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- Mar 8, 2008
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- 25,970
I'd say get a Condor Bolo or El Salvador machete in carbon steel. Either is inexpensive and versatile, and have enough heft to take on some pretty heavy targets. 

The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Right on. Man I was hoping you were going to write something like that :thumbup:
Im the same but lesser scale: I bring along a light axe or machete on hikes to carry out some casual light maintenance. If I'm hiking or backpacking just to enjoy the outdoors I bring just a Mora with plastic handle, only by habit. I dont think edged tools are really necessary for camping/hiking these days.
Cold Steel Frontier hawk edged out my Becker Brute in a side by chop I did this fall. This hawk is light to pack but still has some bite to it. I have a Rifleman also but it's ugly next to the New Frontier. The Rifleman is considerably heavier and bites deeper.
Go with the frontier, for the best chop-to-weight ratio :thumbup:
You can also get the pipe hawk which has the same front end as the new frontier, but the weight of a rifleman's without being as butt ugly -- also has the hammer poll.