Wooden Stake

A popular weapon of choice for Vampire Hunters are Wooden Stakes (白木の 杭くい ,).

Killing a Vampire
While a vampire is sleeping in their coffin, Vampire Hunters took their chances to end the vampires life, by piercing their heart with the wooden stake. This process remains consistent in Hellsing. Though the method is barely used at all, with the only known instance in which a Wooden Stake was shown to impale a vampire was in the fourth volume of the manga (second installment in the OVA). Even so, it's a flashback of the time Van Helsing impaled Alucard through the heart.

While this weapon is only shown once in Hellsing, it is mentioned by Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing that one of the methods of killing a vampire, is with a wooden stake through its heart and decapitate the vampire soon after.

Preferred Type of Woods

 * Ash
 * Aspen
 * Willow
 * Juniper
 * Hawthorn

Trivia

 * In the cover of the third chapter of the Hellsing manga, Alucard is shown wielding a huge crossed-stake.