An apparatus for and method of using the apparatus to crack hard shelled nuts. A pair of hollow cylindrical tubes, each having both a proximal and a distal end with a chamfer at the respective proximal ends may be axially aligned with one another with their proximal ends facing one another. A nut to be cracked may be placed between the proximal ends of the spaced apart hollow cylindrical tubes. A linear compressive force may be applied to the distal ends of the two hollow cylindrical tubes the shell of the nut cracks) i.e., separates the hard shelled nut exterior shell casing from interior nutmeat). The apparatus allows hard shelled nuts like black walnuts, to be cracked with minimal damage, such as fragmentation, of the nutmeat.