Ice / earth auger???

Has anyone used their ice auger to sink post holes with earth auger bit? I tried looking up gear reduction ratios for earth augers, but they don’t list them like they do for ice augers.

Ice auger spins way to fast to dig a dirt hole. I think I would just rent one to get the job done.

I have an old Mora hand auger that I use for drilling post holes.
Works great except if you hit rock or roots!

I confess, I used an old strikemaster auger WITH an ice bit to drill holes for a deck. It actually worked great until, like mentioned above, you hit roots or rock. I can’t compare it to an actual earth auger as I’ve never used one but it was way faster then using a post digger! I was going to replace the chipper blades regardless and the auger had no issues the following ice season with new blades.

I’d have never done that thou if I had only one auger or if it was a nice auger. this was my back-up ice auger.

I’m assuming you are doing this for a fence? If your soil is sandy by all means it will work. Any hard surface with rock or clay forget it. If your putting post in a ground for some type of foundation you might as well dig it by hand because the size of the footing pad would never fit down the hole anyways.

Done it many times. Hang on tight if you hit a rock or something it will try to break your arms off.

At the end of the day you may find it cheaper just to rent one. They aren’t that expensive.

I used a old strikemaster many times to drill post holes. Worked pretty damn good every time

Me too, it’s the only reason I keep the old Jiffy. Works great.