Battle Blades--Review of HI World War II, M-43, Gelbu Special and Tora Blades M-2

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Jack Corbett

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I finally got around to doing a new you tube video [video=youtube;qrXRleQCDlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrXRleQCDlc[/video]My review takes a departure from Kukris suitable for cutting down trees to what was used or is more suitable for warfare or long treks into the wilderness where heavier kukri's might not be optimal.
 
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Nice review Mr. Corbett. Thanks for posting. Probably the only two models I dont have is the M43 and WWII. I should add them to my collection soon.
 
ndoghouse said:
Nice review Mr. Corbett. Thanks for posting. Probably the only two models I dont have is the M43 and WWII. I should add them to my collection soon.
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Nice review... just get the camera a little closer next time. Ndog... You NEED a 18in WWII, there is not a classier kukri available that will beat the WWII in terms of pure beauty. My first HI was a 18 WWII by Bhakta and its still my favorite. I don't have a M43 either which is weird cause its super popular.

Jack...you would of got more responses to your video if you didn't bring Tora into the mix. There is kinda bad blood around here because of Simon. He is banned from Bladeforums and other blade websites. I own one of his kukris and only one because I refuse to give the man any more of my money. I found out the hard way about Simon. Please don't drink his coolaid like I did for my first time learning about kukris.

I have one of his Goorkhali blades. It came with a warped edge and a sheath filled with cardboard to keep the blade from rattling around. Very poor quality control and very poor customer service. He doesn't operate his forum anymore and redirects everyone to his facebook page. He then deletes complaints and criticism about his products. He is a world class ass who isn't welcome on the entire Bladeforum website.

He is kind of a lunatic. He made multiple accounts and had conversations with HIMSELF discussing his "cool aid". He actually had like three or four names on the forum and would ask himself questions and respond to himself all the same thread... PSYCO!!!
 
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WOW GB, I had no idea. I'm glad I did a lot of research before I bought my first Khukri and went with HI. I have to admit in the beginning and not knowing squat, I was considering them. Apparently there must have been a bunch of HI Khukris calling out to me subliminaly. ;)
 
Bigbore577 said:
WOW GB, I had no idea. I'm glad I did a lot of research before I bought my first Khukri and went with HI. I have to admit in the beginning and not knowing squat, I was considering them. Apparently there must have been a bunch of HI Khukris calling out to me subliminaly. ;)
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Yeah... I learned the hard way, but lesson learned :thumbup:. You kukris experience sounds like mine. I had close to a dozen the first couple months and had to stash them from my wife. I have over 30 now and its hard for her to tell the new ones from the old ones. Once you collection gets bigger, fooling the wifey will become easier.:D
 
gurkha berserka said:
Yeah... I learned the hard way, but lesson learned :thumbup:. You kukris experience sounds like mine. I had close to a dozen the first couple months and had to stash them from my wife. I have over 30 now and its hard for her to tell the new ones from the old ones. Once you collection gets bigger, fooling the wifey will become easier.:D
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Yes, very similar. I've been married for over thirty years, the wife is kind of numb to my excessive compulsive disorder. Firearms, collector chainsaws, yes chainsaws and now Khukris. Oddly, she kind of digs on the Khukris and she never takes a shining to such things. Auntie, bless her heart sent me a Katuje as a gift, the wife now believes both it and Auntie are the bomb. It's the sorority thing. I'm truly blessed!:D
 
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I love the setup you choose for the video...

Kind of funny to hear about terrifying war tools with teddy bears all around you :p
 
I am holding in my hand a Dui Chirra from Thamar with a severily warped blade, butt cap 5 mm off on one side, small black rust spots "NIB", 7 cm worth of leather added in a scabbard obviously made for a bigger knife (which made the blade hard to take out from the scabbard - as soon as I removed the grease, I could not put the blade back in it pushing with all my might).

This is what I received as a replacement for another Thamar knife with such a shoddy heat treat that I could indent the edge by pushing it with my nail (I am not talking about a burr, but the very edge). This was not a blem, and I did not pay a blem price for it.

There is no more kool aid drinking on this whole forum than here, sorry to say that. Next year when I will get to US I will send the knife back, probably for refund and forget about HI. My money will go where at least a replacement blade has a minimum quality check before being shipped.

I learned my own lesson the hard way.

This was happening around the same time when the guy that ordered an AK got a very nice unmarked WW2 after a long wait. Thread here somewhere in the Cantina. I will also thank Cobalt for mentioning in the "Edge hardness" thread about his own findings, another eye-opener. I refuse to pay premium prices for wall-hangers.

The only decent blade I recived is a Kumar M43, although that one also features a frog that the whole scabbard would fall out of had I not repaired it, and could still use better edge retention.

Yangdu has always been a Lady and VERY gracious to me, sometimes going beyond what she should have done, but this sadly doesn not compensate the huge disparity between the advertisement and the reality of the product. I buy knives to use, otherwise they are worthless to me, as pretty as they be. I mostly stick here nowadays for the community, and had I not seen enough fanboyism here day after day to start to piss me off, I would've kept my mouth shut.
 
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In an ideal world, any reviewer would know how to safely pull out a kukri from the sheath, and people would not run around parotting about the high quality of knives without using them hard first. I guess I would've fit better around here back in the 90s, it seemed people expected more from a kukri than to look nice.

I will just go back to the non-traditional KLOs which are still expected to do what kukris were expected to do. Better, when I get the itch, I will buy blades forged locally, pounded with more attention and properly hardened.
 
Umm... Ok I have like 30 HI kukris and swords. I have cut with all the swords... I cut a broom stick wrapped with a soaked beach mat with my Talwar... Didn't even scratch the mirror polish. I have used probably 60 percent of my kukris for various things like cutting up old couches, old cat scratcher, bunch of birch trees, I even cut through and old steel dog leash that was tangled and old. I use my 15 Bhakta AK which cut right through it. The edge didn't chip or roll...

I have one from the other maker and I am not kidding when I say I got a dried out frog that was so badly dyed it looked like mold. The sheath was stuffed with a sliver of card board and the bottom was stuffed with newspaper that got moist and rusted the tip. The edge was severely warped and the partial tang makes a loose clicking sound when swung.

I have always received quality kukris from HI... Haven't had a bad one yet. You can't expect US factory finish work out of dirt floor shops...
 
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Snowwolf---Having the teddy bears all around me was purely unintentional. The room I shot the video in is the smaller of my two bedrooms here in my condo in Thailand. With the exception of the stuffed animals, the room is pretty masculine, and it functions more as a small den than a bedroom. The stuffed animals were put there by my girlfriend, who is Thai. They really don't fit in. Even so I don't mind them there, and I've gotten used to them--so used to them that I never even thought about taking them out of the video until after I completed the video, and then I thought..."Oh well".
 
Sorry if I left the impression that I am in any way disparaging people that just like to collect knives for beauty. Not my intention. Anyone is free to do whatever they want with their money. No intention to offend anyone.
 
Moonw said:
Sorry if I left the impression that I am in any way disparaging people that just like to collect knives for beauty. Not my intention. Anyone is free to do whatever they want with their money. No intention to offend anyone.
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That has to be the biggest passive aggressive, little whinny boy statement I have ever heard. Are you a man? Act like one... I can't stand wise ass passive aggressive children. Man up...
 
Jack Corbett said:
Snowwolf---Having the teddy bears all around me was purely unintentional. The room I shot the video in is the smaller of my two bedrooms here in my condo in Thailand. With the exception of the stuffed animals, the room is pretty masculine, and it functions more as a small den than a bedroom. The stuffed animals were put there by my girlfriend, who is Thai. They really don't fit in. Even so I don't mind them there, and I've gotten used to them--so used to them that I never even thought about taking them out of the video until after I completed the video, and then I thought..."Oh well".
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Yes... The teddy bears are pretty damn cool, or creepy depending on who you ask;). The red room would have me going nuts lol. Redrum redrum:D
 
gurkha berserka said:
That has to be the biggest passive aggressive, little whinny boy statement I have ever heard. Are you a man? Act like one... I can't stand wise ass passive aggressive children. Man up...
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I guess I am missing your point. Truly. But I'll try not to.

So: I wasn't being ironic. I wasn't implying anything about you in particular. You are not the only person reading this thread, this was a generic disclaimer.

OTOH, if people insist to feel offended...I won't loose sleep over it. And I won't care too much, as I don't care about "manning up" over the Internet either.

If this makes sense, good. If you insist to read "deeper" into it - again, fine.

I'll bid you all good night. (Guess this means I'm weaseling out of a war of words with strangers over Internet. I'll live with the shame.)
 
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http://s77.photobucket.com/user/moasports/media/Mobile Uploads/1446685366827_zpsur8gv786.jpg.html

Funny, I received a used Dui today from Auntie. Upon reading this farce I went out and took several good swipes on a half frozen hard oak pallet. Didn't even take the shine off the blade. I'm certain if a finger nail could damage the blade even this minimal chopping into hard oak would have caused some damage. There was a minute knick in the blade when I received it but, rest assured it didn't come from a thumb nail. I can't be positive this was your Dui however, the deck seems to be stacked against you.
 
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Good video Jack. Would have loved to see the HI blades in use, and as GB said, maybe drop the Tora. It's basically a KLO.

Looks to me like someone has neglected to read any of the other reviews and demos on this forum...I seem to remember one about a Magnum AK beheading a statue with almost no edge damage. Everyone and their sister has a KLVUK, with nothing by high remarks. There are threads on HI khuks and knives in the kitchen, HI knives going overseas with troops, being used to make a longbow, and one I recall about a knife that spent a year sitting in water, with permanent damage only to the scabbard. I've done a couple demos myself, and don't usually post anything at all about new khuks til I've cut some stuff down and gotten them dirty. The only wall hanger I have is my Tibetan Short Sword by Kumar, and even that has some patina near the tip after using it to get rid of some pesky bushes.

None of it is sugar-coated, look at the thread about the Kerambits. Bawanna, GB, and I all posted pictures and reviewed our blades. Not a single one of us claimed our blades were 100% perfect, in fact, we all mentioned the minor flaws in the ring, the tip not being really pointy, handle scales imperfections, etc. We all were expecting these grail knives that would boot our coveted Micro Bowies out of daily rotation, and I don't believe any of us feel like that will be the case. Well, maybe GB.. But regardless, we love the knives so far, and they still need field testing.

I mean, maybe there's something I'm missing, but all my praise up to this point has been based on first hand experience. I started with one HI khuk, and have gotten more because of their superior function and versatility to most any tool or blade I own, as well as phenomenal customer service and lightning-fast shipping.

Sorry moon, but even if I believe the bit about a crooked blade, and even if I were to buy the tale about indenting an edge with a fingernail, I'd have a seriously hard time believing those were both anything but flukes, shipping damage, or something of the like. But it still just doesn't add up to me..

Edit: I feel I should add 2 things. First, saying goodnight as a way to bow out of a thread on a forum is pretty weak. Isn't this gonna be here in the morning? And for the rest of...forever? Hmm...

Second, if you have that knife in hand, surely it wouldn't be too difficult to get a couple quick pictures of this "severely warped blade," "buttcap 5mm off to one side," and especially not the "small black rust spots," right?

I'll wait for pics tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath..
 
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