V-Best™ tent stakes
One of the things that I really enjoy about TheTentLab is that I can share the results of years and years of experimentation and gear geekery. As a tent user, I've bent, broken and trashed much more than my share of tent stakes and I've anchored tents of all sizes in every condition. As a designer I've measured and analyzed quite a few and I've even designed some ultimate stakes for military use. And I was the designer (and driver) of the original tent super-cord: the Kelty Triptease Lightline. Yes, I am a stake and cord geek.I say this quite a few times on this website: anchoring your tent really well is super-important. That's why our MoonLight tents come pre-rigged with ultralight 1.5mm Dyneema guylines and have a selection of genuinely excellent tent stakes included (5ea of S, M & L - $35 worth!).
It’s a blinding flash of the obvious that tent users regularly encounter different types of ground and, realistically, only a good selection of stakes can handle all conditions. Generally:
• The harder the ground, the narrower and shorter (and lighter weight) the stake can be
• The softer the ground, the wider and longer (and heavier) a stake must be
• Hitting rocks is inevitable, so a minimum strength is always required or the stake is worthless (maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of its life)
It’s a challenge to find strong stakes that are designed for holding power and are lightweight. Many look good, but turn out to be made of soft and weak alloys (oh Amazon) or are too skinny to hold much of anything. That's why I'm so pleased with these stakes made by DAC. Each size has a great balance between weight and holding power and all of them can really take a beating. Note the odd sized one, Short-Medium, is often sold as an economical and fairly lightweight one-size-fits-all stake.
Features
• very lightweight, efficient V-shape (that's why we call them V-Best!)
• excellent holding power
• super strong and tough - even the thinnest and lightest ones are really hard to bend accidentally when hitting hidden rocks
• made out of DAC's TH72M alloy which matches the performance of the absolute strongest aerospace aluminum alloys in the world today (7055 and 7068). It's 20% stronger than 7075-T6, more than twice as strong as 6061-T6, and more than three times stronger than 6063-T6 (the most common stake material)
• available in three sizes - bring a selection for optimal performance in different soils
• The strike head is extremely resistant to being bent over or broken by pounding
• hole for attaching cord (if that's something you like - we find it better without)
• the biggest stake makes a great mini-crowbar for prying rocks out of poop-holes
The V-shape is stronger than all Y-stakes (except that one really big, heavy one), but V-Best stakes are more weight efficient.
Warning: do not pound them into logs very far or you will NEVER get them out!
These particular colors stand out so you won't lose them. The middle size is blue so you can tell them apart really easily when they're in the stake bag (except s-M, sorry).
| Size S | Size s-M | Size M | Size L |
| .44" x .28" x 6.3" (11.1 x 7.2 x 160mm)  | .52" X .33" X 6.4" (13.3 x 8.5 x 162mm)  | .52" X .33" X 7.1" (13.3 x 8.5 x 180mm)  | .61" X .39" X 7.8" (15.4x10.0 x 200mm)  |
| .40 oz (11.2g) | .46 oz (13.0g) | .50 oz (14.2g) | .70 oz (19.7g) |
About Our Cord
Good cord is an important part of anchoring any tent. In a nutshell, great cord should be completely non-stretch, as lightweight as possible, it should hold knots well, and it shouldn't tangle easily (which translates into having the sheath nice and tight on the core). For it to be an ultimate cord it should also be a light or bright color and be reflective (so you're less likely to trip over them). What a coincidence, that's what we have.The breaking strength of the 1.5mm is about 110 lbs with knots. We use the 3mm on our MoonLight tent stakeout loops because it's large enough to hold in the adjuster buckles without slipping under high loads and because it provides the highest level of damage resistance rubbing against rocks.
Size 1.5mm
20m (65ft), 1.07oz, (30.4g)
By the way, our cord is terrible Bear Line because it saws into trees. For a great bear-line we recommend the 100ft length of this product at Lawson Outdoor Equipment. The 100ft length is especially good for hanging food between two trees.