The thin pegs that come with most tents are fine on soft grass, but they bend as soon as the ground gets hard. The Coleman steel tent pegs are the opposite: 25 cm nail pegs in thick steel that you drive in with a mallet. We paid $15 for a 4-pack, and they’ve been in the car on every trip since, from the gravel at Coorongooba Campground to the beach.
What’s in the box
Four steel nail pegs, each 25.4 cm long with a pointed tip and a wide plastic head in green. The head has a metal cap on top to take the hit from a mallet, and the guy rope sits around the head. They come on a card, with no bag.
What we like
- Drive into hard, rocky ground
- Don’t bend under a mallet
- Wide head, easy to hit
- Hold well in the wind
- Green heads easy to spot
What we don’t
- Heavy: 120 g a peg
- Hard to pull out
- No hook or pull cord
Quick Specs
| Spec | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Coleman |
| Material | SteelPlastic head |
| Colour | Steelwith green heads |
| Weight | 120 geach |
| Length | 25.4 cm |
| Pack | 4 pegs |
| Best ground | HardRocky or compacted |
Build
These pegs are all about strength. The shaft is a thick steel rod that doesn’t flex when you hit it, and the plastic head is wide and flat, so it’s an easy target for a mallet and you don’t hit your fingers. The head is fixed firmly to the shaft and showed no sign of working loose after a few trips. The plastic is the weaker part: it takes a mallet well, but it isn’t as tough as the steel. The bright green colour is handy too, because you can see the pegs in the grass, so you trip over them less and leave fewer behind.
In hard ground
This is where they shine. On a hard, gravelly campsite the pointed tip bit into the ground and a few solid hits with a mallet drove them all the way in, without any of them bending. They held our guy ropes through a windy night without slipping, and we’ve also used them to hold down the corners of our Hikeman tarp. The weight helps here, because it carries the force of the mallet into the ground instead of bouncing back.
The downside shows up when you pack up. A peg that goes this deep into hard ground doesn’t want to come out again, and there’s no hook or pull cord, so you have to work the head loose or lever it out with another peg.
Weight
At 120 g a peg on our scale, they’re heavy: four weigh nearly half a kilo, five times as much as the same number of Boundless Voyage titanium pegs (23 g each). That doesn’t matter in the car, but you wouldn’t carry a set on a hike. They’re also long, so they need a bit of room in the peg bag.
Steel, titanium or nylon pegs?Titanium or nylon pegs?
We’ve tested three kinds of pegs, and each suits different ground. These Coleman steel pegs are the ones to grab for hard, rocky ground and windy nights. The Boundless Voyage titanium pegs are the pick when you carry your gear, and the nylon sand pegs are a cheap set for the beach and soft ground. Our tent pegs guide has more on choosing.
This one Coleman Steel | For hiking Boundless Titanium | For sand Nylon Sand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pull cord | No | Yes | No |
| Material | Steel | Titanium | Nylon |
| Best ground | Hard & rocky | Firm & grass | Sand & soft |
| Length | 25.4 cm | 20 cm | 14.5 cm |
| Weight | 120 g | 23 g | 15 g |
| Price per peg | $3.75 | $8.75 | $1.20 |
| Our score | 8.9 | 8.8 | 7.4 |
Conclusion: Coleman Steel Tent PegsConclusion
The Coleman steel tent pegs are heavy, simple and strong. They drive into hard, gravelly ground without bending and hold a tent or tarp through the wind, and the green heads are easy to see. At 120 g each they’re for the car rather than the pack, and they’re hard to pull out of hard ground. For $15 for four, they’re the first pegs we grab when we expect hard ground.
The pegs for hard ground.
They drive into gravel and compacted dirt without bending and held our guy ropes through a windy night, and the green heads are easy to spot. They weigh 120 g each, are hard to pull out and have no hook or pull cord.
- Car campers
- Families
- Groups
Yes, if you camp on hard ground. I paid $15 for four pegs that don’t bend and hold in the wind. At 120 g each they’re for the car, not a hike.
