America’s Best Shovel
As any professional contractor, home improvement junkie, or seasonal gardener can tell you – great tools are hard to come by. Many cheaply made tools for sale in hardware stores are made of foreign-supplied materials and tend to break after a few seasons, have handles that splinter or break off from the blade or make your body ache for days to come after one project.
Some people certainly have brands that they love, preferences when it comes to size and material, or genuinely one tool that they really, really love, but the quality of construction of your shovel is incredibly important.
Lawn and garden tools are investments. They cost a pretty penny, but you’re willing to spend the money for a product that will not only last through all of your seasonal projects but also for years to come. But – what if we told you that there was a company that is experienced in and dedicated to providing high-quality tools at below-average prices? Sounds crazy, right?
Wrong! If you need a shovel for your next project, and you’re looking for an affordable tool that is comfortable to use and will last long – look no further than the 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel by 100% Made in the USA Bully Tools.
While it may just look like any old shovel, our round point shovel was designed to excel in the areas where other shovels fail. Here, we’re going to break down the ways that our round point shovel differs from the shovel sitting in your shed – and not to brag – but yours can’t compare to the uniquely and expertly crafted 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel by 100% Made in the USA Bully Tools.
SHOVEL HIGHLIGHTS
- Made of true 14-gauge 100% Made in the US steel
- Unique triple construction handle design
- Steel encasement reaches farther up the handle, moving pressure off of the weakest portion of the shovel
- Welded I-Beam on back of shovelhead for added strength
- Extra-wide footplates for better control
Let’s break down this tool from end to end.
SHOVEL BLADE
First, let’s talk about the shovel blade. Arguably the most important part of the shovel, the blade makes a shovel a shovel. We take great pride in the strength, quality, and construction in all of our products at 100% Made in the USA Bully Tools, and the craftsmanship of the 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel is no different. Let’s break it down –
- We start by ordering sheets of steel to our exact specifications from steel mills around the United States
- Once in our factory, we cut the shape of the shovel head with a CMC high-definition plasma cutting table and then hot-forge each piece at 1850-degrees F
- After its heat-treated, we temper the steel to increase the toughness of the metal alloys and to prevent corrosion. We heat treat and temper to ensure that your tool is tough enough for even the toughest projects, but that’s not the end of the process.
- We seal the steel with a powder-coat finish to keep your tool from rusting. (A powder-coat isn’t enough though! Make sure to wipe your tools clean after every use and cover with a light coating of vegetable oil to keep from rusting in between uses.)
A unique feature of our round point shovel is its optional closed-back design. If you’re looking for an economy version of our shovel, the open back is a great option for you. But for you contractors, landscapers, and extreme home gardeners – might we recommend the closed back. On this model, we’ve welded the back seam closed and added an I-beam for additional strength and to ensure that no mud or dirt can get in your shovel and make the tool unnecessarily heavier.
To top it off – along the top of the blade lies two extra-wide footplates to make it easier to cut into the ground and easier to control.
LONG STEEL NECK CASING
Our 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel also features a longer steel neck casing. This makes the traditionally weakest part of the shovel (where the blade and neck meet) stronger and transfers all of the weight of the load off of the neck of the shovel and spreads it more evenly. The longer and stronger socket also lets you pry against rocks underground. Don’t try this with other shovels though – they’re bound to break because the pressure of the rock would meet the handle of the shovel, but with our shovel, you’ll be putting the pressure on the steel, not the handle. The neck is secured to the handle with rivets and beneath both the neck and handle lies a reinforced core of resin-bonded glass strands covered in a polyester veil.
HANDLE
The handle is up to you. We’ve made this shovel to purchase with either a fiberglass handle or hardwood handle – the choice is yours. The most popular handle we sell is made of strong, American-made fiberglass. But, unlike foreign producers who make their products less expensive by cheapening the fiberglass materials that they use to make their handles, we source fiberglass made with a perfect formula that is stronger without being too heavy. Our meticulously tested handles have a resin-bonded glass strand core that is covered in a mat coating and encased in a polyester veil. This poly coat veil includes a resin that will prevent the tool from splintering, a formerly common issue that could occur when using fiberglass tools.
Or – maybe you really like the feeling of a traditional wood handle under your fingertips – we’ve got a style for you too. Our wooden option comes with a long handle made of solid, American-sourced hardwood. Wooden handles have long been a top choice of handle material because of the material’s ability to absorb shock and make the shoveling experience more comfortable for the user. While fiberglass has been found to be a more durable handle material than wood, wood has been a reliable and long-lasting option for centuries.
GRIP
Last but not least, the grip. Customers can choose from two types of handles: the comfort long handle or the ergonomic D-Grip. The comfort long handle is ideal for people who need a fuller range of motion or provide more force when pushing down. The foam grip, available on the fiberglass model, ensures your comfort throughout the length of your project. We also offer shovels with D-Grips, a handle shaped like a capital “D” turned on its side with the flat portion on top, and they have become increasingly popular thanks to the way it increases leverage and decreases hand fatigue.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Okay, so we might be biased, but we wouldn’t sell you anything we wouldn’t want to use ourselves. We had a customer once leave a 4/5-star review for the 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel citing that they’d give it the whole 5 stars if it weren’t for the “cheaply-made hand grip”. We responded to them by taking one of our D-Grip shovels and pulverizing a cinderblock – yes a cinderblock! Check out the countless reviews from our satisfied customers on our Amazon page or website. We were even featured in an independent review conducted by Wirecutter, a product review company owned by the New York Times, and they voted our 14-Gauge Round Point Shovel “The Best Shovel” after being put to the test against 9 other popular shovels. Read about how our shovel is – in their words – “a breed apart”.
