Those 18" Sampsons are great, don't get me wrong, but I haven't used mine that much. Its harder to use it in the hard soil because it take some leverage to get the wider blade into the ground.
Usually, I need something small in soft soil such as a 3" Wilcox that I use to plug in areas, where it is forbidden bring a larger shovel. When I need something in harder soil, I tend to use the larger Sampson because I can more easily put weight into it. Recently I started to use a ground shark, which is great for digging small holes, but makes for terrible looking plug any larger than the width of the blade (my larger holes become star-shaped). I thought about welding a slightly longer T-handle to my Wilcox when I need the longer length and leverage.
