abbydaddy
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- Oct 14, 2014
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As per usual, this review is essentially identical to the one on my personal blog. The only difference is that there are more functioning links in the original on my blog (if you want, you can view the original here), but since the idea is not to use BladeForums as a way to get people to go to my own site I try to make sure that everything important is available here.
The Carothers Performance Knives Behemoth Chopper. It is a Behemoth. Big enough that even my hand doesn't ruin the visual scale.
Introduction:
Today’s knife review is a fun one for me. I was fortunate enough to manage to finagle an opportunity to review a Carothers Performance Knives Behemoth Chopper (BC from here on out). It was a lot of fun, and it definitely made me sad to send the BC on to its permanent home when I had finished my two weeks with it. The BC is a very large and quite expensive knife. The BC was the most expensive knife I have ever gotten to handle coming in at right around the $700 mark with the sheath, handle options, and shipping as tested. I simply couldn’t afford to keep the knife at this time in my life, but I wanted to. On that note, I’ll go ahead and put the TL;DR right up front.
The TL;DR review summary:
The Behemoth Chopper is a big expensive knife. In terms of practical functionality, it might be hard to justify the cost over the cost of a simple machete, but I’ve never used a machete that was so fun. This is a fun knife. The ergonomics and just the way it feels in your hand are outstanding. If you can afford to spend the money on a fun chopper, I don’t think you will be disappointed.
The knife is made by Carothers Performance Knives, which is headed by Nathan Carothers (and his wife Jo). Nathan Carothers is a very experienced machinist, with a vast materials knowledge, as well as a truly impressive capability at using CNC machining. He is also very willing to share his knowledge, I have learned a lot over the few years paying attention to Carothers (Here is a BladeForums thread of people asking Nathan questions and him answering, it is educational and up to 93 pages long as of the writing of this post). CPK is an exciting brand to pay attention to, but at the current time demand is far exceeding their production capability which makes it hard to get a lot of CPK knives. Sales for many of the models literally sell out in under 5 seconds, which means that buying a CPK knife can be tricky and leave you with no option but heading to the secondary market where prices can vary. However, CPK has been working hard at upping their production capacity, and recently they have had a few sales that lasted for multiple minutes. That might not seem like much, but it is a good sign for people wanting to get their hands on one of these knives.
The knife was designed in cooperation with Lorien Arnold, a talented knife designer from British Columbia, Canada. Lorien cooperates with numerous knife makers, but has been partnering extensively with CPK recently. Sadly, I can't afford the custom knives he designs, but I am a fan nonetheless.
The Carothers/Arnold collaboration has been a very interesting one to watch. I have previously reviewed the Medium Chopper, Light Chopper, and Heavy Duty Field Knife from this partnership.
A family photo. Top to bottom: Behemoth Chopper, Medium Chopper, Light Chopper
Let's Start With the Specs:
Specs:
Delta 3V, 60.5 HRC, .250 thick at ricasso (1/4")
Total length 17.75"
Blade length 12.0"
Weight 24.5 oz
Edge angle 20 DPS
.035" BTE with additional meat towards the tip.
Grippy 3D machined scales in micarta or TeroTuf
Black oxide treated 18-8 stainless steel fasteners
Hidden lanyard hole
The Behemoth Chopper name seems appropriate considering that A) it is a really big knife, and B) it is too long to meet the Blade Sports competition chopper limits.
The handle of the BC I reviewed is made of unbuffed olive drab (OD) canvas micarta. Micarta is made by layering textiles (canvas, linen, or paper usually) with phenolic resin and compressing them. The unbuffed micarta is less shiny and grippier. As I have written in numerous other reviews, I really like micartas in general, and canvas micarta is one of my favorite high performing handle materials. To me, micarta feels warm in the hand, like wood, and even though it is actually a very hard material, it somehow feels soft in my hand (at least when shaped well). But one of my favorite things about an unsealed canvas micarta, is that the tiny bit of exposed textile ends actually make micarta grippier when wet. Not a ton grippier (after all most of the resin soaked textile is impermiable), it is just the very surface that is affected, but it is a nice feature. From a materials perspective, as a user, unbuffed canvas micarta is hard to beat in my book; however, if I had been choosing a handle material for myself, I would have gone with Ebonite (as on the Medium Chopper I recently reviewed). But Ebonite does certainly have tradeoffs in terms of durability, and micarta is always an excellent option.
The blade material on this knife is CPK's proprietary heat treat of CPM 3V, known as Delta 3V (D3V). CPM 3V is a particle super steel, it is made with science magic. I'm not going to try to explain all the specifics because I am not a metallurgist and blade steel is a surprisingly complicated topic. There is no one perfect steel for every knife. Each steel type has its own set of properties, and the choice of which properties are important to a knife is a key decision for knife makers. Additionally, the properties of various steels are affected by heat treatment (the ways that the metal is heated and cooled to control hardness) and heat treatment can even affect the crystalline structure of the steel and the ways that the compounds in the steel combine. So for the purposes of my reviews, science magic.
That said, I think it is worthwhile to discuss the characteristics of CPM 3V a little. CPM 3V is not a stainless steel, though it does contain 7.5% chromium, which provides more stain resistance than one might expect from a carbon steel. In terms of edge holding properties at the hardness used for most knives, CPM 3V is very comparable to CPM S35VN (which is the stainless particle steel the Difensa is made of). The biggest difference between 3V and S35VN (besides rust resistance) is toughness. 3V is roughly 3 times as impact resistant as S35VN. It is a very tough steel, appropriate for a knife intended for rough applications. CPM 3V is very, very tough, not stainless, and holds an edge well.
D3V is really an exceptional heat treat of an already outstanding steel. Nathan Carothers (AKA Nathan The Machinist on BladeForums) developed his proprietary heat treat of 3V that provides a pretty unbeatable combination of hardness, toughness, lateral strength, resilience, edge retention, and as an added bonus the heat treat leaves a higher percentage of free chromium in the steel matrix which makes D3V almost-but-not-quite-stainless. Standard 3V is an excellent steel, D3V elevates that steel to a level that is unmatched in my experience for a heavy use knife (Busse knives uses a proprietary steel called INFI which is generally considered the industry standard for heavy use knives, but I have never used an INFI knife myself).
A Note on the Sheath:
Behemoth Chopper with the Mashed Cat Kydex Sheath
This knife was reviewed with the drop loop kydex sheath produced by Mashed Cat. The seath was quite excellent. The drop loop placed the knife at a good height. The retention was secure, but not too hard to extract the knife from. All in all, it was an excellent sheath option. Out of the CPK knives that I have reviewed, this knife had the best standard sheath in my opinion. I would not feel compelled to buy a different sheath or aftermarket belt loop. I still prefer leather in terms of appearance, but for practical purposes, I don’t know that you could improve much on the Mashed Cat sheath.
The Carothers Performance Knives Behemoth Chopper. It is a Behemoth. Big enough that even my hand doesn't ruin the visual scale.
Introduction:
Today’s knife review is a fun one for me. I was fortunate enough to manage to finagle an opportunity to review a Carothers Performance Knives Behemoth Chopper (BC from here on out). It was a lot of fun, and it definitely made me sad to send the BC on to its permanent home when I had finished my two weeks with it. The BC is a very large and quite expensive knife. The BC was the most expensive knife I have ever gotten to handle coming in at right around the $700 mark with the sheath, handle options, and shipping as tested. I simply couldn’t afford to keep the knife at this time in my life, but I wanted to. On that note, I’ll go ahead and put the TL;DR right up front.
The TL;DR review summary:
The Behemoth Chopper is a big expensive knife. In terms of practical functionality, it might be hard to justify the cost over the cost of a simple machete, but I’ve never used a machete that was so fun. This is a fun knife. The ergonomics and just the way it feels in your hand are outstanding. If you can afford to spend the money on a fun chopper, I don’t think you will be disappointed.
The knife is made by Carothers Performance Knives, which is headed by Nathan Carothers (and his wife Jo). Nathan Carothers is a very experienced machinist, with a vast materials knowledge, as well as a truly impressive capability at using CNC machining. He is also very willing to share his knowledge, I have learned a lot over the few years paying attention to Carothers (Here is a BladeForums thread of people asking Nathan questions and him answering, it is educational and up to 93 pages long as of the writing of this post). CPK is an exciting brand to pay attention to, but at the current time demand is far exceeding their production capability which makes it hard to get a lot of CPK knives. Sales for many of the models literally sell out in under 5 seconds, which means that buying a CPK knife can be tricky and leave you with no option but heading to the secondary market where prices can vary. However, CPK has been working hard at upping their production capacity, and recently they have had a few sales that lasted for multiple minutes. That might not seem like much, but it is a good sign for people wanting to get their hands on one of these knives.
The knife was designed in cooperation with Lorien Arnold, a talented knife designer from British Columbia, Canada. Lorien cooperates with numerous knife makers, but has been partnering extensively with CPK recently. Sadly, I can't afford the custom knives he designs, but I am a fan nonetheless.
The Carothers/Arnold collaboration has been a very interesting one to watch. I have previously reviewed the Medium Chopper, Light Chopper, and Heavy Duty Field Knife from this partnership.
A family photo. Top to bottom: Behemoth Chopper, Medium Chopper, Light Chopper
Let's Start With the Specs:
Specs:
Delta 3V, 60.5 HRC, .250 thick at ricasso (1/4")
Total length 17.75"
Blade length 12.0"
Weight 24.5 oz
Edge angle 20 DPS
.035" BTE with additional meat towards the tip.
Grippy 3D machined scales in micarta or TeroTuf
Black oxide treated 18-8 stainless steel fasteners
Hidden lanyard hole
The Behemoth Chopper name seems appropriate considering that A) it is a really big knife, and B) it is too long to meet the Blade Sports competition chopper limits.
The handle of the BC I reviewed is made of unbuffed olive drab (OD) canvas micarta. Micarta is made by layering textiles (canvas, linen, or paper usually) with phenolic resin and compressing them. The unbuffed micarta is less shiny and grippier. As I have written in numerous other reviews, I really like micartas in general, and canvas micarta is one of my favorite high performing handle materials. To me, micarta feels warm in the hand, like wood, and even though it is actually a very hard material, it somehow feels soft in my hand (at least when shaped well). But one of my favorite things about an unsealed canvas micarta, is that the tiny bit of exposed textile ends actually make micarta grippier when wet. Not a ton grippier (after all most of the resin soaked textile is impermiable), it is just the very surface that is affected, but it is a nice feature. From a materials perspective, as a user, unbuffed canvas micarta is hard to beat in my book; however, if I had been choosing a handle material for myself, I would have gone with Ebonite (as on the Medium Chopper I recently reviewed). But Ebonite does certainly have tradeoffs in terms of durability, and micarta is always an excellent option.
The blade material on this knife is CPK's proprietary heat treat of CPM 3V, known as Delta 3V (D3V). CPM 3V is a particle super steel, it is made with science magic. I'm not going to try to explain all the specifics because I am not a metallurgist and blade steel is a surprisingly complicated topic. There is no one perfect steel for every knife. Each steel type has its own set of properties, and the choice of which properties are important to a knife is a key decision for knife makers. Additionally, the properties of various steels are affected by heat treatment (the ways that the metal is heated and cooled to control hardness) and heat treatment can even affect the crystalline structure of the steel and the ways that the compounds in the steel combine. So for the purposes of my reviews, science magic.
That said, I think it is worthwhile to discuss the characteristics of CPM 3V a little. CPM 3V is not a stainless steel, though it does contain 7.5% chromium, which provides more stain resistance than one might expect from a carbon steel. In terms of edge holding properties at the hardness used for most knives, CPM 3V is very comparable to CPM S35VN (which is the stainless particle steel the Difensa is made of). The biggest difference between 3V and S35VN (besides rust resistance) is toughness. 3V is roughly 3 times as impact resistant as S35VN. It is a very tough steel, appropriate for a knife intended for rough applications. CPM 3V is very, very tough, not stainless, and holds an edge well.
D3V is really an exceptional heat treat of an already outstanding steel. Nathan Carothers (AKA Nathan The Machinist on BladeForums) developed his proprietary heat treat of 3V that provides a pretty unbeatable combination of hardness, toughness, lateral strength, resilience, edge retention, and as an added bonus the heat treat leaves a higher percentage of free chromium in the steel matrix which makes D3V almost-but-not-quite-stainless. Standard 3V is an excellent steel, D3V elevates that steel to a level that is unmatched in my experience for a heavy use knife (Busse knives uses a proprietary steel called INFI which is generally considered the industry standard for heavy use knives, but I have never used an INFI knife myself).
A Note on the Sheath:
Behemoth Chopper with the Mashed Cat Kydex Sheath
This knife was reviewed with the drop loop kydex sheath produced by Mashed Cat. The seath was quite excellent. The drop loop placed the knife at a good height. The retention was secure, but not too hard to extract the knife from. All in all, it was an excellent sheath option. Out of the CPK knives that I have reviewed, this knife had the best standard sheath in my opinion. I would not feel compelled to buy a different sheath or aftermarket belt loop. I still prefer leather in terms of appearance, but for practical purposes, I don’t know that you could improve much on the Mashed Cat sheath.
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