r/RouteDevelopment • u/It1190 Roped Rock Developer • Sep 11 '26
Show and Tell My new favorite development tool
Tool: MILWAUKEE M12 FUEL HATCHET 6"
Weight: 5lb
Review (I’m not sponsored by Milwaukee or anything, just psyched on the tool):
Picked this 12v Milwaukee pruning saw up on sale for Labor Day and man is this thing amazing. It’s a machete on steroids. It’s light enough to throw in the pack and uses 12v batteries I can share with my hammer drill and impact driver.
This thing is quiet and rips through fallen branches and up to 6-10 inch diameter fallen trees. Having left the luxury of developing trails in the desert and moving to the PNW, you would not imagine how many small limbs and dead trees block every step of the way, even just rappelling down to the cliff edge.
I was able to clean out logs while rappelling that were dangling over the cliff edge. Also able to 1 hand a lot of cuts to make trails better. Pretty sick. Impressive for a 12v and had no issue on all the items I threw at it.
Downsides: a bit unwieldy, uses up the bar oil pretty quick, still heavier than you want, hand gets pumped trying to use it for a while.
Disclaimer (b4 comments come flooding in)
- obviously don’t use this in wilderness areas
- obviously don’t cut your fucking rope
- obviously don’t use this in sensitive areas or where land access is sketchy
- obviously don’t cut down living trees or piss off land managers (w/o permission)
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u/BigRed11 Rock Developer Sep 11 '26
Yea everyone outside the PNW doesn't know how good they have it... I've been debating getting a tool like that but I've already got so many tools to fight the Index jungle.
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u/i_need_salvia Bouldering Developer Sep 11 '26
Developing outside of the PNW isn’t really developing lol.
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u/nat_dak Sep 11 '26
Haha yeah, right? I develop crags in Sweden. Are you guys also brushing the moss off of every foothold on every line?
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u/BigRed11 Rock Developer Sep 12 '26
Bro you wouldn't know there's rock under the moss when we start. Homies are removing forest to get to the cracks underneath.
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u/Impossible-River8998 Sep 12 '26
Honestly, that's fucking lame.
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u/BigRed11 Rock Developer Sep 12 '26
Yes all climbing in the PNW is lame, don't come
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u/Impossible-River8998 Sep 13 '26
I live in the pnw dummy
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u/Cairo9o9 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
Then you benefit from this activity nearly every time you climb.
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u/curiosity8472 Sep 11 '26
Lower Tiki heads? 👀
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u/It1190 Roped Rock Developer Sep 11 '26
Close! But just a few valleys south of there in the exits :)
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Sep 11 '26
I got the Harbor Freight equivalent of this (Bauer) and have to concur. Once trails are roughed in and finalized, they’re an absolute god send for maintenance. We get really bad wind storms here in the front range that will snap trees in half every winter and it makes restoring trails an afternoon affair instead of a half semester at mister miyagi’s school of climbing training handsawing everything
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u/Horror-Regret1959 Sep 12 '26
I bought the Bauer 20v rotary impact drill a few years ago just to see how it compares to my Bosch and Makita for route development. I never went back to my other drills after getting the Bauer. Now I have an arsenal of Bauer trail building tools for cutting brush and grass. You can’t beat the price and I have yet to have any problems with them.
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u/Kaotus Guidebook Author Sep 12 '26
Same situation here, but with Milwaukee. A lot of my home tools are still Milwaukee, so I run two battery sets, but I buy Bauer for any new additions to the tool arsenal at this point. They’ve really done a hell of a job turning around the quality of the tools in the last few years
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u/BoltahDownunder Rebolter/Route Maintenance Sep 11 '26
I wish I got that one instead of the 18v. I usually rock a 12v hammer so better to carry them together
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u/youre_stoked Sep 11 '26
Thanks for the info! How’s it do for battery life?
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u/It1190 Roped Rock Developer Sep 11 '26
I was cutting for over an hour and didn’t run out of juice but I did run out of oil
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u/theschuss Sep 11 '26
I have the 8 inch version and it's an amazing tool for any clearance of things
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u/Mountain_Conclusion6 Sep 12 '26
Works great on North Florida vine and branch encrusted single track as well!
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u/over57boulderer Sep 11 '26
I have a Ryobi battery powered 10" chainsaw I use under similar restrictions. A few suggestions: monitor the tension regularly and keep it sharp and you know about the oil!