7" vs 8" manual ice auger

[DawntoDusk]

Is there much of a difference when drilling holes with a 7" manual auger vs a 8". Would a 7" take  little less effort drilling through 12+" of ice, or is it pretty much the same.

[DR.SPECKLER]

Smaller hole is slways easier to hand drill.auger brands and blades make a difference too.my 8” strikemaster is not all that hard to turn by hand but gets tiresome as a searcher auger.my 7” mini nero cuts ice so easy by hand with its offset handle.if your young it doesnt matter if its A 7 or 8” Auger.ive cut many 8” holes in my younger days.

[primepin65]

The difference in volume between a 7 inch and 8 inch auger in 12 inches of ice is about 60 square inches of ice that you need to remove to finish drilling the hole (~341 square inches vs ~402 square inches). That might not be that much if you're drilling 1-3 holes per trip, but it definitely adds up if you're punching a ton of holes. Ten 8-inch holes is the same amount of material as twelve 7-inch holes. Over a day/weekend of drilling, it might wear you out faster.

[chilly-willy]

Depends on auger design my 7 inch mora cuts like a 8 inch nils all the way threw whole I like the mora auger better cause blades are cheap to sharpen. But I bought a ebay conversion kit for my mora to use lazer blades and had to re engineer it to work needed a drill and different drill bits and a set of new bolts to attach it to auger other then that my 8 inch laser is a bear to cut threw ice but my 7 inch more with blade conversion and off set handle  burns threw it .. the off set handle is the key .. you can still get off set handle mora's on ebay if nor planning useing a drill? I think there a older "mora boren". Swedish auger. But title as mora's on ebay.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

Is there much of a difference when drilling holes with a 7" manual auger vs a 8". Would a 7" take  little less effort drilling through 12+" of ice, or is it pretty much the same.

8in takes more effort. I know in the past for a lot of companies the difference between the 7in and 8in auger was just the blade size. A number of people were able to put 8in blades on the 7in auger they bought to upgrade it to an 8in.

[esox_xtm]

How old are you? If you're 26 or less and in reasonable shape it won't matter. For every year over 26 anything you can do to make the trip easier also makes it more enjoyable. How do I know this? Let's just say I started in the "under" group but now I'm in the (way) "over" group