Eskimo Pistol Bit – Broken bolt to Polymer Head

Safety Heads Up Anglers-

Check the torque of the bolt that attaches the polymer head to the auger shaft. Mine broke while drilling a hole. Somehow the head did not drop out of the hole, so I took off the hoodie and reached 20″ down and counter-clockwise rotated it back out the hole. Can’t say I ever found or felt it loose and I inspect that area every time I put on or remove the blade cover. It was clean ice. I am thankful this broke under the ice as my kids and not to mention my feet were right there if it broke when starting the hole. Damn head even looked like it was smiling back up at me from the bottom of the hole. I’ve drilled around 150 holes this season.

Contacted Eskimo and they are sending a new head kit but I asked them to look into production quality assurance as this could have been damn dangerous. Not sure on the tensile strength of the OEM bolt but I’ll replace with a grade 8 1/4-20 if it is less.

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Glad no one was hurt. Hopefully the new bolt will be better.
I narrowed my choice of auger bits to Pistol Bit and Lite-Flite. Even though the Pistol Bit is lighter, I went with the Lite-Flite. Partly because last winter I used my old Lazer hand auger bit on my drill and liked how it performed.

I really do not think you can go wrong with any of the cordless augers on the market. I am already back on the ice. Eskimo’s customer service is top notch.

Sometimes I do wonder why they don’t just use grade 8 instead of 5.