This blade belongs to Luke Freeouf. It weighs 600 g, width is 4.2 cm, balance 1.8 cm in front of handle (my old SHBM 660 g, 3.0 cm bp). Blade has standard Busse asymettric edge, wider on one side than on the other (0.038 x 0.058 -> 18.1, 0.048 x 0.089 -> 15.1). The coating is wore away for up to 1/2", edge has some damage in locations up to about 0.5 mm deep.
This isn't a full review, but mainly a comparison of the new "E" model vs the old straight handled version I have. This blade and my straight handled old battle mistress was used for a variety of cutting including from preparing food in the kitchen to fire starting at lunchtime while lot clearing. It was used on foods, cords, all manner of vegetation (slices, chopped and splitting), as well as misc odd cutting to look at the edge durability, more details below.
I was specifically interested in how the new handle fared on wood chopping. When I first started chopping the BM-E felt light, but when I took full advantage of the new grip, the performance increased and the BM-E performed at 80 +/- 3 % of the ability of my SHBM. Considering the difference in edge geometries (my SHBM has a heavily thinned out edge), the performance would be within a few percent of each other with identical edge profiles.
General comments
Advantages of the "E" grip :
-Talon holes are sloped. You can now cut with more power as your finger fits around a more natural curve around the front talon. You can now drive off the rear talon with far less mangling of your hand and thus use more power on your swing and a further back grip.
-The handle has a more aggressive pattern cut into the Micarta, and has more swell. These lock your hand in place during cutting or chopping, increasing security and general performance, when your grip moves around you lose cutting ability. There are also a number of small differences such as the Micarta handle slabs taper at the front and the back on the bottom which improves grip comfort in choked up and far back grips.
-With the change in shape, checkering and talon holes, you can choke back on this grip so as to shift the balance point about an inch forward. This was far too uncomfortable a grip to be practical on the older straight handled Battle Mistress. I think it was Aubrey Moore who coined the phrase "Busse Pinky". Anyone who has used one of the older SHBMs for extended period of time develops a very large callous on the outside of their pinky as it tended to get mashed by the rear talon. The new handle design reduces this problem significantly.
-Handle drop. The handle is angled relative to the blade so you can chop harder with your wrist in a stronger position. It also acts to increase draw cutting ability as you can also rotate the blade smoother, and the cutting ability goes up in general as there is a shearing effect like a skew chisel. Because the blade is angled down, it also feels much lighter in hand (less torque).
Disadvantages :
-Tube fasteners. If your hand happens to put your fingers in contact with the open holes in the handle, they can be abrasive in heavy cutting. On the upside, they are lashing points.
-The tang is raised about the handle slabs (~0.055"), doesn't promote comfort.
-The grip is thinner (0.7" vs 0.825" for my SHBM). If it was as thick as I would want it (~1.125"), you would probably get complaints about fat grips. My hand is 8.25" from tip of middle finger to wrist, 4.25" across in front of thumb, and 2.25" thick through base of thumb (splayed out hand, 2.75" when relaxed), this is obviously a user specific issue.
-The talons should have been extended. Now since they are curved you can ramp over them in extreme cases were as before you would simply slam into the other straighter ones. With an oiled up grip, I would not feel comfortable doing a heavy stab. Doing some hammer with the butt, I could not keep my hand on the handle.
-I would prefer a more aggressive texture. Of course if this was the case you would probably get complaints about it being too aggressive. You can increase the aggression of the handle by using a coarse sandpaper.
Blade :
-The blade is thinner and more narrow than on the straight handled versions. This shifts the balance reducing power when chopping. It however makes fine cutting more practical as there is less strain on your hand. The loss of chopping power is compensated for by the ability of the new grip to allow a further back grip, and thus gain back the blade heavy balance. This is a very coherent and well thought out design.
General Improvements :
-If the Micarta was extended out around the talons this would make the grip even more comfortable. There may be durability concerns with this narrow a strip of Micarta so just make fatter talons.
-Longer grip. For large blades, longer grips (handle and a half), offer the ability to present a more neutral balance for precision work, plus reach and power for heavy work. This is a major design change though and would really be well suited for a larger knife overall. A ~14" blade on a handle and a half ergo grip would be one hell of a brush cutter, the ergo grip just screams for a longer blade.
BM-E edge durability, this was a side issue which I was asked to look at.
I first just chopped up a fair amount of wood. This was fresh wood, fir, pine and spruce as well as seasoned drift wood, and various scrap lumber. Knots were cut through frequently. The edge was fully sharpened, using waterstones and a CrO loaded strop, several times to enable the detection of even minor rolling. No damage was induced on the edge during any of the chopping.
The blade was then chopped into nails while they rested on a 4x4 pressure treated block. The nails would be driven into the wood from the force of the impacts, and cuts made up to about one quarter of the way through a 3.5" common nail. The edge was just blunted. A 510 g ball pein hammer was used to pound the knife into the various nails . Because the wood kept collapsing under the nail, the best that could be achieved was a cut about half way through the 3.5" nail. These various half dozen poundings put small dents in the edge, from one to two mm wide, the damaged region was up to 0.015" thick.
Next I used a harder wood block which was higher up off the floor so I could get more power behind the knife, and repeated the nail cutting. The cuts were deeper, the damage induced was more bending, but less extensive than the hammer assisted cuts. I then did some nail chopping on concrete. This didn't give under the nail, and the blade cut far deeper. I could get penetration up to half way through the 3.5" nail. I then used a 4.5 lbs beach rock to pound the knife through the nails. The larger nails took one to two hits to be cut. The edge damage from this was less than the hammer pounding, and the concrete tended to just mash the edge down a little in the impact areas, just blunting.
I then chopped into the head of the hammer. The knife made large cuts into the head, about one mm deep, and up to one cm long. This did no visible damage to the knife, just blunted it. I then found a piece of a concrete block that I had chopped up earlier and whacked that into bits. These were hits heavy enough to break the concrete apart and produce sparks. The rock contacts mashed the edge down, and produced abrasion lines in the edge. A lot of impaction had taken place, but no direct fracturing. I then stabbed the tip into the pieces a half a dozen times, breaking them. Some tip impaction, nothing significant (<0.5 mm).
I then chopped into the beach rock a half a dozen times. I was hitting the rock hard enough to send it flying feet across the floor and producing visible sparks. This induced more impaction than the concrete, the edge was impacted up to 0.035" across, the blade thickness was a little less than this behind the impacted region, about 0.025"-0.030". Again no fracture, you could clearly see the squashed steel. I then stabbed the tip into the rock, sending sparks flying and the rock shooting across the floor again. I did this a half a dozen times and it impacted the tip about one mm.
I then held the knife out at arms length and examined it for damage. The regions that had been whacked into the beach rock were visibly impacted, but overall it didn't look that heavily used. I took a few shots, and could not tell from the pictures that it had changed significantly from before. Cheap camera though, no ability to do close ups. So I take the blade and put it at a forty five degree angle and then give the edge a whack with the hammer. Success. This bends a piece of the edge enough that the ductility is exceeded and it tears off. This removed a piece of the edge about three mm long and the blade was 0.030" thick behind the damaged region. This damage was visible at arms length.
How was the cutting ability effected? After the concrete chopping the blade still had the ability to slice cardboard, chop wood, and slice various cords in the regions of heaviest damage. Though you could tell of course it was seriously blunted. After I whacked it into the beach rock there was no fine cutting ability left in those impact areas. You could still chop wood, but you were crushing it a lot, and the performance was seriously degraded. Of course there were lots of sharp areas left on the blade. Time to sharpen the blade on a small belt sander (1x30"), would be a couple of minutes, just a few passes per side would eliminate 90% of the damage, sharpening by hand, it would take less than half an hour.
-Cliff
