Features:

  • Ideal for digging deep postholes
  • Offset handles let you dig postholes up to 12 inch deeper than traditional models and protect your knuckles while you dig
  • Welded 14-gauge steel blades and 16-gauge steel shafts provide durability that far outlasts wood-handled tools and won’t flex like fiberglass
  • Blade spread: 6-1/2 inch diamater
  • Lifetime warranty
Unique design is effective

Fiskars promises that with their design, you can dig deeper post holes than with traditional design diggers. They deliver on their promise. Be aware, it is a heavy tool. This, however, is actually an advantage. The weight helps in the digging. Be ready for a workout, but you will end up with deep holes when you need them. Nice, neat, straight and deep. I used it in North Carolina heavy red clay with lots of rocks and it performed well. You may not need it in soft, sandy soil, but then again you made need to go deeper and Fiskars makes that possible.

Sometimes a 100 year old design can be improved on. Buy one of these!

I don't often review products. But I would give this one six stars if I could. The tool appears to be well built and the design just blows the old clam shell digger out of the water. This is heavy, so it is a good upper body work out. But the benefit is that when it is dropped into the hole it takes a real bite into the soil. The arms are rigidly aligned - not all wobbly like the clam shell diggers. So the hole does not gradually get bigger and bigger as you go along. The other advantage is that you can be down two feet or more in a hole and it will bring up some soil every time. It can even cut through small roots pretty well because of the heft. And it can bring up smaller rocks (like up to maybe orange sized). Of course, it can't deal with big roots or big rocks, but no post hole digger can. This costs twice as much as a clam shell digger, but from my experience it was well worth it. It doesn't make digging post holes fun, but at least the drudgery doesn't take as long.

Great Posthole Digger!

I was a little worried about the design putting too much pressure at the hinge on this thing, but I'm happy to say it was not an issue. The open handle design was also a concern, but after you dig the first hole you will have adjusted, and appreciate not busting your knuckles. If you are used to smacking the handles together to knock off the dirt sticking to the blades then you will be unhappy. I got around this when clay stuck by just dropping the blades into the ground to dislodge the clay. I also read in the reviews that someone complained about the metal bending and making the tool worthless. I have a guiding principle that will prevent such a thing from happening, "Work smarter, not harder". I hit hard clay and used water to soften up the clay, and then dropped this sharp and heavy post hole digger into the water filled hole about 15 times. It basically turned the clay into wet mud that could be easily taken out of the hole. Prior to doing this I tried to brute through the hard clay and my elbow joints did not like it. Knew there had to be a better way and found it. This is a post hole digger, not a pick, not a pry bar, not a jackhammer. If you use it in the conditions it was designed for it will work great. Last thoughts are it is heavy and it is tall, both of which were great for a 6 foot man who wanted to quickly dig postholes 32 inches deep and not have to be on his knees or stooping over and breaking his back.

Excellent tool.

I used it to put up a fence around my corner lot property using 26 4x4x8 treated posts. Each hole was dug a minimum of 36" deep, some about 48" to allow for drainage gravel at the bottom ( I used sand instead of concrete to set the posts). I got about 25 post holes dug when the swivel started getting loose. It didn't break, it just got a little wobbly. I only needed one more hole dug so I was careful and got it done. It's an excellent tool and I recommend it to anyone who asks. Note: I am in south Texas and around here the soil is clay for about 2 or 3 feet. A trick I figured out was to use a shovel for the first 6 inches, fill the hole with water then move to the next hole and do the same. So, after I had the 4th filled with water I moved back to the 1st. Using the Fiskars Post Hole Digger I dug about 1.5 feet of the now much softer clay. So much easier than going one at a time. After the 1.5 feet dug I repeated the filling of the hole with water step for the last push. I did the whole fence myself and was doing about 3 to 5 holes a day in the evenings after work. I've never built a fence before but this tool made a world of difference. It would even cut through almost 2 inch roots with a single chop.

Great product from a great company!

These are some of the best post hole diggers you can buy. They are far easier to use than the old style wood handled ones. Fiskars has done an excellent job of reengineering that old clunky way to dig holes. The product is really great and their customer service is even better. This is the second set of these that I've owned. I wrote them to say I would like a new set of replacement handles for the top of my old pair and the customer service lady said they were guaranteed forever. She then sent me a whole new post hole digger free of charge. You can't go wrong buying things from this company and that's a fact for sure!

GREAT! From decades of digging post holes.

Being a little skeptical of the joint quality/function mentioned in other reviews, I took this straight to the yard when this arrived. Short story: GREAT! Long story: GREAT! As a career engineer, close examination shows this is really well made; it is tight, but that is a good thing. Feels like this will last many years. PS: In a side-by-side comparison, this digs much faster than the knuckle busting type - not just deeper, but faster by about 30%. That is partially due to the decent weight and sharpness, but also due to a much faster cycle overall of plunge-squeeze-lift-release. Yep - You better go ahead and get it. You will be happy you did unless you are a very frail person (who should not be digging post holes anyway).

Great product!!

I love this tool. Never in my life have I been ok with having to pick up a post-hole digger and use it instead of just using a shovel. Everyone knows that once you get past 18" with typical diggers, they start hitting the top edge of the hole, and are nearly impossible to dig accurately with. Not with these. The design works as well as advertised, and I was able to dig an almost 5' deep hole without one cuss word being used. They are heavy, as other reviews mention, but in my opinion, the weight is perfect for their intended use. It certainly adds to the momentum when heaving them to the bottom of the hole to cut deeper into the ground, and helps so much in that aspect, you don't even notice the (I'm sure) added work of lifting them back up. I will never again use a traditional style digger. Highly recommend!

Worked Like a Charm

This is a well designed tool. I dug 40 post holes in dirt ranging from soft to hard packed and built 200 feet of stockade fence in 4 days. I ran into one inch diameter roots that this post hole digger quickly cut through without much effort. Without this tool, building my fence would have taken much longer. I have told everyone who will listen about this tool. Because of buried utilities, I had to use a manual post hole digger. The all steel design did worry me when we were digging hear the buried power lines. But, I doubt wood handles are much better if you cut a line: either way, bad things will happen. We did a 20 foot section of fence a couple of years ago using a power auger. I actually found this easier to use than the power auger. It was more work keeping the power auger under control than it was to dig holes with this post hole digger. Other people complained about the weight of the tool. I'm in my early 50's, about 270, and still fairly strong. So, the weight may be a problem for smaller people. But, I thought the weight was helpful. Instead of having to dig with this tool, I simply dropped it in the hole, expanded, and pulled out a full load of dirt every time. I did have to do a lot more work in the area where it was hard packed, but the heavy duty scoops made it much easier. When I hit hard pan dirt, I simply spread the handles part way and rotate it like an auger. That broke up the dirt and allowed me to finish my holes. The offset handles are a wonderful design. Unlike the straight armed post hole diggers I have used in the past, I got a full load of dirt every time I pulled it out of the hole.

Works extremely well. I will never use a regular post hole digger again.

This thing is amazing. I was trying to dig a 6' deep hole for a shade sail post with a shovel. It took me two days. (I live in south florida, 20' pole, 6' deep for hurricane survival). Once I got this thing, the other 7 holes took me 5 minutes each. With much, much less effort and exhaustion. Even though I hit water 3' down it still pulled up the wet sand. I couldn't do that with the shovel... Plus, you can use this to dig holes for plants. Since the holes were full of water I was expecting the pivot bearing in the center to seize up. It's now 2-3 months later, the digger still works like new. (Results not typical everywhere, depending on what kind of dirt you have. I have beach sand after about a foot down. Very little rocks, but some shells. I live 8 miles inland from the beach).

Worked wonderfully on my heavy, clay soil

I wanted to dig two post holes so I could put in a small trellis. I decided to go with this all-steel one from Fiskars because I knew I was going to be hard on it while digging through my very heavy, clay soil. It arrived quickly and well-packaged and in excellent condition. I started my holes with a shovel first and then took a couple whacks with the post hole digger to get the shape and positioning right. I then filled the holes with water. Now, if I had a softer soil, I wouldn't have used the water, but when dry (and during this drought it's been very dry) my soil is rock hard. With the first hole, I had no troubles whatsoever. The second hole, however, had considerable obstacles, so it took me much longer to dig. I had to get a saw and loppers to cut through some thick roots, and there were a number of large rocks and even some pieces of bricks right where I was digging, and the post hole digger will not go through thick roots and rocks. Fortunately, the rocks were small enough that I could dig them out with a hand shovel, but if there was a larger rock that had only part of it in my path, I would have been SOL. I ended up digging my holes around 40 or so inches deep, and the post hole digger had plenty of further depth it could go. I would also like to mention that this thing is heavy, which is actually good since dropping it in the hole does a lot of the work for you. With softer soil, I might have been all right with a lighter digger, especially if I had to dig a lot of holes. One other important aspect is that this digger cut very nice and neat holes. I rotated around as I dug to make sure it was all getting cut evenly, but the end results were very good. The digger also held up very well to my abuse - nothing ever came loose or broke. It was also comfortable to use (I should note that I am 5'5", so I'm not a big guy). All in all, this digger met every expectation, and I'm very glad I purchased it.

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