Re: Blade thickness
Yes, the blade is ground from 3/16" stock with a distal taper and light swedge to .080", sorry about that. My mind was thinking 3/16" and my fingers typed 1/8".
Knifetesters point remains though, even at 3/16", with a full grind it is very different in scope of work from the sabre ground, much thicker Brute.
Yes, I stand by my argument. The Outcast is more of a golok/ bolo type blade, rather than a big chopper like the Brute. The Becker BK9 seems to be built for harder work than the Outcast.
The Outcast is more of a small, heavy machete type knife in my opinion. For comparison here is the Outcast compared to a
Tramontina Bolo :
These knives are similiar in chopping ability on sapling size soft wood, like 1-2" alder and willow. The Bolo has superior reach of course, but they are close in chopping ability, being close in overall mass. The Outcast would be less prone to binding in thicker wood.
The Kershaw handle is a decent length, but much too thin for my hand. nice overall handle ergos though, far ahead of the Becker for me. The bolo handle is wrapped with hockey tape for grip and thickness, swelling the end.
Can the Kershaw be filed? How thick is the edge, is it similar to the pictures, in which the edge looks very narrow.
It does not respond well to filing. The Tram of course files readily. However, the Kershaw takes a really crisp edge from my Sharpmaker.
The grind lines are very nice, easily as nice as any of the American companies. It has a decently high performance profile, running from .020-.028 behind the edge, edge bevel height of ~.060" even through the blade. The knife came with a very sharp balde, as is usual for Kershaw, easily able to push shave arm hair.
Arnis
the kydex sheath is fine, but the belt attachment is terrible.
Yes, a real Teklock will be a nice change. Otherwise the sheath is very decent for the price point.
Steel choice:
To each their own, but I would gladly trade the wear resitance of D2 in a blade of this type for more toughness. Assuming they need to stick with air hardening steels, I would sugest they switch to A8. It is failry cheap, China turns out a ton of it for industrial applications (chiper blades of course) and it is much tougher than D2.
I have not used the knife extensively enough to reach any firm conclusions, but my initial impressions (used it a couple times over the last week or so) are positive.
The steel is .187 D2 hardened to 54-56 RC.
Yeah. Ken Onion knows far more about knife design than I, but the hardness and steel due not seemed well matched for my uses. I like my D2 run real hard and ground thin for light use applications that require wear reisitance.
For chopping and impact use, I like spring and simpler tool steels.
Ken used an outcast to chop on rebar, angle iron and an I beam to test its toughness. He said it took chunks out of the I beam!
Was this stated on a public forum or webs site? Can you provide a link? It would be very interesting if Onion/ Kershaw would warrant their knives for this scope of work.
I'm planning to convex grind the edge when I get some time.
Great, how about you chop up some rebar and I-beam with it and let us know how it works out. I am sure the convex edge will make it much tougher
Brian Jones:
When Ray and I were off reconning for another possible location (we carried those 100 lb packs on a 26-mile roundtrip recon in one day...sore feet), Ray also filmed me doing a log crossing over rapids but forgot to press "record."
Then you should have re-crossed so he could record it!!! You must have very good balance and strong ankles.
Are you guys doing MIL/LE training now? If you can't talk about it, I understand. Do you have a website?
