Becker BK-10 vs. TOPS Hawkes Hellion Elite

After reading this, I looked at my 9, and low and behold, my grind lines are a bit different. I would have never noticed. Even now that I know, I still have to look at both sides pretty closely to see it. The shape of the swedge is different on both sides. But just a little bit (nothing like some of the old Ontario knives that I have had... HOLY CRAP!)
Anyways, how does that effect how I feel about my 9? Not in the least. I have handled many knives recently in the lower cost American price group, and I think that the Beckers have the nicest fit and finish. Although some new Ontarios (and old too I am sure) Do come very close.

As to that Hellion... to each their own. I hate any knife with a saw on the back. It looks like some Rambo stuff to me... Or a Buck Bushmaster on steroids... (shudders)
 
Mrknot said:
While the grind lines and bevels are not "laser straight" on my 9, they are pretty dang close. So much so that it took some pretty fine measuring to discern any flaws.
The Hellion looks pretty gimmicky IMHO, kind of like the "Hawke-chete"...what's his fascination with that modified Tanto-ish point anyway?
I don't like it, no sir, don't like it one bit...
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The edge on my BK-9 was not centered in any way with the spine: I've rarely seen a knife that is that far off, but given the good initial sharpness I was willing to forgive even that. Of course not all of them will be as bad as mine... Harder to ignore is, when looking down the spine, seeing it is not lined up to the handle, and instead veers off to the right in a very obvious curve... I have a feeling that is more intrinsic to the way it is heat-treated...

I would agree the grinds of the BK-9 are not the worst. Moreover, considering the price, the out of the box sharpness is something most high end fixed blade custom makers coud learn something from... It's just that a curved blade spine is a bit beyond what I can take. Nothing to do with its function I'll admit.

The value of the Tanto point is in fact the only real advantage the "American" Tanto point design ever really had: Bringing more mass closer to the tip, making a better chopper, while still retaining the option of some puncturing ability... By having a blade that grows wider towards the tip, the Hellion maximizes the mass advantage. Too bad Tops had to go with their usual blunt grind...

As for no photos of the Bk-9: Sorry! The BK's rough black finish picks up a huge amount of wood crud, not a big deal, but until I really cleaned up all this embedded wood, I was not too inclined to spend time photographing it... Here are some pics of it when I compared it to the Jereboam (you can already see some of the wood crud clinging to its side): Interestingly enough, despite a similar weight, and the Bk-9 having its point of balance much further forward of the hand than the Reeves (1.6 inches vs 1/3"!), they still chopped the same: I attribute this to the thinner edge the hollow grind gives to the Reeves:

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The difference in handle confort, when chopping, between the Reeves and the BK was just huge in favour of the hollow handle... Like the BK-9, the Hellion also had a very slight handle vibration with the original factory edge, but that disappeared when I re-profiled it, so sharpness affects handle confort noticeably! I think the handle vibration could be a feature of full tangs: Another reason why they are a bad idea...

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The Hellion is now quite a bit sharper than the BK-9, but it took a power tool to get there, and you can see the broad grinds... Sheeesh...

Gaston
 
I appreciate your write up! I am currently comparing and testing quite a few popular knives for YouTube videos, and especially when chopping or battoning through some hard wood, vibes can become an issue, especially if you dont wear gloves, which I wont.

What I will say so far between the RTAK II, SP5, SP10, and BK9, is that the rubber handles dont soak up shock as much as some might think, especially on a heavier blade like the Sp5. Vibrations are very noticeable in all of the knives that I listed, especially the RTAKII with handles in their stock shape, but for chopping comfort, the Bk9 (in a comparison with these other... mid grade knives) is quite good.

Vibration wise, surprisingly, the Ontario Sp5 is the best. But with that being said, I have had an Sp5 whose blade became loose in the handle. That is a no go.

To get me back onto topic, everything is a compromise. You may get more vibes with a full tang, but you know that it really isn't going to fail, and if it is going to fail, any other design would have failed much sooner. So in my eyes, for a heavy use knife, a full tang is really the only option, especially if it is a heavy knife. The Sp5 had issues with the handle, and it is actually quite a light weight blade. I think I prefer a full tang on anything over 6".

Hands heal. Knives dont. Sometimes buying or repairing a knife isn't an option. In that situation, ill take a full tang.
 
I know not of this "blade bending during heat treatment", re: BK9s. I have a baker's dozen 9s and not a single one arrived with such a bend.
 
Gaston444, maybe you should consider testing the kabar warranty and seeing if they will replace your Bk9 as a manufactures defect?
 
Thanks for the kind words beachmaster!

I think the issue with breakage is that it is more likely to happen in the blade itself than at the handle/guard junction, or in the handle. For vibrations while chopping, I've found many cylindrical hollow handles are actually quite kind to hands(!): There is no vibration and the impact surface is quite broad in the hand. The most annoying thing with those for me is the typically exaggerated side protrusion of the guard (for carrying). This in the CR knives is minimized by a scallop... Like full tangs, hollow handles also tend to be handle heavy, which is less efficient.

As for the BK-9's blade bend, it will no longer show up so much on mine, since I spent about 15 minutes jumping on it while it was bridging two piles of books! What resulted is that the blade root bent the opposite way and the curve lessened, both of which minimized the appearance of the defect to the point it won't show up on camera so well any more... But I can still see it: Not worth sending it back... The edge is still veers way off centerline, and that is unrelated.

I realize now the original thread was for the Elite 7" Hellion, not the 9"... A more appropriate comparison would be the BK-7 for that one...

Gaston
 
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Gaston444 said:
As for the BK-9's blade bend, it will no longer show up so much on mine, since I spent about 15 minutes jumping on it while it was bridging two piles of books! What resulted is that the blade root bent the opposite way and the curve lessened, both of which minimized the appearance of the defect to the point it won't show up on camera so well any more... But I can still see it: Not worth sending it back... The edge is still veers way off centerline, and that is unrelated.
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I really think that may have been excessive. Ten to twelve minutes usually does it.
 
Gaston444 said:
....As for the BK-9's blade bend, it will no longer show up so much on mine, since I spent about 15 minutes jumping on it while it was bridging two piles of books!
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The newest cross fit exercise. It's all the rage with our fitness freaks.
 
I am a bit warry of cylindrical handles... I have always just read bad things about them. that being said, I didn't know that a premium manufacture or maker made them... I thought that they were mostly a Chinese survival knife deal. That being said, I am very interested in how the knife is affixed to the handle, and if I had a few million bucks laying around, I would like to do a destruction test to compare :-D

Of course, if I had a couple million bucks, it would all disappear quickly, because the number of destruction tests I would want to do...
 
Hey Beachmaster......

The Chris Reeve hollow handle knives are, I believe, unique, in that they start life as a solid billet of A2 steel...... There are no knives to compare them to......... They are by far the finest knives of their type ever made....... I own several and I am damn proud to own them........... I have told Chris more than once that if he ever flat ground his blades I would have to give serious consideration to quitting the biz........ If you get a chance grab one soon as Chris told me that the SA tooling has flat worn out and he will no longer be able to get blanks......... Such a shame, as I love this series of knives....... Talk about bombproof...... They are truly----- the real deal........ A solid chunk of A2 and finished out as well as human effort can manage.......

E
 
Wow, thanks Ethan! I will have to look into that! I am afraid it might be drastically out of ky price range, but from the sound of it, I will consider saving my pennies!
 
...that means the Reeves is a... full tang?? who would have thought...excuse me while I go jump on a 5...
 
Note that the Chris Reeves one piece are all discontinued and all around $1000 for the chopper-sized ones. They also were deliberately made softer for ease of sharpening (despite the lack of pockets or sharpener on their sheaths), so that currently-made Schrade "Extreme Survival" copies actually have better edge-holding: Quite a bargain at $50 or so...: The only bad point is that lengths over 7.5" are still not being made by Schrade, so to get the 8 3/4" blade you still have to pay the big bucks...

The Schrades even have decent sheaths:

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The out of the box edge needs a bit of work, but they will definitely hold it better than the CRs... Too bad 7.5" is a bit marginal for chopping.

One thing to note with round handles is that they do, in these types of one-piece knives, have a tendency to "roll" and make the edge "follow the grain" of the wood if the grain of the wood is not at a true 90° to the blade's hit angle (at least on Maple it does...): I think the narrow blade and hollow grind encourages this tendency. I found this problem easy to counter with just a tighter grip, and keeping the hits square to the wood's grain. As can be seen in my pics above, 9" blades do well chopping branches under 3" in diameter, but are really marginal on anything over 4-5"... The Hellion does go a bit bigger before it feels like the branch is beating your hand...

Gaston
 
Gaston444 said:
Note that the Chris Reeves one piece are all discontinued and all around $1000 for the chopper-sized ones. They also were deliberately made softer for ease of sharpening (despite the lack of pockets or sharpener on their sheaths), so that currently-made Schrade "Extreme Survival" copies actually have better edge-holding: Quite a bargain at $50 or so...: The only bad point is that lengths over 7.5" are still not being made by Schrade, so to get the 8 3/4" blade you still have to pay the big bucks...

The Schrades even have decent sheaths:

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The out of the box edge needs a bit of work, but they will definitely hold it better than the CRs... Too bad 7.5" is a bit marginal for chopping.

One thing to note with round handles is that they do, in these types of one-piece knives, have a tendency to "roll" and make the edge "follow the grain" of the wood if the grain of the wood is not at a true 90° to the blade's hit angle (at least on Maple it does...): I think the narrow blade and hollow grind encourages this tendency. I found this problem easy to counter with just a tighter grip, and keeping the hits square to the wood's grain. As can be seen in my pics above, 9" blades do well chopping branches under 3" in diameter, but are really marginal on anything over 4-5"... The Hellion does go a bit bigger before it feels like the branch is beating your hand...

Gaston
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Now there's a knife I wouldn't mind owning and beating on. Of course, those serrations have to go. This is perhaps my most favorite Shrade.

Ever since I was a teen, I've always had a thing for CRK. But considering that until just recently I've never had the money to own one for it to just sit in the box (what a waste) I'm kind of ok with not owning one at this point. Its a shame they are no longer made but I think his folders are better sellers anyway, hence why I think CR never updated the tooling for these heavy beasts. He probably had no intention of continuing with the large fixed blades once his Sebenzas dominated and owned the folder market. Oh well.
 
Hey TD......

Chris has a background as a machinist and If I remember the conversation I had with him about this correctly, the machine that cranked out the blanks from day one, which has gotta be 30 plus years gave up the ghost back in South Africa........ Also I think his friend was retiring(_about that I am not sure) what I am sure about is that the finest example of the hollow handle blade is no more....... Btw that slightly softer heat treat not only makes them field sharpenable but makes for an incredibly tough blade.....He designs his blades for the field and Chris always thinks things through........ Not everyone agrees with his choices but the logic tree is always impeccable.....One solid chunk of A2 YAY, Woot woot..

E
 
Supposedly, according to some industry steel chart data provided by Cliff Stamp, softening A-2 from 60 to 55 yields little to no gain in toughness, but it does make the steel less abrasion resistant and thus easier to sharpen. On that basis it could still be a sound choice (if at no gain in toughness), but there are multiple user sources that report rapid dulling from the CR one-piece range, and even spot flattening, this just on chopping pine wood... This has been quite a wake up call for me, and is one reason I adapted a sharpener to my Jereboam sheath... Fortunately I got mine 5 years ago, and paid only $415 and not $1200 like today...

Still it is no fun to see a $1200 knife in trouble holding its edge against a $50 beater... I suspect this is more common that one might think among high end knives...

Now that I have an "extra" third survival knife that I really like (a hugely re-ground Boker Apparo that was initially so dull it was litterally mind-boggling; "sharpening" it involved professionally re-grinding a whole new knife out of it at a cost nearly equal to the knife...), I will do an extensive field comparison between the Hellion and the Jereboam to see if a "traditional" blade design is really improved on by the newer design. If the Hellion's 5160 really beats the Reeves A-2 in edge-holding it would be significant, as 5160 is not known for great edge-holding.

The reason I will have to do such a comparison test is that not many people are willing these days to test hard what is now a $1200 knife with a fairly "damage prone" finish... It really takes the maker having made what I think is a strange decision for me to think of doing this... At the same time, the Hellion will make a fine comparison not only for the steel but for the design.

Gaston
 
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