Pickaxe Axe

They come from the same crafting bracket and cover the same jobs. The Drax is quicker straight out of the box. This one reaches further and, more usefully, it actually responds to mining speed bonuses, so once you are drinking mining potions it pulls ahead and stays ahead. If you never buff mining speed, take the drax.

Extra tiles of range means fewer stops while sinking a hellevator, and it means grabbing ore across a gap you would otherwise have to bridge. Over a long dig that saves more real time than the raw speed difference does.

The hamdrill line is a callback to the drax before the 1.2 update, when it was called the hamdrax and did hammer work as well. This is also the odd one out among hallowed gear in that it never glows while you use it.