- Joined
- Nov 13, 2001
- Messages
- 234
Fehrman Final Judgment 9.5"
Swamp Rat Camp Tramp 7.5"
Busse Natural Outlaw 6"
Edited to add some additional thoughts and to clarify a couple of points
Dunno how many of us there may be out there, but Id suspect Im one of the few people who own examples of all three makers. As such, Im in a unique position to compare them. And as fraught with peril as that may be, Ill give it a try. After that Ill make my famous Pork Tartare, which is slightly less dangerous
.
This is not a Fehrman vs. Busse vs. Swamp Rat type o thing. All of these knives are pretty extraordinary. Id feel comfortable with each of them as my one and only knife. However, because I have three different sizes I cant do an apples to apples comparison. These are three very different knives with different purposes. So I wouldnt compare the chopping power of the Natural Outlaw with its 5 useable blade length against the Fehrmans 9 inches. It just wouldnt make sense. But, the design philosophy of each maker is evident in these knives and that provides a nice way to do a quick comparison/contrast.
Ill concentrate on the design elements that are common throughout each makers line of knives and compare those to the design elements in the other knives. The things that spring immediately to mind are: blade shape, grind, tip, edge bevel, handle construction, steel, fit n finish and sheath.
First off, blade shape and grind: As you can see from the photos the blade shapes are very different. The Busse is a flat ground drop point, the Swamp Rat a saber ground clip point and the Fehrman is a flat ground, well, Id call it a modified tanto, but thats open to debate. The Fehrman is kind of interesting in that the blade width actually tapers slightly (about 1/16) from the sweet spot back to the choil. That puts more weight forward without increasing overall weight. (By "sweet spot" I mean the widest portion of the blade, the section you'd use for chopping). The Busse and Swamp Rat blades are a little wider than the Fehrman.
Next up, tips: All of these knives are of 1/4" steel, so they start out the same width. The Busse has the most pronounced distal taper (thinning of the metal as you go toward the tip) with the Swamp Rat a close second. The Fehrman has almost no distal taper. Its about the same width until you get right over the sweet spot, then it tapers to the tip. A thinner tip makes it easier to do fine, delicate work, but at the expense of some strength.
Which leads to the next point of comparison, tip construction. The Fehrman has what they call a 3-D contour grind, which to me looks like the edge bevel doesnt go all the way up to the tip itself, leaving the tip slightly undercut and very, very thick. It almost looks like its hooded, if you know what I mean. It makes for a very strong tip, but not a very sharp, pointy one. It is indeed strong. While playing with the Fehrman and a 2x4, I missed on a full power, reverse grip stab and drove the knife into my garage floor. It went about 1/8 into the concrete and took out a nickel-size gouge. Talk about your Oh, Sh*t moments! Anyway, there was just a little rolling that was quickly repaired with a ceramic rod used as a file. Five minutes of stropping restored everything to shaving sharp. I was seriously impressed. But Ive also driven the much thinner, pointier tip of the Swamp Rat into a bunch of stuff (but NOT concrete) with no damage whatsoever, so Im not sure that all of that tip strength is strictly necessary. Perhaps if you regularly stab through armor plating the thicker tip would be a plus, but even in extreme survival use, I cant imagine breaking the tips of any of these knives.
The Swamp Rat came with a penetrator tip, which means that there are two extra grinds at the top of the blade that meet the edge grind, making for an extremely acute, pointy tip. I like it a lot. As I mentioned, even though there is significantly less metal at the tip than the Fehrman and somewhat less than the standard Busse tip, I cant think of a way to break the Swamp Rat tip. I abused the Camp Tramp pretty badly late last year, really beat the crap out of it. I did put several dings and rolls in the edge, but the tip was just fine. Of the three, this is by far the best tip design, in my opinion.
The Busse is somewhere in between the two. Its pointy, but nowhere near as pointy and sharp as the Swamp Rat. Its light years sharper than the Fehrman tip. (I just rechecked, it's not "light years" sharper -- it looks pointier, but they actually feel about the same when poked into my thumb). I believe you can get the penetrator tip as an option on Busse knives. If I ordered a new Busse, Id certainly ask for it.
Next, edge bevel: Not much to say here. Im sure everyone is familiar with the Busse asymmetrical edge. This is my first experience with it, and Im looking forward to seeing how one side compares to the other in activities like slicing veggies or whittling. Im sure there are folks out there who can be a lot more articulate about the pros and cons of this edge than I can. The Swamp Rat edge is slightly convex, though you cant really see it with the naked eye the way you can see the convexity of a Sebenza. I like convex edges a lot for their balance of thinness and strength. I think Swamp Rat made a great choice. The Fehrman edge is, as far as I can tell, a vanilla v-grind. Each knife came out of the box extremely sharp.
All three are pretty thick at the edge, making them great choppers, but somewhat limited in their fine slicing & dicing abilities, though I have to admit to being very surprised at how well the Fehrman and the Swamp Rat handled the obligatory Hickory Farms beef stick over the holidays. Both could slice it extremely thin. (I wish I had a photo of this -- the Fehrman could slice see-through-thin pieces of beef stick) As long as I kept the edge angled slightly inward, they both performed as well as my chefs knives and even as well as a Japanese utility knife (the Lee Valley model). Shocked the hell out of me. Now that I have all three knives in-house, Ill have to do some more food prep testing.
Handle construction: This is another area where the knives really differ. The Swamp Rats stick tang and resiprene handle coating make for a lightweight, responsive and very grippy handle. The resiprene is hard to explain. Its hard, but not plastic-feeling. There is a nice texture and very slight give to it that make the Swamp Rat feel very secure in your hand, but without feeling soft and sticky or compromising maneuverability. The Swamp Rat also has the least handle arc of the three. It doesnt drop much from the blade to the pommel.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Busse has a pretty extreme handle drop and tip to pommel arc. The textured micarta handle slabs are plenty grippy, but (and here we venture into the realm of hand shape/size and personal opinion) I find the handle a little too thin and high (top to bottom width) for my taste. I dont feel like I have an entirely secure grip on the knife because my hand doesnt go all the way around it. Someone with larger hand would probably have an entirely different opinion. Theyd also most likely appreciate the extra 1/2 to 3/4 inch handle length as compared to the Fehrman or Swamp Rat. I really wish I had a Steel Heart or Battle Mistress to compare because the Natural Outlaw seems out of balance to me too much handle for the blade length. The handle size may be absolutely perfect on a larger knife. With that said, I can use the knife comfortably. Were talking preferences, not flaws. Interestingly, the riccasso on the Busse and Swamp Rat knives is nearly twice as long as it is on the Fehrman. The pommel on the Busse is also significantly larger than the Fehrman.
Right in between the Swamp Rat and the Busse (in terms of handle drop) comes the Fehrman handle. The micarta isnt textured, but the handle is thicker than the Busse and not quite as high, giving me, at least, a very secure, full grip. I dont, however, like the sub-hilt or finger cutout. I dont care for them in general because they force your hand into one position. One nifty thing to note is the rubber gaskets between the handle slabs and the tang. This helps absorb chopping shock and actually puts the Fehrman close to the Swamp Rat in terms of shock absorption. Cool idea. The Fehrman does not have as much tip to pommel arc as the Busse, nor does the handle drop as much from the blade, but it still has more curvature than the Swamp Rat.
As for the steel, well, thats always a matter of preference. INFI is well established as one of the premier super steels out there, having spawned a legion of fans as rabid as Sebenzaholics. Theres probably not much I can add to the sum of knowledge about this steel, especially since I havent had the NO long enough to give it a serious workout. The Swamp Rat is SR101 (52100 with a super duper proprietary heat treat) and the Fehrman is F3V (CPM3V with a super duper proprietary heat treat). Both of these are excellent steels. All three steels hold their edges well, are tough as hell and sharpen to a screaming edge. If somebody else wants to debate the finer points of their relative merits, go right ahead. My feeling is that any of them will take anything I care to throw at them.
Fit n Finish: Not much to say here, either. All of them are finished well with only a couple of minor differences between them. Of course, Id expect that. Busses and Fehrmans are expensive knives. Theyd damn well better be finished flawlessly. The real standout is the Swamp Rat, which, though simpler in design and construction really competes pretty well with the other two despite being a third of the price.
The Fehrmans handle slabs are beautifully rounded and contoured, as are all of the edges on the knife, making for a very smooth appearance and comfortable handling. The tang is flush with the handle slabs and all surfaces are nicely blended together. As an interesting sidenote, Fehrman cocks the choil back about 15-20 degrees. If you take a look at the pictures youll see that if the Busse and Swamp Rat choils go from 9:00 to 3:00, the Fehrman goes from 10:00 to about 5:00. This makes the blade balance extremely well when youre choked up and trying to do fine work with a 9 blade. This is a balance issue, and not having tried the same thing with a Battle Mistress or Battle Rat, I cant say how they compare. The comparison doesnt work with different blade lengths.
The Busses handle slabs are contoured but are not as rounded as the Fehrmans. The tang rises above the handle slabs by a 1/16th or so at the top of the handle. Im not sure if this is part of the design or not, so Ill just note it and move on.
All three have some sort of coating on the blade. The Swamp Rat and Busse have their proprietary crinkle coat, which I can attest works as advertised. The Fehrman has an industrial powder coat. These types of coatings are pretty common in the tool world and save a lot of wear and tear on the metal, not to mention improving corrosion resistance. All three coatings were well applied and even, though there are a couple of minor ripples in the Swamp Rats coating.
Sheaths: Heres my one big gripe with the Fehrman; the sheath is sloppy. Its leather, which is a big plus for some folks, but it doesnt match the quality of the knife itself. The cut at the top of the pouch is uneven and unburnished (raw leather), the stitching wanders in a couple of places and the blade doesnt fit as snugly as Id like. (The knife was donated by Eric Fehrman to a charitable auction, which I won. I might not have gotten a standard production sheath. My knife is a little different from other Final Judgements, so I may have a prototype of some sort. Other Fehrman owners have said that their sheaths are well finished).
The Swamp Rat and Busse sheaths are similar to one another but not identical. Both use a nylon over Kydex construction, but there was obviously more attention put into the Busse sheath (as it should be). The material on the Busse sheath is finer and smoother, the stitching seems a little cleaner and Kydex seems more fitted than it does on the Swamp Rat sheath. All three work just fine and hold their knives securely.
Well, there ya have it. Take a look at the accompanying photos to clarify any points that didnt make sense in the article.
Take care,
Chad
Swamp Rat Camp Tramp 7.5"
Busse Natural Outlaw 6"
Edited to add some additional thoughts and to clarify a couple of points
Dunno how many of us there may be out there, but Id suspect Im one of the few people who own examples of all three makers. As such, Im in a unique position to compare them. And as fraught with peril as that may be, Ill give it a try. After that Ill make my famous Pork Tartare, which is slightly less dangerous
.This is not a Fehrman vs. Busse vs. Swamp Rat type o thing. All of these knives are pretty extraordinary. Id feel comfortable with each of them as my one and only knife. However, because I have three different sizes I cant do an apples to apples comparison. These are three very different knives with different purposes. So I wouldnt compare the chopping power of the Natural Outlaw with its 5 useable blade length against the Fehrmans 9 inches. It just wouldnt make sense. But, the design philosophy of each maker is evident in these knives and that provides a nice way to do a quick comparison/contrast.
Ill concentrate on the design elements that are common throughout each makers line of knives and compare those to the design elements in the other knives. The things that spring immediately to mind are: blade shape, grind, tip, edge bevel, handle construction, steel, fit n finish and sheath.
First off, blade shape and grind: As you can see from the photos the blade shapes are very different. The Busse is a flat ground drop point, the Swamp Rat a saber ground clip point and the Fehrman is a flat ground, well, Id call it a modified tanto, but thats open to debate. The Fehrman is kind of interesting in that the blade width actually tapers slightly (about 1/16) from the sweet spot back to the choil. That puts more weight forward without increasing overall weight. (By "sweet spot" I mean the widest portion of the blade, the section you'd use for chopping). The Busse and Swamp Rat blades are a little wider than the Fehrman.
Next up, tips: All of these knives are of 1/4" steel, so they start out the same width. The Busse has the most pronounced distal taper (thinning of the metal as you go toward the tip) with the Swamp Rat a close second. The Fehrman has almost no distal taper. Its about the same width until you get right over the sweet spot, then it tapers to the tip. A thinner tip makes it easier to do fine, delicate work, but at the expense of some strength.
Which leads to the next point of comparison, tip construction. The Fehrman has what they call a 3-D contour grind, which to me looks like the edge bevel doesnt go all the way up to the tip itself, leaving the tip slightly undercut and very, very thick. It almost looks like its hooded, if you know what I mean. It makes for a very strong tip, but not a very sharp, pointy one. It is indeed strong. While playing with the Fehrman and a 2x4, I missed on a full power, reverse grip stab and drove the knife into my garage floor. It went about 1/8 into the concrete and took out a nickel-size gouge. Talk about your Oh, Sh*t moments! Anyway, there was just a little rolling that was quickly repaired with a ceramic rod used as a file. Five minutes of stropping restored everything to shaving sharp. I was seriously impressed. But Ive also driven the much thinner, pointier tip of the Swamp Rat into a bunch of stuff (but NOT concrete) with no damage whatsoever, so Im not sure that all of that tip strength is strictly necessary. Perhaps if you regularly stab through armor plating the thicker tip would be a plus, but even in extreme survival use, I cant imagine breaking the tips of any of these knives.
The Swamp Rat came with a penetrator tip, which means that there are two extra grinds at the top of the blade that meet the edge grind, making for an extremely acute, pointy tip. I like it a lot. As I mentioned, even though there is significantly less metal at the tip than the Fehrman and somewhat less than the standard Busse tip, I cant think of a way to break the Swamp Rat tip. I abused the Camp Tramp pretty badly late last year, really beat the crap out of it. I did put several dings and rolls in the edge, but the tip was just fine. Of the three, this is by far the best tip design, in my opinion.
The Busse is somewhere in between the two. Its pointy, but nowhere near as pointy and sharp as the Swamp Rat. Its light years sharper than the Fehrman tip. (I just rechecked, it's not "light years" sharper -- it looks pointier, but they actually feel about the same when poked into my thumb). I believe you can get the penetrator tip as an option on Busse knives. If I ordered a new Busse, Id certainly ask for it.
Next, edge bevel: Not much to say here. Im sure everyone is familiar with the Busse asymmetrical edge. This is my first experience with it, and Im looking forward to seeing how one side compares to the other in activities like slicing veggies or whittling. Im sure there are folks out there who can be a lot more articulate about the pros and cons of this edge than I can. The Swamp Rat edge is slightly convex, though you cant really see it with the naked eye the way you can see the convexity of a Sebenza. I like convex edges a lot for their balance of thinness and strength. I think Swamp Rat made a great choice. The Fehrman edge is, as far as I can tell, a vanilla v-grind. Each knife came out of the box extremely sharp.
All three are pretty thick at the edge, making them great choppers, but somewhat limited in their fine slicing & dicing abilities, though I have to admit to being very surprised at how well the Fehrman and the Swamp Rat handled the obligatory Hickory Farms beef stick over the holidays. Both could slice it extremely thin. (I wish I had a photo of this -- the Fehrman could slice see-through-thin pieces of beef stick) As long as I kept the edge angled slightly inward, they both performed as well as my chefs knives and even as well as a Japanese utility knife (the Lee Valley model). Shocked the hell out of me. Now that I have all three knives in-house, Ill have to do some more food prep testing.
Handle construction: This is another area where the knives really differ. The Swamp Rats stick tang and resiprene handle coating make for a lightweight, responsive and very grippy handle. The resiprene is hard to explain. Its hard, but not plastic-feeling. There is a nice texture and very slight give to it that make the Swamp Rat feel very secure in your hand, but without feeling soft and sticky or compromising maneuverability. The Swamp Rat also has the least handle arc of the three. It doesnt drop much from the blade to the pommel.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Busse has a pretty extreme handle drop and tip to pommel arc. The textured micarta handle slabs are plenty grippy, but (and here we venture into the realm of hand shape/size and personal opinion) I find the handle a little too thin and high (top to bottom width) for my taste. I dont feel like I have an entirely secure grip on the knife because my hand doesnt go all the way around it. Someone with larger hand would probably have an entirely different opinion. Theyd also most likely appreciate the extra 1/2 to 3/4 inch handle length as compared to the Fehrman or Swamp Rat. I really wish I had a Steel Heart or Battle Mistress to compare because the Natural Outlaw seems out of balance to me too much handle for the blade length. The handle size may be absolutely perfect on a larger knife. With that said, I can use the knife comfortably. Were talking preferences, not flaws. Interestingly, the riccasso on the Busse and Swamp Rat knives is nearly twice as long as it is on the Fehrman. The pommel on the Busse is also significantly larger than the Fehrman.
Right in between the Swamp Rat and the Busse (in terms of handle drop) comes the Fehrman handle. The micarta isnt textured, but the handle is thicker than the Busse and not quite as high, giving me, at least, a very secure, full grip. I dont, however, like the sub-hilt or finger cutout. I dont care for them in general because they force your hand into one position. One nifty thing to note is the rubber gaskets between the handle slabs and the tang. This helps absorb chopping shock and actually puts the Fehrman close to the Swamp Rat in terms of shock absorption. Cool idea. The Fehrman does not have as much tip to pommel arc as the Busse, nor does the handle drop as much from the blade, but it still has more curvature than the Swamp Rat.
As for the steel, well, thats always a matter of preference. INFI is well established as one of the premier super steels out there, having spawned a legion of fans as rabid as Sebenzaholics. Theres probably not much I can add to the sum of knowledge about this steel, especially since I havent had the NO long enough to give it a serious workout. The Swamp Rat is SR101 (52100 with a super duper proprietary heat treat) and the Fehrman is F3V (CPM3V with a super duper proprietary heat treat). Both of these are excellent steels. All three steels hold their edges well, are tough as hell and sharpen to a screaming edge. If somebody else wants to debate the finer points of their relative merits, go right ahead. My feeling is that any of them will take anything I care to throw at them.
Fit n Finish: Not much to say here, either. All of them are finished well with only a couple of minor differences between them. Of course, Id expect that. Busses and Fehrmans are expensive knives. Theyd damn well better be finished flawlessly. The real standout is the Swamp Rat, which, though simpler in design and construction really competes pretty well with the other two despite being a third of the price.
The Fehrmans handle slabs are beautifully rounded and contoured, as are all of the edges on the knife, making for a very smooth appearance and comfortable handling. The tang is flush with the handle slabs and all surfaces are nicely blended together. As an interesting sidenote, Fehrman cocks the choil back about 15-20 degrees. If you take a look at the pictures youll see that if the Busse and Swamp Rat choils go from 9:00 to 3:00, the Fehrman goes from 10:00 to about 5:00. This makes the blade balance extremely well when youre choked up and trying to do fine work with a 9 blade. This is a balance issue, and not having tried the same thing with a Battle Mistress or Battle Rat, I cant say how they compare. The comparison doesnt work with different blade lengths.
The Busses handle slabs are contoured but are not as rounded as the Fehrmans. The tang rises above the handle slabs by a 1/16th or so at the top of the handle. Im not sure if this is part of the design or not, so Ill just note it and move on.
All three have some sort of coating on the blade. The Swamp Rat and Busse have their proprietary crinkle coat, which I can attest works as advertised. The Fehrman has an industrial powder coat. These types of coatings are pretty common in the tool world and save a lot of wear and tear on the metal, not to mention improving corrosion resistance. All three coatings were well applied and even, though there are a couple of minor ripples in the Swamp Rats coating.
Sheaths: Heres my one big gripe with the Fehrman; the sheath is sloppy. Its leather, which is a big plus for some folks, but it doesnt match the quality of the knife itself. The cut at the top of the pouch is uneven and unburnished (raw leather), the stitching wanders in a couple of places and the blade doesnt fit as snugly as Id like. (The knife was donated by Eric Fehrman to a charitable auction, which I won. I might not have gotten a standard production sheath. My knife is a little different from other Final Judgements, so I may have a prototype of some sort. Other Fehrman owners have said that their sheaths are well finished).
The Swamp Rat and Busse sheaths are similar to one another but not identical. Both use a nylon over Kydex construction, but there was obviously more attention put into the Busse sheath (as it should be). The material on the Busse sheath is finer and smoother, the stitching seems a little cleaner and Kydex seems more fitted than it does on the Swamp Rat sheath. All three work just fine and hold their knives securely.
Well, there ya have it. Take a look at the accompanying photos to clarify any points that didnt make sense in the article.
Take care,
Chad
) So is the blade (not the edge)