New MSR MINI-Groundhog Stakes

on a related note:

Twizzlers!
http://www.rei.com/product/829839/msr-cyclone-tent-stakes-4-pack

and carbon fiber stakes!
http://www.rei.com/product/831460/msr-carbon-core-tent-stakes-4-pack

But who in the right mind would pay $6-7 each for something you're probably going to lose sooner or later

The revamped groundhogs do look promising and at a good price point though.

I literally just bought the old Groundhog stakes today.

I didn't see the new ones, they look cool. I might have to check them out.

Those Twizzlers are heavy, and the carbon I wouldn't ever use because I need to be able to really pound on my stakes with rocks.

But yes, the new groundhogs look decent!

Only 6" long?
Not for me thanks. That short is unreliable.

Cheers

[x]

"For the same weight, you can have five minis 6 inch"

Actually, Roger, five minis will weigh 1.75 ounce.

–B.G.–

The new "minis" cost $2.95 each.

The older and longer in the tooth groundhogs (heh! heh!) cost $2.50 each.

Dividing the mini's weight by its length equals 0.0583333333333333 ozs per inch.

Dividing the original groundhog's weight by its length equals 0.0946666666666667 ozs per inch.

So what am I missing here? ;-?

One and a half inches of stake! ;-)

At some point you begin to see diminishing returns.

I'm with R.C. on this one, too short IMHO.

Party On,

Newton

You may remember Will's tent stake article from 2008 on holding power

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/tent_stakes.html

The mini-groundhogs might be a good alternative to people using 6'' Titanium Shepherd stakes. Surely these mini-groundhogs would provide more holding power and could take more pounding than those…

Regarding the 6" mini's, it just depends where you're camping I suppose. They will work fine for most folks. A 6" Y-stake will still offer a lot of holding power in most soils.

Ryan

Didn't see any spiral on the REI pics. Don't see why that would help any anyway. There are also several cheaper 6" Y stakes available as well. Mine are Sierra Designs which now run $10 for 6.

Amazing how they give you less stake (mini ground hog) yet charge you more. Rip off. The cyclone looks gimicky. Golites latest V stakes are pretty cool.

Proof they've decided to cash in hard on the UL'er: the smaller stake with less material COSTS MORE. Buy the old one and cut them down. You'll have a handful of totally UL stakes leftover.

[x] ignore test delete

Just to be clear: these stakes are made from extruded "rod stock". They chop-saw a long rod into length, then form the points and lash notch before dumping them in a tumbler, cleaning and then anodizing. The shorter stake uses the same process, but less of the rod material, meaning they make more of them for the same cost.

Supply and demand, so if you're willing to pay more, the proof's in the puddin'.

I am more interested in SMD 6" L stakes .3oz and $1.40 each every thing about them looks better to me except pounding. I used to use a stake like this that came with walrus tents very good holding power. You had to be careful how you pounded them but if you kept that in mind they worked great

I had one of the supplied shepherds hook stakes pull out of my Tarptent Moment in the middle of the night once. That tent has only two stakes, so the failure of one causes the collapse of the entire tent. After that experience I bought the larger MSR Groundhog stakes and had no further pull out problems, which made me a big fan of them.

Now I have a SMD Sil-Nylon Trekker with five stakes. I still had the two Groundhogs from the Moment, so I needed three more. I recently went to REI to buy the Groundhogs and noticed they only had the smaller version which I think are too small.

However, REI sells its own brand of stake that is very similar to the old Groundhog stake for $1. It is silver, with no pull cord, and maybe 1/4 inch shorter. So I bought three of those. I'm not sure if the metal is the same quality as the MSRs, but time will tell.

[x]

–

I did see that the regular sized Groundhogs have a new reflective red cord instead of the older yellow cord. The downtown Portland REI has both, probably just letting the older ones sell out over time.

The very slight flange "spiral" or curve on the Mini-Groundhogs is only visible when looking along it's length, directly at the tip of the stake. The regular Groundhogs do not have this slight spiral.

REI did have the Cyclone stakes, sold as a group of 4 (or maybe 6, I don't remember). These seemed gimmicky, but maybe they hold well in sand. They would not be interesting to anyone going UL as a main stake, because of overall size and weight.

My thought is that the new Mini-Groundhogs might be a suitable replacement for Ti Shepard Hooks, as mentioned above. I'm staying with my Ti Hooks, which are in good shape.

So I went and bought a few mini Groundhogs. Here are some pictures for comparison:

From left to right: MSR Groundhog – REI Tri Stake – Mini Groundhog

From left to right: MSR Groundhog – REI Tri Stake – Mini Groundhog

From left to right: REI Tri Stake – MSR Groundhog – Mini Groundhog

The REI Tri stakes are (or are about) the same width as the Groundhogs, just a little shorter. The Mini Groundhogs are quite a bit shorter and much narrower than the Groundhogs. I plan to use the minis for low-stress/non-critical areas. I'm fairly certain I've fractured rocks with both my REI and Groundhog stakes with no damage, so with some care, I think the minis should hold up. I doubt the twist on the end will add much to its holding power, but we'll see.

One other thing to note is that although the REI Tri stake is shorter than the Groundhog, when you compare the parts of the stakes that are actually underground, then you can see that the REI Tri stake provides almost exactly as much holding length as the Groundhog, maybe a 1/4'' less (if that). For that reason, the REI Tri stakes are the best value of holding power/weight for me.

UPDATE: 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.

Hey Thanks for the information….I need to try out the mini's.

This comparison may want to also reference this previous analysis.
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=55688

John you think the mini groundhogs broke because they are not as wide as the standard ones? I ask because they are made of the same material.