What Screw- In Tent Peg Is Best - 12 Point Research Guide

12 Of The Most Important & Overlooked Points To Consider Before You Invest In Screw-In Tent Pegs

Use this guide to help find the right screw-in tent peg or ground anchor. All screw-in tent pegs are NOT made equal and you best know about them before you shell out your hard earned money or risk paying twice or worse, sustaining damage to your outdoor set up should the wind whip up out of nowhere.

Look for your additional free selection chart at the end of this guide.

Let’s Get Started…

The first thing you absolutely must know from the get go is that one screw-in tent peg will not cover all terrains, all applications and all uses.

You might find one that suits you most of the time, which is great if you can. Mostly we camp in different places, right?!

But to find a one-peg solution simply isn't possible (believe me we tried), just like one phone, car or holiday destination does not suit everyone's needs. You will either need to compromise by finding something that works for ‘most’ of your needs or you’ll need to invest in two (or more) different models/styles to suit all your tent peg needs.

GroundGrabba - designed and built from the ground up!

Hint: Look for our easy-to-follow quick checklist at the end of this guide.

Here are the 12 most important things you need to consider:

What are you wanting to secure?

Is it a lightweight nylon dome, one of those instant spring out tents or is it camper trailer canvas, small or large tarp, caravan annexe, back yard swing set or trampoline? Consider the value of your set-up if the pegs got ripped out of the ground in a strong wind gust or storm.

The greater the load, the longer, wider or larger the threads or flights the pegs should have, BUT this also depends on how hard or soft the ground you need to screw them into is

In what ground type are you mainly going to use them?

Is it dry soft beach or dune sand, wet sand or sun-dried clay? Is it rocky or firm peat or machined compressed gravel?

Soft or loose grounds will need a longer reach and or wider threads or flights to anchor down well. If it is super hard ground, a screw variety like our GroundGrabba Juniors (as opposed to our popular ‘Pro’ series augur design) would be better suited unless the ground gets wet and loses its integrity. Eg. A regular screw-in tent peg into the sand just won't hold anything and a wide and long augur variety could be very difficult to get into hard machined ground.

Have you got a cordless drill or an impact wrench with enough grunt (torque)?

This investment of a tradey quality cordless is well worth it. The reliability and ease is what you want to drive your newly acquired screw-in tent pegs into hard ground. Lower quality drills with less torque can stall and maybe even burn out when you least want them to. The harder the ground and or the larger/longer the stake or ground anchor, the more torque your drill will need. Many of the brushless cordless drills today have over 100Nm of torque which is a good place to start. For a cordless impact wrench, you’ll be wanting upwards of 450Nm. Impact wrenches are easier to use.

Made For Purpose?

Just by looking at your options, you can tell whether proper design and testing were carried out to make them. Have they been designed and made especially for ground use or are they just a modified screw being labeled as a screw in tent peg?

There are many cheap brands and copycats on the market which are essentially long wood screws you could pick up from your local hardware store.

As usual, someone invents a great product just for others to rip them off with a cheaper inferior version. This is the case for screw-in tent pegs too with many of the top quality brands blatantly ripped off.

Typically originals made for purpose will outperform and outlast the cheap & inferior copies. For example, many on the market are made of thick wire that is basically cut off a roll and then put through a machine to form the threads.

Some designs are for ground holding and made out of cast metals, and others like the GroundGraba Pro series are made out of extruded carbon steel in many laborious steps:

BEWARE OF CHEAP COPYCAT KNOCKOFFS!

These are made with lesser quality materials, made with shortcuts and usually by people after a fast buck riding on the hard work of the originals that have little or no backup.

What are screw-in tent pegs made of?

Typical materials tent pegs are made of are:

A. Synthetics:

ABS
Polypropylene
Nylon

B. Lightweight Aluminium

These are of cast aluminium

C. Steel:

Lightweight thin wire (cut and bent into peg shapes)
Mild steel
Carbon Steel
Cast stainless steel

Let's break it down…

A. Synthetics:

There are some cheap plastic options, you just know will snap or if you use too much force if driven into harder ground, your gut feeling knows this….

Don’t go against your gut or you’ll just be throwing your $money$ away.

The synthetic ones are for softer grounds like sand, but do they have wider flights to anchor into the sand or are they narrow?

If narrow, they are unlikely to hold well. Again use your logic and common sense, don't use the cheap price to go against your gut or you will feel like an idiot having to pay more later for better quality ones! I’m talking from way too many experiences of my own here.

Consider an old-fashioned hammer-in tent peg into sand…. You know it won't hold, and neither will a narrow screw-in tent peg. Also, if the peg is not long enough for soft grounds, that’s another red flag.

Perhaps they’re made of a synthetic polymer or nylon. These can be extremely tough but you still wouldn't want to use them for hard ground.

Although the GroundGrabba Lites are made for soft grounds like sand, they've been tested into harder grounds and will tend to last much longer than cheap imported copies with untested synthetics.

B.Light Weight Aluminium:

If made of aluminum they are lighter to carry than steel which can be very convenient especially if weight is an issue. The challenge with aluminium screw-in tent pegs is that they are made of a cast alloy.

Cast materials are a fussy lot. If the mix of metal is too hard, it can fracture when dropped onto a hard surface or if it strikes a hard underground obstruction. If too soft, they may not fracture but they will tend to bend instead. It is similar to other cast metals like stainless steel or iron. Too hard and they can crack or too soft and they could bend under high torque whilst drilling them in.

C. Steel:

Most (non-stainless) steel screw-in tent pegs are made of extruded steel and come in either mild or carbon steel. Mild is more likely to bend whereas carbon steel has greater strength characteristics.

The downside of steel is its weight. Steel can also rust so they are usually coated in paint, zinc or are hot dip galvanised like the GroundGrabba Pro Series for even greater anti-corrosion qualities. It is a good idea to clean your camping gear like your tent pegs before packing them away. If not cleaned they could rust, however, the more you use steel ones, the more they self-clean and then can end up so clean they have a mirrored shiny surface.

If augur-based ground anchors are what you are shortlisting, ask if they are made of mild steel or carbon steel. Why? Carbon steel is less likely to bend where mild steel has a tendency to bend much easier like the old fashioned hammer-in type.

Stainless Steel screw-in tent pegs are usually made of cast material. Just like the aluminium ones spoken about above. Cast materials will perform as outlined in B (Light Weight Aluminium).

Augur or Screw?
Screw-in tent pegs offer a revolutionary design that combines a higher anchoring ability of a hammer-in tent peg with the enhanced stability and ease of use provided by its thread.

It is made for the convenience of using a drill rather than a hammer. Often they are not much more than a version of a wood screw but repackaged to sell as a tent peg.

GroundGrabba Junior (Screw Design) GroundGrabba Pro II (Augur design)

The positive of these is that they will tend to anchor and grip more than a smooth stake of the same length and diameter. They are also easier to screw into harder grounds like the GroundGrabba Junior which is part of the GroundGrabba System and has an array of adaptors to use.

A few rungs up the ladder above the typical screw-in tent peg are the augur-based designs such as GroundGrabba Pro, GroundGrabba Pro I and GroundGrabba Pro II. Because they are not the typical screw design, they can grab up to 7X more than the old conventional pegs, therefore are known as GROUND ANCHORS.

This is how GroundGrabba Pro series ground anchors work…

The flight augurs extend out from the shaft creating a kind of plug or cone shape in the ground. That represents the weight bearing down on the flights of the augur which a traditional hammer-in old fashioned tent peg design simply cannot do. Think of it like the base of a tree with its roots fanning out under the ground.

Here’s an engineer's simulated graphic of the difference between a screw-in peg versus GroundGrabba with Auger flights.

The top image represents GroundGrabba and the lower image represents a screw-in tent peg and hammer-in peg of the same length.

How Are Augur Designed GroundGrabba Pro’s Made?

For starters, GroundGrabba Pro’s are not pumped out cheaply out of a machine! There are many steps and much manhandling involved in making one GroundGrabba Pro. They are not all made under one roof because specialty steelwork is needed for each step.

Remember - we have designed these to work from the ground up!

Made of a heavy-duty extruded Carbon steel bar that is then
Forged under massive pressure to form the hex head and collar flange, then the…
The end tip is put into something much like a pencil sharpener to create the tip
Next, the flights (spirals) are made
The flights are put through a shape cutter to round and smooth the leading and trailing edges to help them bite into the ground and reduce the possibility of injuries due to the sharp edges being removed.
The flights are then slid over the shaft and full-length welded by hand with full-depth weld penetration.
Lastly, the finished ground anchor goes through a hot dip galvanizing process before the last step…
Placed in a box, carton and then onto a pallet before it starts its 14,000km journey to Brisbane. (They are made in the USA)

Accessories

Have the screw-in tent pegs you are researching got a built-in hook or loop for you to connect your ropes or springs to?
If the rope or spring is attached, is it easy to adjust the rope?
Will the rope or spring drop off if the rope goes slack?
If there is no built-in hook or loop, is there an assortment of adaptors available to suit your needs now and in the future?

Where are they made and are they by a reputable company?

Do they specialise in screw-in staking, ground anchoring & camping?
Is it just another money-making item amongst hundreds of other items completely unassociated to make a fast buck and by people who may not even go camping?
Will they be there tomorrow if you have a problem or do they hope that you won't bother complaining?

GroundGrabba is an Australian Family-Owned and operated company that manufactures and exports ground anchors and stakes that are made in Australia and the USA.

Is this an original or a rip-off copy

If it is a copy are you sure they have used the best materials or are they cheap materials to undercut price at the trade-off of quality to make a fast buck? If you buy these, will they break or cause issues whereby you end up spending again but for the original branded items which you will then know that you should have purchased first?

Guarantee

Does the screw-in tent peg come with a money-back guarantee?

Here at GroundGrabba, we believe in our products so much that we make this guarantee to you. Our normal money-back guarantee is 30 days! If your GroundGrabbas don't perform to your expectations or you don't love them like we do, return them for your full refund. We will even pay the return shipping costs.

Warranty

What is the warranty given? What exactly does it cover? Leading brands like GroundGrabba give a Lifetime Warranty on most of their products. Some companies (again like GroundGrabba) even give a no question asked replacement warranty and will post replacements to you free of charge.

Ask if it is a real lifetime warranty or just the presumed life of the stake itself. Is it warranted if you break it, bend it or abuse it? Ask if you are unsure. A lifetime warranty means the company trusts and believes in its product enough to back it.

Your Quick Checklist Guide Summary

What is it you want to secure? - IE: Lightweight tents or large tarps?
Ground type - Soft, medium or hard?
Will your cordless be strong enough? 100Nm for a drill minimum and 450Nm for an Impact wrench is a good place to start.
Are these designed and made for staking/ground anchoring?
What are they made of?
Auger or screw design?
Are there any available accessories?
Who makes them and where are they made?
Are they Original or a knockoff copy?
Guarantee - Do they state and stand behind their product
Genuine Lifetime replacement warranty?

QUICK REFERENCE SELECTION CHART