their nails. One weighs about 8g I think, and is probably pretty similar to yours. But the heavier version is about 0.5oz (14g). The 0.5oz is pretty bomber (I have a couple) and I can't imagine it bending like in your photo.

I bought some of those stakes a while back and nearly all of mine failed at the point. They would probably be good for soft ground but the hard ground here in Arizona killed 'em.

I love the matching Hi-Vis t-shirt ;-)

I have had success with the Easton ones.

A recent bombproof stakes thread.

I had the same failure on these stakes here in AZ. Looking at the heavier version. Also the 1/8" TI Shepards hook stakes bend easily here as well. looking to go with a larger diameter TI stake. Simons Metals through Moontrail.com sell a TI stake thats 1 mm bigger in diameter.

Facial expression = awesome. That is all.

I have used the Shepard's Hook style ones to good success, even in Arizona. I just pound the snot out of them with a handy rock and they go in.

In my experience, no stake will survive pounding into solid rock. I haven't used the Ti nails yet (just got some on the year-end sale). With the tubular Easton ones, I found it helped to make an opening with a shepherd's hook stake and then put the thicker stake in.

I think you are expecting a lot out of a product that weighs a quarter of an ounce.

I agree with an earlier poster that for the type of soil you are pounding this stake in, you should select a more robust stake.

Personally, I just don't see any utility for an ultralight nail stakes. We brought them into the store based on customer requests for a small light nail stake in this form factor. They sell well, so who am I to argue, I suppose.

But if I want a strong stake, I use an aluminum Y-stake. I think the Easton stakes are pretty weak as well and have broken plenty of those in rocky soil. I've never had an issue with the Y-stakes failing.

Ryan

I am a little puzzled by all this.
For a start, I have been pounding the thin Ti wire stakes into hard ground for years without any problems. They are thin and they go in well.

But what really puzzles me is why you would want to pound a Ti stake like the Nail so hard that the top bends over??? Surely one of two things should occur to you:
If the stake won't go in at all, the rock right there won't take a stake: try elsewhere.
If the stake is part way in and jamming, maybe that is adequate holding power?

Of course, if you are trying to use the Ti nail as a rockbolt …

Cheers

Please permit an attempt at clarification:

I didn't try to pound it through a rock. (I have a battery powered hammer-drill for bolting sport climbs, Roger…)

I have been using the MSR Needle Stakes and some Shepherds' Hook style stakes in the same type of soil for many years, and have only had one break in all that time (the MSR Needle Stake head snapped off). I usually am able to just push them in with my bare hand, but occasionally (as in this instance), despite shopping around for the path of least resistance, failed to find one, and so I tried to use a rock as a hammer to convince it to cooperate. I didn't use a 9 lb sledge, nor did I wail on it like a red-headed stepchild… I was hammering with a moderate degree of impact, making some progress, and then suddenly – she bends over like a double-barreled shotgun.

I relied on the product description to determine the amount of force they might be able to withstand. Copied and pasted from the order page:

Features:
Titanium nail style is highly resistant to bending in very hard and rocky soils
Flat head makes stake easy to pound with rocks or other objects

Thanks!
Jerry

I have been using those stakes for a while,
I broke 2, it was in Iceland in way rocky ground, the kind where theres is few milimmeters of dirt on top of rocks and after trying 10 differents time to drive the stake into the ground a few centimeters apart you overdo it the 11th time and break it.
If you look at the stake its flat at the hole area and have very low inertia in one direction, so if you are not careful its easy to bend one, and once bended there they are much more prone to bend again.
Vargo does those and 14g ones wich are a bit thicker and without a likewise inertia reduction at the hole, so they are way stronger.

I still use those stakes depending for a part on the ground i expect to meet,
if loose ground my eastons
if harder the usual 6g shepherd titanium stakes
if harder those 8g stakes
if very very hard some 14g titanium nails

and more than often a mix of those :p

Hi Jerry

Well, beats me. Maybe that Nail had a fault?

If things are that difficult I use a couple of rocks as an anchor, or at least part of an anchor. Mike C has an article on this.

Cheers

Well, all I can say is I am now very confused.
I have been planning on buying the Lazr Titanium Tent Stakes thinking that they would be an excellent choice because the advertising promoted their high durability.

But you guys are saying that even with moderate pounding, they just keeled over.

Should I just keep my aluminum stakes for the sake of money saved?

-Evan

Evan, these particular stakes have an obvious weak point. It's not just the hole, it's the fact that the stake has been flattened at the hole point. I think it's a flawed design, and it's not surprising that they bend/break at this point.

There are other options though. The Vargo nails (14g) mentioned earlier are designed much more sensibly… as well as being thicker, they are not flattened around the hole.

Anyway, plenty of other options… but skip these. The shepherds crook-style titanium stakes are very light, and don't have a failure point built in to the design. I think it's always worthwhile carrying a really strong nail (eg. vargo 14g) for making pilot holes when you hit really tough ground.

I'm not interested in the Hi-Vis feature.

Are the regular Lazr stakes trustworthy?

cheers

These should be fine. You will bend them if you pound them too hard into a rock, but they shouldn’t “snap” like the one in this thread did. None of these ultralight 6g stakes are really designed for pounding though. If you wanna pound away you are probably best with something around 15g or so (eg. vargo nail or msr groundhog).

Hi Evan

I find the Ti wire stakes very reliable, but I strongly recommend buying the Hi-Viz version. My reason is that I found it appallingly easy to lose one of the plain wires in dry grass. The plain Ti wire is invisible in grass and many other ground covers.

In fact, immediately after my first trip with plain wires, I painted the remaining ones bright yellow with black stripes. Now I have some chance of finding them when I drop them – which happens.

Cheers

If you want Hi-Vis, why not spend less money and spray paint the orange or attach orange tape to them?

goodnight all

Hi Evan

A fair question, but think of the cost of the can of epoxy paint you would need, just for a few stakes. I painted my own at first because I had both the plain stakes and some yellow epoxy primer.

As for tape – yeah, possible, but it comes off so easily. Blows away in the wind.

Cheers

from left to right what i use

1g stakes, for bug bivy/ bug myog inner tent
10g eastons a decent compromise
6 g titanium hook, lightest option if ground is firm but not really hard
8g nail i use them in a bit harder grounds, but i agree the reduced thickness at the hole is a conception flaw, the stakes would be much stronger without that weak point.
14g i use in really hard ground, there is a HUGE difference in strengh with the 8g ones.

as for painting, for the shepherd titanium stakes i prefer having them factory painted, for those with a hole i dont ycare i use a small loop in that hole, they are loop at the end of my tarptent and msr twin sisters tensionners ( i added them on the msr )
thats how i fix them, an exemple on the twin sister :

the stakes shouldnt be lost easily fixed that way, but if needed the loop is sufficient to see my stakes easily

thats a different story with the small shepherd titanium stake and i would have lost a few if not orange.