HI Survival Knife

I recently got my hands on an HI survival knife, which was inspired by the successful Cold Steel Bushman. I am familiar over the course of years with the abilities of the Bushman, an inexpensive but durable knife. I was pleased to see what the kamis of HI did with the concept of the Bushman as a starting point.

I pulled a brand spankin' new bushman out from under my bed for comparison purposes.




The CS weighs in at 100g, and has a hollow grind. The HI is 3x the mass at 300g, and has a scandi grind. The HI is considerably thicker.



The mass difference is easily perceptable. The HI has the heft that inspires confidence in its ability to chop.

The knife came with a high-quality sheath.



Here's a side view to show the thickness. Congratulations to the sarkis on this worksmanship.



I took the knife out to the backyard for a little batonning and chopping.



The thickness of the blade was an advantage when splitting wood with the knife and baton.



As evidenced from the close-up, the wood is only cut at the beginning, and after that the knife is acting as a wedge to pop the wood apart. There was little to no vibration of the handle during battoning. The knife was quite comfortable and efficient (as knives go) at splitting wood.

I then tried a little chopping. The knife crewed through a chunk of douglas fir with little effort.





Just for fun I decided to pound the knife point first into some wood.



The knife held up well to this abuse. You can see from the vertical shot how hefty the handle material is. After all the chopping and pounding there was no edge or tip deformation.

Then came the tough testing (for this knife). Into the kitchen. Red Flower provided a "survival sweet potato" that had been in the refrigerator for too long and had started to go bad in spots. My mission was to peel it, cut out the bad spots, and then dice the good parts to go into the pot with our corned beef for dinner. The moment of truth. Would the bulky HI monster be able to peel a potato, or would the merciless Red Flower make me go hungry once again?



My first peelings were pretty thick, but after I got the hang of it I was able to continue with respectably thin peels.



Taking out bad areas with the knife tip was not a problem.



Dicing the potato was interesting. Not like a thin kitchen knife. The sharp edge would cut at first but as the thick blade sunk into the vegetable it would wedge it apart with a pop similar to what happened with battoning wood. Nonetheless, the potato was diced quickly and easily, if not in the usual manner.

We did enjoy the fruits (and veggies) of my labor later that evening.

 

Either that, or that I am in on the conspiracy!

It's either heavy thread or light twine. I'm not sure what the material is but it is comfortable and insulates the hand from the bare steel. It also provides a good purchase on the handle.

 

It is a good solid grip.

I pulled out the CS so I could compare grips to answer your question. After several minutes I decided it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. I do like the string wrap on the HI because of its insulating properties and the sureness it gives the grip. It would be easy enough to put a similar wrap on the Bushman should one desire.