I've been eyeing the berserker and loggerhead models.
I'm open to other brands. All opinions and advice will be appreciated.
first let me caution you... Hawks are fun and addictive to go out and play with. You are about to tread upon a slippery slope!
I have a Loggerhead from the first run of them ever made. It is indestructible. I liked the more traditional profile of the head as I thought regular hatchet type uses were what I would be doing with it. The loggerhead chops and splits wood easily and I am sure that soft targets are nothing for it.
Later I realized that a spike is actually quite utilitarian because it can be used for splitting wood, digging, piercing, hooking and dragging things. The spike is like the multitool part of the hawk and basically can be used for any task other than cutting, which preserves your edge. The RMJs are so durable that you can always hammer by holding the hawk so that the flat cheek hits whatever you are hammering.
The loggerhead is great but very expensive. My personal recommendation is the American Tomahawk Model 1 (made by RMJ). I have both the hickory and the nylon handle versions. They cost less than half of a usual RMJ hawk. Its a Vietnam style hawk. The nylon handle has been extremely durable. I have carried it on a few fishing and hunting adventures and used it to prep a fire for a shore lunch and many back yard landscaping, and firepit uses. The edge profile is perfect for cutting and chopping and it was shaving sharp. It pretty light weight too, but still is an effective chopper.
Before I ever coughed up the cash for the loggerhead I had amassed a collection that consisted of some cold steel hawks, a fiskars hatchet, the sog vietnam hawk, the Lagana VTAC (made by Furhman) and a 2hawks longhunter. The Lagana VTAC was tortured. I bought it to see what the limits were. It held up to everything I could thing of. Breaking bricks, cinderblock, punching metal, throwing, throwing and more throwing, digging and splitting smaller rounds of wood. Its edge geometry was hideous for my usual camping, hunting, fishing tasks and needed serious re-profiling before it would reasonably chop wood. The handle was a bit slippery too. Ultimately I gained huge confidence in its design and construction but wished it had come with a better edge geometry and not so smooth of a handle. When I discovered that RMJ resurrected the Lagana design, I did some googling and just from pictures I realized that they had refined the edge geometry and fixed the slippery handle. RMJ made a beast into a titan. I jumped on it and got one. As soon as I got my hands on it I knew I had found my perfect hawk.
I really love the history of this design too. It was created by Peter Lagana, a Marine and outdoorsman from Pennsylvania, for use in Vietnam. Look it up, you will find some interesting reading.
