Coghlans Machete?

Y

YoYoMa

Joined
Oct 30, 2002
Messages
112
I'm interested in purshasing a Coghlans machete from the local Canadian Tire. The price is good ($12), but does anybody know what they are like quality wise?

Thanks.
 
They are pretty lousy. Stick with the GI Ontario
or pretty much any one of the Latin American brands like Tramontina, Corneta, Imacasa, etc.
The most expensive is the Ontario around $20 but any of the others is usually less than the $12 Coghlan.
 
I took a look at a couple of the Coghlan machetes in a store and they did not appear to be well made or study enough for hard use, so I passed on them.

In the same price range, I would recommend one of the Barteaux Economy machetes – an excellent basic machete. If you prefer a very light machete Barteaux has a similar Budget line with thinner blades. I wrote a short review of the Barteaux B18 Budget machete in this thread:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=215488

If you are willing to spend more and want a heavier machete, the Ontarios that Alex suggested are a very good choice, except for the handle rivets which tend to come loose (Ontario has a new line of machetes with a molded on D guard handles which solve this problem).

For an even heavier machete, I would recommend the Barteaux Heavy Duty line with the D guard handles. I also have a review of the Barteaux M18 posted here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207783



-Frank
 
Thanks all. The $12 is in CAN funds, which works out to be about $8 US. Still, I don't want to have to order anything in by mail, and the Coghlan's is the only one I've seen for retail where I live. Oh, well...

But the consensus is that it's not even worth the $8 US?
 
Mine was bent like a pretzel in less than twenty minutes. Try to find a decent Tramontina (which isn't easy with their quality control), or Barteaux which will work.
 
The Canadian Tire machete is really bad.
I have one.
I was actually thinking of writing them.
I bought a Colombian Gavilan in S America for 3 US
dollars.
The steel is so hard, I dulled one of my files
sharpening it, yet very tough, no blade chips so far.

I do not know where you are, but in Toronto you
can find Guatemalan Colima machetes, which are not
as good as a Gavilan but better than Tramontina
and much better that Can Tire.
 
Is there an Army/Navy store near you? A Hiking store? Try those places for better Machete sellection.
 
I purchased two of them many years ago and managed to turn them both into odd prezel shapes in less then five minutes. They really are that bad.

n2s
 
That particular Machete is the only blade I've ever cracked lengthwise. I was using one at the boy scout camp I worked at while we were doing the Wilderness Survival merit badge, and while felling a dead pine tree to make a shelter example (the scouts couldn't cut stuff down for the badge tests, but we were setting up demos). There was this odd *SPROING* and about the top 1/2 of the blade went flying. If you're looking for a cheap but decent machete, go for the ones mentioned or a Cold Steel machete. My personal preference is for a Golok or a Khukri, but they're a bit more expensive.

TC
 
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