- Joined
- Nov 13, 2001
- Messages
- 234
Big Knives, Big Fun
Thanks to the auspices of an unnamed member of BFC, I recently got my grubby mitts on several honkin' big knives to play with. They ranged from reasonable camp-sized knives to blades that would give Freddy Kruger the willies
. Needless to say I was thrilled. I was also humbled that somebody would send a complete stranger a box of knives worth ... well, let's just call it a decent mortgage payment and leave it at that. All just so I could beat the crap out of them and tell y'all about it. That's just cool.
When the box arrived, the bubble wrap revealed a Becker BK7, a Becker BK9, a Newt Livesay RTAK, a Busse Battle Mistress E and a Busse Basic 7. These would be paired up with my Swamp Rat Camp Tramp (7") and Fehrman Final Judgement (9") for insert ring announcer voice The Ultimate Big Blade Showdown a bare-knuckle brawl that would leave only one knife standing, dazed and bleeding, amid chunks of scarred metal, twisted screws and barely identifiable bits of micarta.
Ahem. Not really.
I live in Kansas, so there's not much chance to skin a moose, fight hand to hand with nothing but a knife or build a wilderness redoubt, even should I be so inclined. I also don't have the disposable income to shove a knife blade into a woodchipper, debone a 69 Buick or play Zorro with 50-gallon drums. My knives get used in more mundane ways around the house and yard.
In fact, the last time I really got to play with my knives was when Jack (my 8-year old) and I decided to do some down-home recycling and turned our Christmas tree into a debris shelter. Just after Christmas, we'd dragged the tree outside, stripped the 9' Spruce of its limbs and used it as the ridgepole. The front supports and ribs were made from some unidentified springy wood that had been choking our Ginko tree. We covered the skeleton with the Spruce branches and some dead leaves to finish off the shelter. It was a lot of fun, and he had a fort that was the envy of the neighborhood. But now it was time for it to come down.
Let me add a disclaimer here. I am not a materials scientist. I am not much of an outdoorsman. I have never been placed in a survival situation or had to cut my way out of the jungle. So I don't have the background to objectively evaluate these knives against their intended uses. I just played with these knives in the back yard and wrote up what I thought about them. So if I write something you don't agree with or if your experience has been different than mine, don't get your weenie in a knot. Just post a note about what you think. This is a discussion board, after all.
Round One, the Big Choppers: BK9, RTAK, Fehrman & Battle Mistress
I put a fresh edge on all the knives so they were reasonably comparable. None of them had the factory edge and had been sharpened numerous times from what I could tell. The Beckers and the Battle Mistress just needed a lengthy touchup on a 700 grit ceramic rod to get them shaving sharp. The RTAK took some more work. I ended up putting a 25 degree bevel on it with the EdgePro Apex, slightly thinner than what had been there before. When I was finished all of them would shave with little or no effort.
So despite the cold and rainy snow, Jack and I headed out to the back yard to whack away. We hauled out the big choppers to see what we could see. We started with the support poles, which were some kind of thin-skinned, springy, yellowish wood. These pieces were slightly bigger around than a nickel at the top, thickening to quarter-size at the bottom. Then we moved on to the 6-7" Spruce ridgepole itself.
First up was the Becker BK9. The sheath is Cordura over Kydex and reasonably well made, though the knife doesn't lock into place. There's some rattle room, but it's not too bad. As has become common, there's a pouch on the front of the sheath to hold extra gear or a survival kit. The knife itself is surprisingly light for its size, with just a hair over 9" of useable blade length and a wide, clip-point Bowie style blade. There's no choil, so you can't choke up on it the way you can with the other knives. The thick, hand-filling scales are held on with three Allen screws. Fit and finish are pretty good, especially considering the price.
I'd waved the knife around a couple of times during the past two of weeks and one thing I didn't like was the knobby flares at the end of the handle that dug into the heel of my hand. Oddly enough, they didn't bother me in actual use. The knife is light and whippy in the hand and chopped through the nickel-sized branches with three or four solid hits.
What did bother me was the eagle-beak pommel, which after a couple of whacks really started to bang into my little finger. Yow, that could get very painful in extended use. It really began to bother me when we'd moved on to the Spruce ridgepole.
The handle material feels like some sort of hard plastic. I know there's a name for the wonder polymer that the slabs are made of, but they feel like hard plastic and twisted easily in my hands on hard chops. When my hands became a little numb from the cold, it was really tough to keep the knife under control when chopping.
The knife bit nicely into the Spruce and didn't seem to be overly angle sensitive. Some big knives will bounce right off seasoned wood if the angle of attack is too shallow. Not a problem here. The chips flew fast and furious. The blade can be flexed somewhat when it's wedged deeply in wood, but not enough that I felt at all uncomfortable, though I probably wouldn't stand on it. All in all, this is a hell of a knife for the money.
Next was the Livesay RTAK. I'd really been looking forward to playing with this one. I've always thought it was a cool design, and I have a lot of respect for Jeff Randall's experience.
This is a big f'ing knife at 17" OAL with just a hair under 10" of useable blade length and a long clip point. It is nicely balanced in the center of the ricasso, just forward of the end of the handle slabs. There is no choil, per se, but the ricasso has a slight curve to it that serves the same purpose, so it's reasonably easy to use the knife choked up. The RTAK is thinner than the Beckers, Busses and Fehrmans. It's sort of a hybrid big knife and machete designed primarily for tropical work, where I'm sure it excels.
The sheath is a rectangle of green Kydex molded around the blade shape. The fit is snug, but not "locked." There's a little wiggle room.
The green micarta handle slabs are held on by brass pins. Fit and finish are utilitarian but excellent. Most of the edges on the handle slabs are nicely blended (with one notable exception, which will be explained in a minute). The handle just doesn't fit my hand, however. It is too wide and thin, and there is a pronounced bump on the underside that falls just under my middle finger. The exception to the blending of the micarta comes at the end of the slabs where they are squared off near the pommel, leaving a sharp point that dug into the heel of my hand. All of which made the RTAK very uncomfortable to use for any length of time. The web between my thumb and fingers still feels bruised by the thin handle, and the heel of my hand is sore from the point on the end. Someone with larger hands or someone wearing gloves might not have these problems. In spite of the bad fit, the handle did not slip or twist during any of the chopping, even when my hands were numb from the cold.
The RTAK did fine on the nickel-sized branches, whacking through them in three or four chops, but didn't fare as well on the thick Spruce pole. Despite its heft, the RTAK didn't chop as deeply or as easily as the other knives. It was a lot more work to take chips and chunks out of the Spruce log, possibly because the blade is less wedge shaped than the other knives.
The 1095 blade would flex more than any of the others when I wedged it into the wood, but not so much that it would be a concern. 1095 is a tough steel that is very easy to sharpen in the field, which I'm sure is why it was chosen. In light limbing, the RTAK did extremely well on green wood. I wish the pampas grass were back up -- cutting that back every year is just about the nastiest thing you can do to a knife.. I'm sure the thin-bladed RTAK would annihilate it.
So, if I were headed to a location with green or lush vegetation and needed a do-all knife, the RTAK would be a great choice. But not, perhaps, for northern forests or places where heavy chopping was the order of the day.
Continued in next message
Thanks to the auspices of an unnamed member of BFC, I recently got my grubby mitts on several honkin' big knives to play with. They ranged from reasonable camp-sized knives to blades that would give Freddy Kruger the willies

When the box arrived, the bubble wrap revealed a Becker BK7, a Becker BK9, a Newt Livesay RTAK, a Busse Battle Mistress E and a Busse Basic 7. These would be paired up with my Swamp Rat Camp Tramp (7") and Fehrman Final Judgement (9") for insert ring announcer voice The Ultimate Big Blade Showdown a bare-knuckle brawl that would leave only one knife standing, dazed and bleeding, amid chunks of scarred metal, twisted screws and barely identifiable bits of micarta.
Ahem. Not really.
I live in Kansas, so there's not much chance to skin a moose, fight hand to hand with nothing but a knife or build a wilderness redoubt, even should I be so inclined. I also don't have the disposable income to shove a knife blade into a woodchipper, debone a 69 Buick or play Zorro with 50-gallon drums. My knives get used in more mundane ways around the house and yard.
In fact, the last time I really got to play with my knives was when Jack (my 8-year old) and I decided to do some down-home recycling and turned our Christmas tree into a debris shelter. Just after Christmas, we'd dragged the tree outside, stripped the 9' Spruce of its limbs and used it as the ridgepole. The front supports and ribs were made from some unidentified springy wood that had been choking our Ginko tree. We covered the skeleton with the Spruce branches and some dead leaves to finish off the shelter. It was a lot of fun, and he had a fort that was the envy of the neighborhood. But now it was time for it to come down.
Let me add a disclaimer here. I am not a materials scientist. I am not much of an outdoorsman. I have never been placed in a survival situation or had to cut my way out of the jungle. So I don't have the background to objectively evaluate these knives against their intended uses. I just played with these knives in the back yard and wrote up what I thought about them. So if I write something you don't agree with or if your experience has been different than mine, don't get your weenie in a knot. Just post a note about what you think. This is a discussion board, after all.
Round One, the Big Choppers: BK9, RTAK, Fehrman & Battle Mistress
I put a fresh edge on all the knives so they were reasonably comparable. None of them had the factory edge and had been sharpened numerous times from what I could tell. The Beckers and the Battle Mistress just needed a lengthy touchup on a 700 grit ceramic rod to get them shaving sharp. The RTAK took some more work. I ended up putting a 25 degree bevel on it with the EdgePro Apex, slightly thinner than what had been there before. When I was finished all of them would shave with little or no effort.
So despite the cold and rainy snow, Jack and I headed out to the back yard to whack away. We hauled out the big choppers to see what we could see. We started with the support poles, which were some kind of thin-skinned, springy, yellowish wood. These pieces were slightly bigger around than a nickel at the top, thickening to quarter-size at the bottom. Then we moved on to the 6-7" Spruce ridgepole itself.
First up was the Becker BK9. The sheath is Cordura over Kydex and reasonably well made, though the knife doesn't lock into place. There's some rattle room, but it's not too bad. As has become common, there's a pouch on the front of the sheath to hold extra gear or a survival kit. The knife itself is surprisingly light for its size, with just a hair over 9" of useable blade length and a wide, clip-point Bowie style blade. There's no choil, so you can't choke up on it the way you can with the other knives. The thick, hand-filling scales are held on with three Allen screws. Fit and finish are pretty good, especially considering the price.
I'd waved the knife around a couple of times during the past two of weeks and one thing I didn't like was the knobby flares at the end of the handle that dug into the heel of my hand. Oddly enough, they didn't bother me in actual use. The knife is light and whippy in the hand and chopped through the nickel-sized branches with three or four solid hits.
What did bother me was the eagle-beak pommel, which after a couple of whacks really started to bang into my little finger. Yow, that could get very painful in extended use. It really began to bother me when we'd moved on to the Spruce ridgepole.
The handle material feels like some sort of hard plastic. I know there's a name for the wonder polymer that the slabs are made of, but they feel like hard plastic and twisted easily in my hands on hard chops. When my hands became a little numb from the cold, it was really tough to keep the knife under control when chopping.
The knife bit nicely into the Spruce and didn't seem to be overly angle sensitive. Some big knives will bounce right off seasoned wood if the angle of attack is too shallow. Not a problem here. The chips flew fast and furious. The blade can be flexed somewhat when it's wedged deeply in wood, but not enough that I felt at all uncomfortable, though I probably wouldn't stand on it. All in all, this is a hell of a knife for the money.
Next was the Livesay RTAK. I'd really been looking forward to playing with this one. I've always thought it was a cool design, and I have a lot of respect for Jeff Randall's experience.
This is a big f'ing knife at 17" OAL with just a hair under 10" of useable blade length and a long clip point. It is nicely balanced in the center of the ricasso, just forward of the end of the handle slabs. There is no choil, per se, but the ricasso has a slight curve to it that serves the same purpose, so it's reasonably easy to use the knife choked up. The RTAK is thinner than the Beckers, Busses and Fehrmans. It's sort of a hybrid big knife and machete designed primarily for tropical work, where I'm sure it excels.
The sheath is a rectangle of green Kydex molded around the blade shape. The fit is snug, but not "locked." There's a little wiggle room.
The green micarta handle slabs are held on by brass pins. Fit and finish are utilitarian but excellent. Most of the edges on the handle slabs are nicely blended (with one notable exception, which will be explained in a minute). The handle just doesn't fit my hand, however. It is too wide and thin, and there is a pronounced bump on the underside that falls just under my middle finger. The exception to the blending of the micarta comes at the end of the slabs where they are squared off near the pommel, leaving a sharp point that dug into the heel of my hand. All of which made the RTAK very uncomfortable to use for any length of time. The web between my thumb and fingers still feels bruised by the thin handle, and the heel of my hand is sore from the point on the end. Someone with larger hands or someone wearing gloves might not have these problems. In spite of the bad fit, the handle did not slip or twist during any of the chopping, even when my hands were numb from the cold.
The RTAK did fine on the nickel-sized branches, whacking through them in three or four chops, but didn't fare as well on the thick Spruce pole. Despite its heft, the RTAK didn't chop as deeply or as easily as the other knives. It was a lot more work to take chips and chunks out of the Spruce log, possibly because the blade is less wedge shaped than the other knives.
The 1095 blade would flex more than any of the others when I wedged it into the wood, but not so much that it would be a concern. 1095 is a tough steel that is very easy to sharpen in the field, which I'm sure is why it was chosen. In light limbing, the RTAK did extremely well on green wood. I wish the pampas grass were back up -- cutting that back every year is just about the nastiest thing you can do to a knife.. I'm sure the thin-bladed RTAK would annihilate it.
So, if I were headed to a location with green or lush vegetation and needed a do-all knife, the RTAK would be a great choice. But not, perhaps, for northern forests or places where heavy chopping was the order of the day.
Continued in next message