Bushcraft Knife Challenge results!!!

Big Mike says

Mud Creek Forge.

I was out hiking with Marcelo when I first laid eyes on this knife, it was clear that the maker spent some time crafting his entry, the blade and sheath showed a bit of artistry, and the knife was well constructed; the fly in the ointment was the edge bevel, the sunlight glinting off the sharpened edge showed that it was unrefined and featured several large flat areas; the sheath serviceable and not unattractive, but a bit rough overall.
　
This otherwise OK knife was seriously hurt by the lack of a sharp edge, crippling this knife in my performance testing; the maker needs to study the fundamentals of sharpening, more attention to the secondary bevel is required.
　
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Mud Creek Forge


I liked the profile of this knife. The maker was on the money with blade shape. Had allot of belly by the tip and a slight recurve back towards the ricasso.

I was the second person to use this knife, so I am not sure how sharp it was when it was new, but it was pretty dull when I got it. We gave it a light sharpening, but there were quite a few flat spots on the edge, which would take allot of work and reprofiling to get out. So Marcelo and I decided to use it with just the light sharpening we gave it.



Fit and finish on the knife was good in terms of the initial high saber grind was even, and the blade had a nice satin finish from the flats. The handle was fit to the tang good. The maker put a pretty neat patina on the flats which included his mark and the steel he used.(1095) The problem areas of the fit and finish was the secondary bevel, the thumb grooves were pretty ruff, and some funkiness with the liners on the top of the handle on one side.



The sheath was pretty cool. Very decorative and held the knife securely. Wasn’t perfectly finished but nice none the less.



The handle had a nice profile to it, but it was just too small for my liking. My hand felt cramped in most grips. I liked the contouring, but just wish he spread it out more.



What really hurt this knife in performance was the edge. There was only 2 spots on the knife that cut okay. I say okay, cause those spots still had some thick shoulders to it. The tip was pretty good, but also on the thick side. It was very difficult to get the knife to bite deep into wood, and it couldn’t get through some of the cordage with a straight push cut.
The knife did well in batonning.

Here you can see the flat spots in the edge.



It took quite a bit of force to drill



When using the edge right by the ricasso I was able to get some thin curls.




Good splitter




Again, I do like the overall profile of the knife, it was a good design. I hope the maker takes my critiques as constructive criticism, as I really mean no disrespect.

Thank you Mud Creek Forge for your participation and I look forward to seeing more work from you in the future.
 
Big Mike's review

G. W. Schmidt.

Overall I like this knife; I like the blade shape, and found it offered great edge retention, tough the secondary bevel seemed too obtuse to cut deeply in wood; the handle, though tall from top to bottom, is a bit thin from side to side, I found it a bit uncomfortable in my large hand when using it hard; the sheaths worked alright, but the oversize belt loop made for too much movement when trying to remove the knife.
　
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G. W. Schmidt.


This knife appealed to me when I saw it. It had plenty of belly and great pointy tip.



Fit and finish was very good. A nice full flat ground with a high secondary bevel. The secondary bevel wasn’t perfectly even, but it did not hurt the knife’s cutting ability. It had a great finish on the blade and the handle. No gaps, or unsightly glue marks.

The sheath was okay. It held the knife good. The leather was on the thin side and the belt loop was a bit loose. Other than that it was fine.

The blade shape proved handy in all tasks I through at. A little wide for my taste but it cut through would just fine. The tip made for a very good driller.
The maker had good edge on it with high shoulders which didn’t get in the way of it slicing through wood. It did every task very well. The knife is well above par in cutting ability.



The handle was interesting and sexy to look at, but not so sexy after using it for a long time. The top of the handle was left square which was a bit uncomfortable. The birds beak butt dug into my hand in the chest leaver grip. I understand the birds beak on large knives to utilize a three finger grip for chopping, however I am not chopping with a knife this size. The Birds beak butt also made my gloved hand feel a bit cramped, however the handle was thin and wide which lends itself to a secure feel. I did develop some fatigue after extensive use .

Looking at this pic, I can't help but think that if you take the birds beak off the end, the handle would have been much more comfortable for me.




All in all a very well designed knife. I only really took issue with the handle, not that it was bad, just not all that comfortable for me compared to some of the other knives.

The full length made a good splitter and the tip was thin but strong







No problems with whittling wood




Very good work by G.W. Schmidt
 
Three more of my reviews added.

I must apologize to everyone involved for the time it has taken me. Circumstances in my life have taken a bit of a serious turn lately and it requires me to juggle and reprioritize my time and energy. I am still working on the reviews and they will all go up along with the final scores.

I can post final scores if the makers wish, before I am done. I will leave this thread unlocked to hear comments.
 
Take your time. I'm all good. If this was a magazine article we'd be waiting another 3 months for the publication anyway :D

Stay well, first things first. The reviews are the meat of it in a lot of ways.
 
Best thread in the forum for me. Glad you are going slow as it wont end as soon.
 
As much as I am anxious for the results, some things take precedence... take care of yourself and your family business. The interwebz can wait, bro.

Rick
 
Rick Marchand said:
As much as I am anxious for the results, some things take precedence... take care of yourself and your family business. The interwebz can wait, bro.

Rick
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What he said...hope all is well. Seriously, take care of whatever you need to brother...the scores can go up now, or later, its the reviews that are the big thing for most I would imagine!
 
Well the results are ready. We broke the judging down to seven categories; Fit & Finish, Comfort & Ergos, Edge retention, Ease of sharpening, Control, Performance, sheath.

Each category carried a maximum weight of five points except for performance.

The category of Performance carried more weight than the others for obvious reasons and was further broken down into seven sub-categories; Whittling, Pushcuts-sapling, Pushcuts fibrous, One-stick-fire, Food prep, Drilling, Batoning.

Each sub-category caried a max of five points

The food prep portion was carried out primarily by Big Mike and carried 15 points as if we each entered our five, then divided by three so that it carried the same weight as the other sub-categories in the final tally.

Tallying everything up and averaging it out certainly wasn't the most fun part of this but it was very interesting. In certain categories, the scores were pretty consistent among the three testers for any given knife. In other categories there were big variations. Many of these variations relate directly to how each user uses his knife and especially sharpens his knife. I think preferences for certain grinds can be seen here. There were other variations that seemed to make no sense to the other testers, which is why I think it worked well to have three testers. Selecting the "ideal" bushcraft knife or any other knife for that matter can be a very very subjective process.

I hope we did did these fine makers justice. I must say it was an honor to have had the opportunity to evaluate all twenty of these knives.

The final reviews will be up in the coming days.

Here are the mean scores for all testers. The top five knives are in red

Individual results will follow.

finalul.jpg
 
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I'm very happy with the results. Congratulations to Bruce Culberson. He's a great guy and obviously makes a great knife. I think his stock just went way up!

Congrats to all knifmakers involved. Thank you to the testers.

Thank you to all of you who buy knives from us and keep us striving to be better knifemakers.
 
Great works guys and congrats to all contestants. I wonder if the NWA is for sale. I''ll take!
 
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