Warning: Don't cheap out on post hole diggers

Bought a $30 auger bit from a surplus store and it snapped halfway through a job in rocky soil near Austin. Lost an afternoon and had to rent a skid steer for $250 to finish. Anyone else had a tool fail at the worst time?

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3 Comments

taylor_patel4mo ago

Did you try a manual digger first? That soil is no joke.

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tessaperry4mo ago

Been reading up on these rock augers and turns out the secret isn't even the power but the bit design for breaking up compacted layers. Some of the newer models apparently have carbide tips that can handle that hardpan without skipping like a regular drill bit. Heard this from a local landscaping crew that swears by the three-stage diggers over the two-stage ones.

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carr.abby4mo ago

@taylor_patel Yeah, manual digger would have just bounced off that rock. Salt lick territory out there. I got a similar deal on a cheap auger once, worked great in garden soil until it hit a buried stump and twisted into a spiral like a corkscrew. Spent the whole weekend digging by hand and cursing my own thriftiness.

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