News — dugout pipe

Smokit is the perfect smoking accessory to bring home for the holidays. Find out why!

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To start off this discussion, we need to first define what a dugout pipe and ‘regular bowl’ are. By dugout pipe I mean a container to hold, at a minimum, herb, a one hitter, and a poker.  A regular bowl is one of the many pipes you see that hold .2-.4 grams of herb with no water usage. This will be an ongoing series with a few main categories of dugouts vs. other means of smoking. They'll be compared by 5 categories. Those are portability, price, efficiency, durability, and group smoking easiness.

Portability

How convenient is it to take with you on the go? A dugout pipe can be brought just about anywhere as the box is at the very least smell-resistant and self contained.  Regular bowls need to be handled with more care, as they are traditionally glass and not self sealed. This means herb can fall out and be wasted, as well as smell up a pocket or room. Clear winner here: Dugout

Price

The cheapest dugouts can be bought for around 10$, and a cheap bowl can be bought for around 12$ at gas stations or clearance sections. However, these extra cheap dugouts don’t have a poker so they don’t truly qualify for this competition. For what you get, the price is pretty evenly matched. From a money saving point of view, you’ll get more bang for your buck from a bowl than a cheap dugout. Bowl quality difference is minimal, but with dugouts the difference can be night and day.  Winner by a little: bowl.

Efficiency

Let's say you go out for the day with a gram of herb. How can you best use it? With a dugout, you’re using a one-hitter which is an efficiency machine. You’re only smoking one hit at a time, so there is no extra burning or torching a bowl.  Even seasoned smokers cannot be as efficient with a bowl as with a one-hitter. You need to pack the one-hitter up more often, but from an efficiency stand point the one-hitter is king. Winner by a reasonable margin: dugout pipe.

Durability

We all drop things from time to time, no one is perfect. This is one of the best things about dugouts, is they can take an absolute beating. Unless you throw it off a cliff, whether they’re plastic, wood, or metal, chances are your dugout will come out just fine. Unfortunately that cannot be said about a regular bowl. 99% of regular bowls are still made of glass as silicone is just becoming mainstream. A regular bowl will shatter when dropped onto a hard surface from even a few feet up. For this category, dugouts are the last product standing. Winner: dugouts.

Group Smoking

I think we all know the answer to this one. Unless you only have a tiny amount of herb to smoke, 10/10 people will go with a bowl over a dugout here.  A bowl can be lit and passed around with ease, whereas a dugout needs to be constantly repacked.  A one-hitter and dugout are great for solo smoking, but when it comes to group smoking a bowl will take the cake. A dugout is great to carry herb to a friends in, and have tools to assist in group smoking, but from a strictly smoking point of view this is a no brainer. Winner by a long shot: bowl.

Overall

There’s a time and a place for each of those smoking devices. You need to make the decision that’s right for you. The good news is you aren't just limited to one of these. It’s easy to have both and bring the right tool for the job! We’re partial to dugouts due to their versatility, but not every situation requires one. A category not discussed here are multi-tools. Here at Smokit, we decided to take everything good about dugouts and improve on them. This way, even in a group setting you can add to the group with a positive contribution. From the grinder card to the multi-hitter, versatility is king. Check out what we’ve done to advance dugouts even further over at https://smokits.com/collections/all-smokit-parts

The dugout is the best-designed product for taking a quick puff on the go. But why stop with only a one-hitter and box? Many companies seem satisfied to add colors and call it a day. At Smokit, we decided to make the best dugout of them all. Some people (including ourselves) call it an all in one kit. The name Smokit actually comes from ‘Smoking kit’. When you’re on the go, pocket space and portability are at a premium.

Size seems to be the logical answer, so the best dugout on the market needs to be small. Smokit is made of Polycarbonate plastic, so we don’t need excess hunks of wood and material surrounding the pipe and storage area. That alone saved significant space.  With normal dugouts you need a large opening to funnel herb in too so it doesn't fall everywhere. Side note: it still does.

For Smokit, we put a lengthwise door so you can open it up and use the grinder card to grate herb directly into the storage area below.  The grinder card is a key component to being an all in one smoking kit. Not only does it keep herb from spilling out, the grinder card is a perfect scraper tool too. No one likes grinding herb by hand, and when you’re on the go grinders stick out like a sore thumb.

So now you have a way to grind and store your herb conveniently, but Smokit doesn’t stop there. We took the regular one hitter which always gets jammed and needs to be repacked and made it better. This is why we made it a multi-hitter, and put serrated edges on the tip. Now the ‘one hitter’ holds more and packs easier. Two problems solved with innovation.

The reality of the situation is one-hitters sometimes get clogged. Instead of hoping to find a paperclip or twig, we put a poker and dabber in there too. Our dugout poker is right next to the multi-hitter and takes up minimal space.  For good measure, we also include a dabber and silicone container too. We’re all about staying with the times.

The best part is, this all in one smoking kit is no bigger than a Zippo® lighter and priced competitively with regular dugouts. So you’re getting the functionality of a multi-tool that works the same as a dugout, for the same cost as a well built regular one. When it comes to dugout smoking, we know what we’re doing. We hope you trust our products and give one a shot today. https://smokits.com/collections/all-smokit-parts

So you have your Smokit, something to smoke, and a lighter. It’s time to put these to good use. There is a lengthwise door that runs down Smokit. You pop this open, to reveal a grinder card underneath. The card can be removed to double as a flat edge for gathering loose herb, but you do not need to right now. With the long door open, you take herb and grind it against the card with only a small amount of force. Think of the grinder card like a cheese grater, it works the same way. Now you have herb in the storage area below, and you shut the lengthwise door to secure your herb.

The top left door as you can see in the picture, holds the dugout pipe and a poker/dabber tool. Open that door, tilt the product so the dugout pipe slides right out, and shut the top left door. At this point, you have the pipe to smoke with and your herb is ready to be ground up.

The top right door opens into the same storage area below your grinder card. You want to open that door, and be sure to keep the Smokit tilted upright so no herb falls out. You push your one-hitter pipe (that holds 3-4 hits) into that storage area, and simply twist 1-2 times. The pipe will pack itself and you can remove it and shut the top right door.

Now you’re ready to smoke! Take the one hitter and put it in your mouth with the herb away from you. Light the herb but only briefly as you do not want to burn it all on the first hit. This is key and what makes our dugout pipe the best! It is custom made to be extra deep and hold multiple hits. After smoking the pipe you will need to clear it.  

In the top left door that the one hitter was in, there is also a poker and dabber tool. Simply open the door, tilt the Smokit to slide the poker out, and slide through the dugout pipe. You can store the tools back up in the smell-resistant case they came in and you’re ready for next time.

We have a video made showing exactly how to do this entire process. Check it out here, and if you’re sick of old dugouts where they get jammed, are difficult to load, and don’t have a poker, look in our store for a Smokit you like today!