Hatchet

It has a decent amount of bonus bleeding damage, forcing enemys to use bandages and swap their weapons.
It has a very nice throwing range and you can decently aim with it for throws.
You can use it to destroy items. like beds and boxes as it deals decent damage

Road Farming overview tl;dr:

Hatchet is #6 for barrel farming, and #5 for roadsign farming
Mostly for wood, but can double as a road farming tool or animal harvesting tool.
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Soft Barrel Toplist:

#1 - 0.32s › Sword, Icepick, Salvaged Axe
#2 - 0.72s › Mace
#3 - 0.77s › Longsword, Cleaver
#4 - 0.85s › Combat Knife
#5 - 1.05s › Hatchet
#6 - 1.20s › Salvaged Hammer
#7 - 1.28s › Machete
#8 - 1.63s › Paddle
#9 - 1.70s › Bone Knife
#9 - 1.92s › Pickaxe
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Hard Barrel Toplist:

#1 - 0.77s › Longsword, Cleaver
#2 - 0.85s › Combat Knife
#3 - 1.20s › Salvaged Hammer
#4 - 1.28s › Machete
#5 - 1.55s › Sword, Icepick, Salvaged Axe
#6 - 1.63s › Paddle
#7 - 1.82s › Bone Knife
#8 - 1.92s › Pickaxe
#9 - 1.95s › Hatchet
#10- 2.12s › Bone Knife
#11- 2.73s › Mace
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Barrel Average TTK Toplist:

#1 - 0.77s › Longsword, Cleaver
#2 - 0.85s › Combat Knife
#3 - 0.93s › Sword, Icepick, Salvaged Axe
#4 - 1.20s › Salvaged Hammer
#5 - 1.28s › Machete
#6 - 1.50s › Hatchet
#7 - 1.63s › Paddle
#8 - 1.72s › Mace
#9 - 1.92s › Pickaxe, Bone Knife
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Roadsigns Toplist:

#1 - 2.77s › Mace
#2 - 3.20s › Salvaged Hammer
#3 - 4.05s › Sword
#4 - 4.13s › Paddle
#5 - 4.62s › Hatchet
#6 - 4.75s › Longsword
#7 - 5.22s › Icepick, Salvaged Axe
#8 - 5.38s › Machete
#9 - 6.73s › Cleaver
#10- 9.43s › Pickaxe
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Credit to Tamura77, loopuleasa

Gives the second most amount of wood per tree, beaten by the [url=https://rustlabs.com/item/salvaged-axe]salvaged axe[/url] and [url=https://rustlabs.com/item/chainsaw]chainsaw[/url].

in order to test how these tools compared, i got 15,500 wood with each of them. i just hit whatever tree what next to me over and over again. here are the results
chainsaw got 15,500 wood in 2 minutes 30 seconds.cost me 38 low grade fuel. did not lose a lot of durability. but it is loud, and i want to save my gears for shotgun traps / garage doors. and i want to save my hqm for weapons and weapon mods. you can get a ton of metal blades in the underground train tunnels. or you can hit ~38 barrels to get 6 metal blades. RATING only if you are rich on gears, metal blades, hqm, low grade fuel. only use if you love pvp and have guns to lose, because the noise you make will invite other to pvp. don't worry about losing guns too much after you have researched or blueprinted sar and have a lot of metal fragments cooked, because you can always make more SARs and if you don't use your guns, you will get offline raided anyway.
salvaged axe got 15,500 wood in 5 minutes 50 seconds. did not lose a lot of durability. it is largely silent. you don't need hqm or gears for this. you can get a ton of metal blades in the underground train tunnels. or you can hit ~32 barrels to get 5 metal blades. you can get one metal pipe from one road sign. do not build this if you do not have enough metal blades for other things. metal blades are also used for (1) making metal barricades (they are only really seen in certain compound's designs) and (2) making salvaged swords (they are used to hit barrels for cheap, and to eco raid bases wood bases silently until you have molotov cocktails. 9 metal blades for 9 salvaged swords per wooden door and takes 6 minutes. 8 metal blades for 8 salvaged swords per wood wall and takes about 5 minutes) and to (3) make salvaged icepicks. RATING: gather rate speed is good, durability is amazing. you have to cut down less trees because you get more wood per tree than the hatchet. and you lose less durability per tree. so, you have to repair maybe every ~60,000 wood. the durability is insane. which is awesome, because you don't have to bring out your repair bench so often anymore. every time i use this, i smile because i know i won't have to repair it :D
the hatchet got 15,500 wood in 6 minutes 30 seconds. lost i think 50% of durability. it is largely silent. you don't need metal blades or gears or hqm for this. if you use these, you will be needing a repair bench in your house. repair benches can be picked up with a hammer and repair benches do not take damage when picked up. they fit in a doorway too, so you can place them half in your airlock and half stickout into the core of your starter. then you can pick it up and put it in a box to store it after using it. RATING: gather rate speed is good. breaks every ~31,000 wood. this is a huge improvement over lesser tools.
the salvaged hammer got 15,500 wood in 9 minutes 58 seconds. it only lost about 50% durability. since this costs metal fragments like the hatchet, you might as well use the hatchet since the hatchet can do the same job 3 minutes and 30 seconds faster. if you use these, you will be needing a repair bench in your house. repair benches can be picked up with a hammer and repair benches do not take damage when picked up. they fit in a doorway too, so you can place them half in your airlock and half stickout into the core of your starter. then you can pick it up and put it in a box to store it after using it. using repair benches is a hassle, so upgrade past these as soon as possible. RATING: poor, has too many durability issues. breaks every 31,000 wood or so. but gathering wood with this takes longer than every other tool.
the stone hatchet got 15,500 wood in 8 minutes 34 seconds. i had to use two stone hatchets. the first stone hatchet broke after 9,300 wood in 5 minutes 5 seconds. the 2nd stone hatchet got me the 15,500 wood i wanted for this test, but it went down to 33% durability. if you use these, you will be needing a repair bench in your house. repair benches can be picked up with a hammer and repair benches do not take damage when picked up. they fit in a doorway too, so you can place them half in your airlock and half stickout into the core of your starter. then you can pick it up and put it in a box to store it after using it. using repair benches is a hassle, so upgrade past these as soon as possible. RATING: poor, gather rate is slow. has too many durability issues. breaks ever 9,000 wood or so.