Drive chisels and strike work without damaging its surface. To avoid marring, choose a mallet with faces that are softer than your workpiece. Lighter weight mallets are good for tapping work into place and driving a chisel to make small cuts. Use heavier weight mallets when assembling joints, dislodging stuck parts, and making aggressive cuts with a chisel. Longer mallets allow for more powerful swings.

Rawhide faces are more durable than plastic and won't distort the surface of soft sheet metal, such as brass, aluminum, and copper.

Hickory handles resist vibration.

The head on these mallets is loaded with metal shot for added weight and a controlled impact with minimal rebound. Use them to drive chisels and strike work without damaging its surface. To avoid marring, choose a mallet with a face that's softer than your workpiece. Lighter weight mallets are good for tapping work into place and driving a chisel to make small cuts. Use heavier weight mallets when assembling joints, dislodging stuck parts, and making aggressive cuts with a chisel. Longer mallets allow for more powerful swings. All have a textured or ribbed grip for slip resistance.

Plastic faces are softer than metal faces, so they're good for striking plastic, wood, and sheet metal. All have a face hardness rating for comparing their hardness with other plastic faces. Hard faces have a hardness similar to that of a bowling ball.

Fiberglass handles combine high strength with good vibration resistance.