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Why does nobody talk about how tent stakes have changed?
I found my old Coleman tent from 2006 in the garage last weekend. The stakes that came with it were these heavy steel things that bent but never broke. Last month I bought a new modern tent and the stakes are these thin aluminum ones that look like they'd snap if you looked at them wrong. Three years ago on a trip to Yosemite I watched a guy hammer his stakes into rocky ground and they just crumpled. Has anyone else noticed the quality slipping on basic hardware like this?
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riley5172mo ago
Started reading about this actually in a camping gear forum last week. Someone broke down how tent stakes went from being overbuilt tools to weight saving gimmicks around 2010 when ultralight backpacking got huge. The old steel stakes were tanky but heavy, now they're making them so thin to save ounces they snap in anything harder than soft dirt. I saw a test where these new lightweight stakes bent under 20 pounds of force, while the vintage ones held up to over 60. It's not just tents either, I've noticed the same shrinkflation with stakes for tarps and camp kitchens. They're basically disposable now, which sucks when you're miles from the truck.
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ben_shah932mo ago
Right but is anyone tracking the actual METAL quality here? I swear they switched from high carbon steel to some recycled soda can aluminum around 2015. I bent a MSR stake with my bare hands last summer while trying to pull it out of hard packed dirt. The old ones you could HAMMER straight again if they got bent, these new ones just snap or stay permanently warped. Do you think manufacturers are secretly using weaker alloys to save two cents per stake or is it really just about weight savings? Because 20 pounds of force is a JOKE for something that's supposed to hold your shelter against wind.
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