I have seen adds for the TactiStaff Survival Hiking Staff. Does anyone know anything about this? I am only interested in it as a light weight compact walking stick, and don’t want the weapon attachments.
Is this a rip off, a joke, or some kind of scam?

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Witzell
"The dude abides".

Never heard of it but intrigued.

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213th FBINA

Just the name alone is the reddest of flags, and it looks pretty goofy. If you don't care about tacticool stuff and want lightweight walking sticks, head over to REI/your store of choice and grab yourself some decent trekking poles. Or, if you don't mind a little heavier (aluminum), I've been using these dirt cheap pair (at the time I got them Costco sold them) for years backpacking/hiking in the rockies and they've held up amazingly.

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

Well most lumber yards sell dowels they come in many calibers and lengths. I use a inch wide 6' when woods walking.

"Dowel Rods: Size Ranges and Tolerances Length: 3, 4, 5, and 6 foot are commonly stocked. Species: Birch, Oak, Maple, Poplar are the most readily available".

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

That is a good idea, though the OP mentioned wanting compact/lightweight which screamed trekking poles to me.

For some years I used a single trekking pole as a walking stick/cane. For me, with a single pole I like to rest the palm of my hand on the top to support my weight. I find using a single pole as a staff is not comfortable for me.

More recently, for the past six months or so, I've been using dual trekking poles. These look dorky, and take a bit of getting used to, but I find they are great for long walks in hilly places. Also excellent for walking on ice or other precarious surfaces.

I still use the single trekking pole/cane for shorter walks, but the dual poles make quite a difference on (what in my case passes for) a serious hike.

I hiked the Manitou Incline and Barre trail to the top of Pikes Peak with the Tulsa Ski club the summer before last. Started about 4:00 am and reached the Summit of 14,300 feet at 2:15pm and I was so tired I could barely stand up much less hike the last hour but I made it. The hard part was breathing because we just arrived from OKC that afternoon with not much time to get acclimated to the altitude. I used the inexpensive, expandable hiking poles from Academy Sports and they have wrist straps so if you want, you can grip the pole below the hand grip so the wrist straps support your weight when your're climbing up. Those help a LOT! I have bought much more expensive hiking poles from REI but I couldn't tell that they were any better.

If the first four letters of the label are "tact", it fits all the categories listed in your last sentence.

Good trekking poles have been around a long time and work well for hiking in just about any terrain, even if they are not "tactical".

An ax with a bit longer handle, depending on one's height, would work double duty. Perhaps square off the end of the handle and have a machine shop put a hand hole in the head. That's as tactical as I want to spend.

Go buy a shovel, cut off the handle and use it. Tens of thousands state and municipal employees making a career out of leaning against one cant be wrong.

Here's another vote for a pair of simple trekking poles. The reason for trekking poles, rather than a staff, is that they are adjustable for length. Handy when storing or transporting. If you use the trekking poles as tarp or tent poles, the adjustability in height is very nice. And as said before, most of them come ready for dirt, mud, ice and snow with different tips. You can get them for $20-30 a pair on Amazon.

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The best I can with what I got

I spent about $80 on some good ones about ten years ago; they will make a believer of you the first time you use them in rough terrain. Before trying them, I thought trekking poles were pure marketing gadgetry. I was wrong.

I don't do hiking anymore but when I did, I built my own. I used deadfall cedar branches, lots of sandpaper, stained with coffee and many coats of Linseed oil. It was fun and it did the job. Same for a walking stick (cane).

Go to your local Runnings store and get a nice 5’ walking stick for $10

Well, I hate to admit it given the responses, ironically I fell for it and took it to the UPS store to ship it back and return it today…
Lightweight? Uh, no. Good quality? Yeah I think so. Overkill? For me yeah.
It might be good for a days long hike in deep wilderness. There is plenty of that here in the Adirondacks, will I partake? At 66 and out of shape? By the time I get back in shape probably not. My 14 year old grandson thought it was cool… And no I didn’t even fully assemble it. The clincher to return it was ‘Made in China’

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Luke 23:34

i walk the beach a lot and found some nice bamboo trimmed it to my desired height. very light and durable

Hey fellow New Yorker Just wonder out into the mountains and cut a 2-3” sapling and make your own. Alder or Ash work great.

Mine was made by friend. It's made of Manzanita, a tough brush that grows wild here, coated with Resin & a loop with a strap on my end. Very light & handy. A great gift.

I cannot speak to the quality or usefulness of the product, but here is my experience with them. I received an email promoting their product, and two "action buttons": "Are you over 45", and "Are you under 45". I'm a security expert, and those two questions don't make sense with respect to selling a hiking staff, and not knowing what the buttons ACTUALLY do, I did not click them.

At the bottom of the email was a series of testimonials, and I "tested" five of them on Oct 4, 2024. Clicking on all five of the testimonial photos opened FaceBook profiles. All five profiles had their profile pictures set up in or near October, 2020, suggesting that if the profiles are fake, then they may have all been set up as a batch. All with profile pictures had something of a non-photo character, in my opinion. None of the profiles had comments, other posts or pictures, but only the one saying that the profile picture had been changed. The only information in the "About" section was the current city; none of the other fields were filled out. Also, there were no spelling mistakes (that you might expect in a number of writings by random people) in the testimonials, other than 3 of them having issues with missing apostrophes (Hmmm; why is that a "thing"). I did reverse-lookups each of the selected testimonial photos, finding that each appears in the public eye (actors, writers, journalists, models), and three of those people have different names in real life than the names on the testimonials; the other two reverse searches yielded no name).

So my personal, informal conclusion was to skip the action buttons and delete the email. As a side note, I have several sets of trekking poles from Bass Pro Shop. They are light weight (you come to appreciate that after a few miles and days on the trail), are adjustable length (I recommend those with external binding clips rather than internal compressing rings), with wide wrist straps (which you can use to “hang” your weight on the up-hills). I prefer the T-handles, which you can better use as a cane on downhills and for relief (I have leg issues). Modification you might consider include wrapping the handles, giving them a greater circumference so you don’t “grip out” on the otherwise slender poles. I use sprayable “headliner” glue available at any auto parts store to affix a piece of gray plumbing insulation around the handle (available at big box hardware store, of appropriate inside diameter to fit your pole), followed by a wrapping of self-adhering ankle-wrap (from the drug store). I further wrap that in a bandana, which can be removed and washed. This gives the handle sufficient width to grip without fatigue, absorbency to prevent sweaty hands and slipping, and washability. For really long hikes I’ll wear padded biking gloves to avoid palm & bone-pain & fatigue in the hands. And because of my leg issues, I use the shortened, T-handled poles for any kind of longer walking about town or to the store, etc. Oh, and trekking poles also have shock absorbers to cushion hard landings.

Good Luck!

Upvote from here.
One to 1 1/2 inch with rubber caps and about an 8" wrap of 1/8 paracord for a grip.

I don't spend $$$ on ANYTHING labeled tactical......Such stuff is for mall ninjas and wannnabe rambos.

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S&W Accumulator

Get a stick. Everyone needs a stick.

Mine's Irish. Blackthorne has a good reputation.

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Even older, even crankier....

Not even this?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I use a shovel handle.

Didn't have to read all of this to see you were quite diligent in your investigation.
I use similar techniques.

Honestly, in cases like these, some effort might be well spent on teaching some of these methods rather than a simple pass or fail of a single case.
Knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving

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it just needs more voltage

I saw an ad for one the other day, and my curiosity got the better of me, so I checked it out.

It was a standard wooden walking staff, but the handle was wrapped with paracord. I guess the paracord was what made it tactical. Go figure.

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Pack light and cinch tight.

Several years ago I came across a fellow with a very lightweight cane. I asked hm what it was made of and he replied that it was made from a sunflower stalk.

Go to a yard sale and buy the longest handled garden hoe available. Cut it flush and wrap it with tie wire. Drill a hole 2" from the top and put a lanyard in it. Use an old boot lace. Total cost for a better product should be around $2.

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Front sight and squeeze

I used to rely quite a bit on a cane. Since I started walking 2/3 miles per day 6 months ago I have since ditched it.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

And you can sell the head at your next yard sale and recoup $1.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

Before my knee replacements, I used a cane quite a bit. My favorite was a 35” length of black walnut, from a tree by my house. Now, I carry in my car a 5’ piece of mystery wood, about 1 1/4” at the top and tapering to 3/4” or so at the bottom. It has a sharp end for ice with a rubber cane tip for the rest of the time. I get it out whenever I walk steep trails, and for the steps to my GF’s house. Code calls for a hand rail, but no.

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Not in jail.

Fashioned by one of our forum mods.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

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Retired Career Security Guard