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
Entrenching tool entrenching tools became extremely important with the introduction of trench warfare. Entrenching tools designed for the individual infantryman soon appeared with short straight handles, T-handles, D-handles, and other designs. The British entrenching tool of this period was a two part design, with a metal head and a wooden handle, the metal head consisted of an adze/spade blade and a pick spike, used alone the head could be used as a spade with the pick spike serving as a handle. Between the blade and the spike was a ring into which the handle could be inserted at right angles to the