Light/Ultralight Tent Pegs Review

Tent Pegs are one area where it is easy to save weight without spending lots of cash - if you are careful! Titanium is not always the best buy and plastic is not always useless!

The above picture shows a variety of plastic, aluminium and titanium tent pegs with weights that vary from 33g through to 1g and prices from 20p to £2.

Some of the tent pegs are used by me all the time and some not at all.

Let's now look at each of the pegs in turn.

1: 19cm Plastic X peg - 13g

I picked up a pack of 20 for £2 from a local bargain-basement camping store. The pegs are made from polypropylene and are both reasonable in weight and slightly flexible.

They are designed for softish ground. If you try and hammer them into hard ground they may well break. That being said I have not yet broken one even if they have had me worried at times.

They would be good for Guy ropes and for emergencies.

It could easily be reduced in length a little.

2: 20cm Untreated Aluminium V Stake - 13g

This peg is from one of my commercial lightweight tents. The peg itself is very soft and will bend quite easily.

It is a good peg for guyropes and ground that is not very rocky. I have pretzelled a few of these by trying to hammer them in when there are rocks in the ground.

3: 15cm Untreated Aluminium Tent Peg - 16g

A reasonably stiff tent peg that is good for most sorts of ground. If you try and hammer it in and hit a rock it will bend - but can be un bent.

It's ideal as a general purpose tent peg but a bit heavy for Ultralight use. Mine were bough from Blacks and cost about 20p each (£2 for 10)

4: 15cm Aluminium V Stake Tent Peg - 13g

This is one of my personal favourites. It was bought from Blacks and features a reinforced central ridge. This makes it a very tough tent peg.

At 13g the peg is good for what it does. The peg will go into almost any ground without bending. It holds very well in soft ground and will take quite heavy loads. Cost (from Blacks) is about £2 for 6.

5: 14cm Aluminium Tent Peg - 9g

This tent peg is almost completely useless!! It is very soft and has trouble penetrating any ground that is hard-packed or contains rocks. It was supplied with an old lightweight tent that I now rarely use - It's weight of 1.5Kg is twice the weight of one of my home-made tents.

6: 15cm Titanium Tent Peg - 6g

This is my personal favourite - it is one peg that always is packed. This skinny little peg is tougher than all the other pegs in this review with perhaps the exception of #4 - the V Stake.

The typical price for a Titanium Tent peg is around $2/£2 and it doesn't really matter what the brand is - they all seem to be made from the same grade of titanium and the same thickness of wire.

The peg will bend but before it does so it has lots of natural spring in it. In contrast an alum ilium tent peg has very little spring in it.

The skinny size of the peg means that it will go into all ground and it is tough enough to push past many rocks.

In very soft ground it may shift more than an aluminium peg but it will still grip adequately.

The only MAJOR issue that I have with titanium tent pegs is that I keep loosing them!!! Titanium is a natural shade of grey and this seems to blend in well with grass, peat bog, forest floors and just about anywhere you want to camp.

At £2 each I have a policy of counting them in and counting them out.

By choice I used Titanium tent pegs for almost all my needs because they are so much better. I always tend to pack a couple of extra ones as well - just in case.

7/8: Plastic X Groundsheet Peg - 4g

These were picked up from Millets and Black and were about £2 for 4/6 respectively.

These pegs are only designed for holding down a groundsheet. In soft ground they will pull out easily. In hard ground it can be difficult to get them in.

In practice I have found that they cannot be put under too much lateral tension without pulling out.

At 4g they seemed like a good idea at the time but in reality are not good enough for ultralight use.

9: Backpacking Light 1g Titanium Skewer - 1g

I've only found these at www.backpackinglight.com. They are the lightest titanium pegs I have ever found. They are also the easiest to lose!!

They are sold in packs of 10 and are ideal for use with groundsheets and low-load applications. They could be used for small pot stands or for securing windshields around a stove.

If you drop one it will be difficult to find it again - I lost one in the process of setting up and taking down a tent in my own garden.

Still, they are surprisingly tough and have their uses - even if only as part of a cookset.

10: Alpkit Aluminium Nail Peg - 33g

These are available from Alpkit.com. I picked mine up at a show and it cost me 75p. This is for use on hard ground - either as a main anchor or for drilling pilot holes in hard ground.

11: Alpkit Titanium V Stake - 11-13g.

The listed weight is 13g. Around 1-2g of that is the red cord. I picked up a couple at a show where they were being sold lose. They are normally available in packs of 10 for £16 from Alpkit.com.

They are a bit of a puzzle. It's definitely Titanium and I've measured it with callipers - it's 1mm titanium sheet that's been folded. They are exceedingly tough. They are also at best no lighter than the Blacks Aluminium V stakes that were 60p each and almost as tough.

The Aluminium V stakes (#4) are moulded rather than pressed and must be a toughened alloy of aluminium because there strength is so good - I've yet to bend one.

The point of this is that Titanium is not always better and Aluminium is not always a bad choice. I bought a set of 4 because I could. I want to find out if they work better in the field than the Aluminium ones given that there is no weight benefit.

Other Titanium Tent Pegs

There are several manufacturers who produce Titanium V Stakes that typically weigh 10-13g. Given that they weigh the same as the Aluminium V stakes then they seem to be a waste of money for most people.

Personal Tent Peg Choices

After lots of experimentation I have settled on using the Titanium skewers for pegging out canvas and the Aluminium V Stakes for guy lines.

For the Ultralight Tent or the Ultralight Solo Tarp I will take the following:

For the Ultralight Micro Tarp I will take the following: