- Joined
- Aug 4, 2009
- Messages
- 6,234
As many of you know I've been actively pushing CampSmarter and UPS to deliver an order I placed OVER FOUR MONTHS AGO, and I finally have... some of it. I got these three in the mail last night, took some pics with knives I had on hand so you could compare sizes.
I could tell as I opened the box that what little money I spent on these three items individually was well worth it. Sorry for the crappy lighting in the pics, they're taken inside my tiny apartment. I'll start with the Condor Bolo.
I believe this is the 14 inch model and my first impression was immediately the heft to the blade. It's thick and the balance is awesome, the bulk of the blade just wants to roll foreward. Almost feels as well balanced as my HB tomahawk, it's kinda begging to be thrown. I'm sure it's going to be a superb chopper. The plastic handle I thought was going to be cheap like on the ontario machetes. Not so. While not perfectly molded both sides line up, there's a very nice even texture to the grip and it just feels durable. Handle design is sound, it's plenty big and secure, although you may be able to see in the pictures that at the top and bottom the grip is squared off-if this were rounded it'd be more comfortable. The edge it comes with, albiet uneven, was super sharp. I cut myself 4 times while fondling it over some beer and some House MD last night. The grind at the ricasso was off by HALF AN INCH but meh, I'm going to flat grind it anyway after I beat the usable edge off that it has right now. Not really sure what the second false edge is for, seems pretty useless, I thought it was a real one when I bought it. There's some slight grinding imperfections at the point but overall for a 10 dollar machete I didn't expect it to be nearly this nice. The only think I really wish they would have done differently from the factory is continue the grind all the way to the grip, there's a 3 inch or so space of unground blade that will take me at least an hour to fix with a Nicholson file.
Ranger Shank-I bought this knife because I wanted an interrim rustic looking 6 inch beater blade to go with a nessmuk-ish leather belt/bandoleer bushcrafting rig that I'm piecing together. Ideally I want a WilderTools Bushkeeper but I'm not making any money right now and can't come up with those kinds of bones. My plan was to strip the blade, turn the current saber grind into a scandi grind, patina the blade and do a leather wrap for the handle. Out of the box the knife wasn't really what I was expecting. Shank is a good name for this knife because that's what it is. The Ranger description calls it a utility knife designed to fight the light carry niche and that's a pretty reliable description, the width of the blade is about half an inch thinner than what I thought it would be. The thickness at the spine is 5/32nds I believe and I think it's a good width for what I was looking for. It came pretty damn sharp considering the knife is made by Ontario. Overall fit and finish for a 30 dollar knife are excellent. As you may be able to tell there is some slight inperfection in the thickness of the grind on the edge, but that doesn't really bother me as that was going away anyway. The finish appears to be pretty good quality, it's got some kind of texture to it and don't know exactly what kind of finish it is. Other than the thickness of the blade the other thing I really didn't like about this knife was the grip. It's too small to be comfortable, I simply cannot find a grip (other than reverse...) that actually works for me with this knife. It's too small, and I have comparatively small hands anyway. There's a huge space between the first finger choil and where the grind starts and that always irks me. One of my biggest issues with a bushcrafting blade is the size of the unuseable space between the edge of the grip and the start of the grind. Since this knife wasn't what I really expected I don't know if I'll *rustify* it or just use it as a general utility or backup bug out bag knife as it came from the factory. It's more of a backup fighter than anything, though I think the Shiv, which is 2.5 inches shorter, could have a useful niche as a budget hiking/bushcrafting belt knife. If I do modify it, I'll definately grind another choil into the half inch ricasso, hopefully giving me more of a useable grip.
The RAT1... as I pulled this out of its little Ontario Randall Adventure Training Company box the first thing I noticed was the unbelievable quality in the fit and finish of this knife. The grip material and texture is awesome, and fits on the frame of the knife perfectly. The grind and logo on the blade rock. The pocket clip with the RAT triangle is a cool touch, and there are holes tapped on all sides, right left tip up tip down to mount it. I don't mind thumb studs and this ones' are ambidextrous. Sweet, I'm a southpaw. As I started to get closer with this knife one thing overall has begun to irk me. The general ergonomics of the blade and the handle are... off, in my opinion. Blade design is sweet but once again, there's a HUGE space between the edge of the useable handle and the edge of the blade, which in my opinion is wasted space that takes away from the potential control you could have over the blade. Also, the jimping is too close to really be useful for choking up on the blade. If you took a .75 inch thick drum sander to that ricasso/top portion of the handle and put a choil there the knife would be damn near perfect at the cost of 20 dollars, but there isn't and IMO it takes this knife from a 10 to about a 6.5 on my scale. The other issue I had was the backward sweep, if you follow the axis of the handle up through the blade, the blade is offset backwards about a quarter of an inch(for what purpose, I don't know) but it doesn't give the handle any clearance for working with wood or prepping food. I don't see why they had to do that and it throws the knife off. In short, awesome material quality and overall fit and finish, but I give it a definate thumbs down on ergo. Something I think they should consider and fix because to be honest I'd pay at least double for this knife if they did.
Edit: Pics are to come, photobucket is being stupid right now
I could tell as I opened the box that what little money I spent on these three items individually was well worth it. Sorry for the crappy lighting in the pics, they're taken inside my tiny apartment. I'll start with the Condor Bolo.
I believe this is the 14 inch model and my first impression was immediately the heft to the blade. It's thick and the balance is awesome, the bulk of the blade just wants to roll foreward. Almost feels as well balanced as my HB tomahawk, it's kinda begging to be thrown. I'm sure it's going to be a superb chopper. The plastic handle I thought was going to be cheap like on the ontario machetes. Not so. While not perfectly molded both sides line up, there's a very nice even texture to the grip and it just feels durable. Handle design is sound, it's plenty big and secure, although you may be able to see in the pictures that at the top and bottom the grip is squared off-if this were rounded it'd be more comfortable. The edge it comes with, albiet uneven, was super sharp. I cut myself 4 times while fondling it over some beer and some House MD last night. The grind at the ricasso was off by HALF AN INCH but meh, I'm going to flat grind it anyway after I beat the usable edge off that it has right now. Not really sure what the second false edge is for, seems pretty useless, I thought it was a real one when I bought it. There's some slight grinding imperfections at the point but overall for a 10 dollar machete I didn't expect it to be nearly this nice. The only think I really wish they would have done differently from the factory is continue the grind all the way to the grip, there's a 3 inch or so space of unground blade that will take me at least an hour to fix with a Nicholson file.
Ranger Shank-I bought this knife because I wanted an interrim rustic looking 6 inch beater blade to go with a nessmuk-ish leather belt/bandoleer bushcrafting rig that I'm piecing together. Ideally I want a WilderTools Bushkeeper but I'm not making any money right now and can't come up with those kinds of bones. My plan was to strip the blade, turn the current saber grind into a scandi grind, patina the blade and do a leather wrap for the handle. Out of the box the knife wasn't really what I was expecting. Shank is a good name for this knife because that's what it is. The Ranger description calls it a utility knife designed to fight the light carry niche and that's a pretty reliable description, the width of the blade is about half an inch thinner than what I thought it would be. The thickness at the spine is 5/32nds I believe and I think it's a good width for what I was looking for. It came pretty damn sharp considering the knife is made by Ontario. Overall fit and finish for a 30 dollar knife are excellent. As you may be able to tell there is some slight inperfection in the thickness of the grind on the edge, but that doesn't really bother me as that was going away anyway. The finish appears to be pretty good quality, it's got some kind of texture to it and don't know exactly what kind of finish it is. Other than the thickness of the blade the other thing I really didn't like about this knife was the grip. It's too small to be comfortable, I simply cannot find a grip (other than reverse...) that actually works for me with this knife. It's too small, and I have comparatively small hands anyway. There's a huge space between the first finger choil and where the grind starts and that always irks me. One of my biggest issues with a bushcrafting blade is the size of the unuseable space between the edge of the grip and the start of the grind. Since this knife wasn't what I really expected I don't know if I'll *rustify* it or just use it as a general utility or backup bug out bag knife as it came from the factory. It's more of a backup fighter than anything, though I think the Shiv, which is 2.5 inches shorter, could have a useful niche as a budget hiking/bushcrafting belt knife. If I do modify it, I'll definately grind another choil into the half inch ricasso, hopefully giving me more of a useable grip.
The RAT1... as I pulled this out of its little Ontario Randall Adventure Training Company box the first thing I noticed was the unbelievable quality in the fit and finish of this knife. The grip material and texture is awesome, and fits on the frame of the knife perfectly. The grind and logo on the blade rock. The pocket clip with the RAT triangle is a cool touch, and there are holes tapped on all sides, right left tip up tip down to mount it. I don't mind thumb studs and this ones' are ambidextrous. Sweet, I'm a southpaw. As I started to get closer with this knife one thing overall has begun to irk me. The general ergonomics of the blade and the handle are... off, in my opinion. Blade design is sweet but once again, there's a HUGE space between the edge of the useable handle and the edge of the blade, which in my opinion is wasted space that takes away from the potential control you could have over the blade. Also, the jimping is too close to really be useful for choking up on the blade. If you took a .75 inch thick drum sander to that ricasso/top portion of the handle and put a choil there the knife would be damn near perfect at the cost of 20 dollars, but there isn't and IMO it takes this knife from a 10 to about a 6.5 on my scale. The other issue I had was the backward sweep, if you follow the axis of the handle up through the blade, the blade is offset backwards about a quarter of an inch(for what purpose, I don't know) but it doesn't give the handle any clearance for working with wood or prepping food. I don't see why they had to do that and it throws the knife off. In short, awesome material quality and overall fit and finish, but I give it a definate thumbs down on ergo. Something I think they should consider and fix because to be honest I'd pay at least double for this knife if they did.
Edit: Pics are to come, photobucket is being stupid right now
