One hitters and chillums have been around since people smoked bud through gourds. The cool name may not have been there, but you get the point. If you want to know What is a One Hitter / Chillum, they are some of the easiest ways to smoke weed.

This guide to What is a One Hitter / Chillum will show why, for some, these simple tools are the best way to smoke weed. With the right setup, a one hitter or chillum can be very discreet too. Used a sploof, and a one hitter is practically undetectable.

We’ll look at what different kinds of one hitters and chillums, what these tools are made of, how to use a one hitter / chillum and which one hitters and chillums are best.

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How One Hitters and Chillums Work

A one hitter is a pipe that holds, you guessed it, one hit of weed. Although it should be noted that one hit to one person may be five hits to another (like your mother). So ‘one hit’ is really a subjective term and different for everyone.

That being said, the concept of a one hitter is simple; a small, straight pipe used to smoke a very small amount of herb. The same can also be said for chillums except they have a bigger chamber and usually hold more than one hit of weed.

You load the chamber of the one hitter with ground herb, light it like a cigarette and inhale. If you have the tolerance and the lungs, this can be done in one toke. Some people take their time, getting several drags off that ‘one hit’ because the cherry stays lit.

Different Types of One Hitters

The reason this guide asks What is a One Hitter / Chillum is because these simple pipes can actually get very complex. Thanks to modern technology, precision machining and advancing artistry, one hitters and chillums can have all kinds of twists.

One hitters really got their start when weed was still illegal everywhere. These simple pipes are most often shaped and colored to mimic a cigarette. The most common materials used are aluminum and ceramic which are easily colored.

One Hitter Materials

Aluminum lends itself well because it transfers heat away quickly, holds up to heat well, is durable, easily colored, easy to work with and cheap. Today one hitters come in different lengths and colors but the chamber still holds one hit.

Ceramic is also cheap and easy to work with as well as good at transferring heat. However, ceramic doesn’t stand up to heat as well as aluminum and can bend slightly over time.

Glass is also another popular choice for one hitters and the cleanest material for taste. However, they are rarely as slender as the more popular choices. Still, precision glass making has come a long way, including as one hitters.

Different Kinds of Chillums

Once the chamber and pipe get bigger than a one hitter, you’re generally talking a chillum, although ‘one hitter’ and ‘chillum’ are often used interchangeably. These pipes are straight cylinders or cones and usually hold more than one hit of weed.

The earliest chillums were made of clay, gourds, bamboo or various horns. They were first documented in 18th century India, then spread to Africa, and now are everywhere. Some chillums can have the entire pipe loaded with ground weed.

Today, precision glass making, quartz, ceramic, acrylic and many different metals can be added to that list. Most chillums are straight glass pipes, many hand-crafted works of art. But these pipes can also be cone shaped, which is why they are also called ‘glass blunts.’

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One Hitter and Chillum Mods

When asking What is a One Hitter / Chillum today, there are all sorts of options beyond what material from which they are made. Now, you can get options to dig through weed easier, clear ash automatically and even cool smoke for a more chill hit.

Standard one hitters have a beveled end with a sharp inside edge. Designers of the ‘claw’ one hitter pipe made the end jagged to cleave through dry material more easily. The digger claw comes on a standard metal one hitter, sometimes called a ‘bat.’

To cool the smoke before it’s inhaled, expert glass making can now place percolators, or ‘percs,’ inside a glass chillum or cut into its side. Percs are glass disks or angled vents that swirl and cool smoke inside the chamber.

By far from the last chillum innovation is the exoskeleton. Prometheus pipes encase a replaceable glass pipe inside a metal anodized aluminum frame. The frame protects the glass pipe and can be chilled in the freezer.

One of the niftier gadgets makes it easier to keep a one hitter clean. The spring-loaded ash ejector means you don’t need to keep a poker or other tool around to clear clogged one hitters. However, most one-hit smokers know all the tools needed to keep toking.

Dugouts for one hitters

Finally, you can’t mention a One Hitter or a Chillum without talking about dugouts. This is a small case with a lid that holds the pipe, a stash and often a poker. When you buy a dugout it most likely comes with an aluminum or ceramic one hitter.

A dugout got its name because that block of wood had to be ‘dug out’ to create separate chambers for the pipe and a place to hold a stash. Once the stash is loaded though, the dugout makes it easy to keep everything in a pocket or purse.

Dugouts can also be made out of many materials today other than wood. Popular models now include brightly colored anodized dugouts that match their pipes. You can also get bamboo, titanium and acrylic dugouts too.