Pickaxe the tool. A pickaxe handle (sometimes called a "pickhandle" or "pick helve") without the head is sometimes used, often unofficially, as a baton: for example it is officially sometimes used as a baton in the British Army. In "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, pick handles featured prominently as a weapon used against the migrant farmers. A normal pickaxe handle is made of ash or hickory wood and is about three feet long and weighs about 2.5 pounds. British Army pickaxe handles must, by regulation, be exactly three feet long, for use in measuring in the field. New variant
Field hockey stick picture further. In the early 1990s there were an astonishing number and variety of hockey sticks on offer compared with what had been available ten years earlier. By 1992, hockey stick reinforcement was a big issue and composites had been accepted into an (extended) FIH experimental trial period (there was a great deal of concern about the power generated by these new reinforcements and the safety of players). There were also hockey sticks with metal handles and inserted plywood heads (made by the American company Eastons, better known for making baseball bats), as well as the wide range of one