Glad to see a new person stumbling their way into the wonderful world of khukuris
I think the first thing to establish that in the grand scheme of knives pretty much any nepalese made khukuri is on the sturdier and tougher end of things and well suited to tasks like gardening and camping. From our lineup for example we only really have the salyani which we consider a little lightly built for these tasks and potentially the chitlange but in that case it is just the tip that is a concern. As a result, if you come into Khukuris and are specifically choosing the blades that are tougher and more heavily built, you might find that you end up with something that's significantly tougher and burlier that you need and you may lose out in speed, control, an exciting feeling when you're swinging it and also in cutting efficiency. I think this is a part of why the users previously in this thread have suggested that you look into rat tail blades, as many people consider these more than sturdy enough, and they are lighter and have a more lively and exciting balance with, at times, better chopping performance due to weight distribution
A khukri is very much capable of doing batoning, splitting, and generally replacing a hatchet in the kind of style that you're suggesting. However for a khukuri to match an axe these blades often have to be somewhat optimized for this task- it isn't going to happen by accident. Ensuring that the blade has a fair amount of weight, as well as a lightweight handle for a powerful chopping balance is a great way to go about this. This is why you may have seen the Fort William or Falo mentioned previously as these are both rat tang blades with some of our most powerful chopping weight distribution. Unfortunately though, the inclusion of both micarta handle material and full tang significantly hampers your ability to get this kind of powerful shopping balance as the handle can become quite heavy.
It's at this stage that we should take a step back and consider whether a full tang is something that is genuinely needed for your application. Full tangs are an awesome addition to many knives and in the world of fixed blades where they are primarily used for batoning and cutting and slicing, they are an almost immediate addition with no downsides because the dynamic balance of such a knife is not as important. This is because they are not swung around like an axe, a sword, or a hammer for example. On a rat tail tang blade, in our experience, this handle construction is strong enough for any kind of wood chopping and outdoors tasks and can easily be used to split and baton into wood. Rat tail failures on our blades are very uncommon- maybe more uncommon than full tang to be honest. This is not due to the rat tail construction being stronger but full tang customers more frequently doing much sillier things with their knives haha
The only things that a rat tail tang should not do and which necessitate the addition of a full tang are if you are wanting to strike the top of the handle while you are batoning, if you need to lever the handle out of the wood while you are batoning, and if you are needing to pry or dig from the handle with a kukri. You can still pry with a rat tail tang just fine, however, you just need to hold it at the ricasso and pry almost in a pinch grip rather than using the full length of the handle. This isolates the tang shoulders and cho removes the risk of breaking at these locations. Depending on the size of the prying or batoning task that you will realistically need to do, it's very possible that the addition of a full tang is not required for these tasks. A secondary note is that if you require a full tang for these heavier prying, levering, and batoning tasks, then it's probably not a bad idea in our estimate to opt for the cho to be removed also. In our experience over the years, the only full tang blade failures we have seen are in that kind of work (particularly prying and levering) and they have occurred at the cho itself.
The panawal is most similar to an MSI in terms of blade pattern and shape. This is a more modern (1990's) style of kukri that became ubiquitous due to the military connection and being particularly economical to manufacture. It is slightly narrower and significantly straighter than many older kukris. Some advantages of this kind of blade style is that it has a stout and aggressive look, is reasonably narrow, meaning that for a given spine thickness it is often lighter, and that the straightness can make some tasks a little more intuitive. For example, the tip is closer to being in line with the handle, which means it is easier to thrust with. The belly is also not as drastically curved, which at times can make it easier to place your strikes when chopping. The ek chirra, in contrast, has a slightly more traditional kukri shape with quite a narrow waist and a broader belly. On many blades this shape is associated with higher chopping power, as it can put more beef towards the front of the blade. It is also often associated with better cutting efficiency, as you can use a higher or steeper bevel which will form a thinner wedge that slides into wood more easily. With this said though, our ek chirra is not a repesentative example of this broader bellied style because it does not form a wedge all the way down to the edge as you might see on our Fort William MK1, for example. Instead, it has a distinct edge bevel with a hollowed out portion in the blade. This gives it particularly unusual handling traits for such a broad-bellied blade. It makes it quite lightweight with a faster feel in hand and it also gives it a lot of rigidity and toughness in the primary grind at the expense of cutting efficiency. This is because this very distinct bevel is quite thick and, as a result, it does not sink as deeply into wood as other blades mentioned in this thread, such as the Fort William MK1, Mutiny, or Pensioner, which all have a lean and blended bevel. This begs the question, what is the Angkhola Ek Chirra good for? The answer to that is that it's a cool looking, tough all-rounder. It has an imposing blade profile with a moderate balance that is more manageable than you might expect. It is quite tough and it features fullering, which people appreciate on an aesthetic level not just for looking cool but also for showing the craft involved with the creation of the blade. This is something that is just as important to people today as it was 100 or 150 years ago in Nepal
Have a think about whether the full tang or micarta is locked in as the first step
If you can provide a breakdown of your needs eg 60% chopping, 20% machete style brush clearing 15% carving and camp work 5% self defence then I can make a tailored recommendation
