- Joined
- Jun 29, 1999
- Messages
- 9,334
A lot of the fun of knife collecting and using is trying out new steels and designs, but I seem to have come full circle lately. My first knives, eons ago when folks burned leaded gas in their cars and TV antennas towered above homes, were plain old high carbon steel. Like the Camillus Boy Scout knife that dropped out of my pocket when I was mowing the neighbors’ lawn when I was about 12. My younger sister discovered it, completely frozen with rust, in a ground level window box about 30 years later when she and my BIL owned that house… but it was the same knife.
I field dressed my first mule deer 40-odd years ago with a Russell Canadian Belt Knife, which I still have. It’s 1080 or something close, takes a razor edge. But I never really thought about different steels until Ross Seyfried, professional African big game hunter and a great gun writer, reviewed Cold Steel’s Master Hunter in newly-introduced Carbon V steel in the May, 1990 Guns & Ammo Magazine. I was hugely impressed, and so were a lot of other knife users. The MH is a classic; mine now has a patina that’s a history of some great hunts. A few years later I discovered BladeForums, and of course it’s been downhill ever since.
Along that slippery slope I acquired knives in AUS-8, D2, VG-10, S30Vn, S35Vn, S110Vn, 20CV, CTS-XHP, 12C27, and lately, tool steels like M4 and 3V, which fall somewhere between high carbon and stainless, with some of the better properties of both. But I’ve never lost my fondness for plain old high carbon steel. Tough, relatively inexpensive, and easy to sharpen to an insanely scary edge.
Recently there was an excellent review here on BladeForums titled “Ka-Bar’s Unpopular Mk 1”, the remake of the Mark 1 USN deck knife, which of course isn’t unpopular at all. Worth looking into, I thought. It looked like an entirely practical size, big enough to pry open a durian (rare here in Alberta, perhaps thankfully), or an elk or a moose for that matter, small enough not to alarm any but the most sensitive sheeple. I like stacked leather handles, and the steel pommel – same as on the full size USMC Ka-Bar – could be useful for crushing ice, walnuts, crustaceans, and the like.
Plus, I haven’t bought a new knife since my GB2 last Fall, my birthday was coming up and since our ethically-challenged prime minister is reportedly considering a $500 bribe to seniors, totally coincidentally just before the next election, there might be a little bit of cash in the kitty. (Not that I really need an excuse.) So I ordered one on-line (my favorite Calgary bricks & mortar didn’t have them in stock and would take weeks to get one in). It arrived by Canada Post five days later. CP can’t deliver a birthday card to the US in less than two weeks, but it does OK with parcels, possibly because it charges 10 times the postage.
First impression, the Ka-Bar Mark 1 is basic, no frills. You don’t have to worry about babying it, which probably could be said for any military issue. The stacked leather grip is hand filling and sufficiently long for my hand; people with larger hands might find it a bit short. There’s a stubby finger guard. The flat ground blade is 0.165” thick, 5.125” long and 1.125 wide; overall length 9.375“, HRC 56-58. It has a sturdy clip point, nothing fragile about that. It weighs a hefty 8 ounces, feels good and solid in the hand.
The steel is 1095 Cro Van, which has been around quite a while under various names: Carbon V/0170-6/50100-B. It has 1.1% carbon, 0.6% chromium, 0.06% molybdenum, 0.25% nitrogen, 0.5% manganese, 0.25% silicon, 0.025% phosphorus, 0.025% sulfur, 0.25% vanadium. Not too much different from 52100, which is a fantastic cutlery steel.
The blade is coated with a black epoxy powder, similar to my Cabela’s Grippie in D2 and SRK. I’ve never had a problem with rust, but it does add some protection, and probably a good idea for a knife that could be used in a lot of different conditions. The coating makes it almost impossible to scrape sparks on the spine with a ferro rod, but I haven’t tried that since Boy Scouts 50+ years ago, and I wasn’t successful then. I’ll stick with BiC.
It came sharp enough for government work, as my buddy used to say, but the 20-degree edge was too obtuse for my taste; it would scrape hair but not shave. I clamped it a vise and carefully worked the bevel back a few degrees with a fine file. (I did the same thing for the same reason to my SRK a while back, which coincidentally has the same steel.) A few strokes on the DMT Extra Coarse smoothed the file marks out and raised a nice burr. I finished on the Black Arkansas bench stone I reserve for my high carbon steel blades. Result, a hair pinging edge.
The sheath, made in Mexico, with U.S.N. nicely embossed on it, is not bad. It has a proper belt loop instead of slots and a good retaining strap with a firm snap. Serviceable, as you would expect for military issue. I have a few scraps of heavier latigo leather I might use to make a sturdier sheath, or maybe ask one of the sheath makers here to whip one up that’s classier. I melted in a good dollop of SnowSeal inside and out and rubbed down the stacked leather handle, too.
OK, out to the garage for my highly scientific edge test. Whittled, split and pried a knotty 2 x 2 stick of seasoned pine down to shavings and chopsticks in about 10 minutes. That required some light batoning and twisting that I wouldn’t attempt with a folder. Not quite as easy a slicer as my GB2 with its high hollow grind, but good enough. It wasn’t quite shaving sharp at the end, but a after few licks on the Black Arkansas it was back to shrieking sharp. One of the great qualities of high carbon steel is that it’s easily sharpened on just about anything, a useful quality in the field.
Call the Ka-Bar Mark 1 a rugged, all-round utility knife that will stand up to hard use and then some. It wouldn’t be my first choice for backpacking, at nearly half a pound with sheath (ounces count), but it would be a good addition to a bugout bag, and a handy knife to have along when canoeing, car camping or, goes without saying, aboard a Navy ship.
I field dressed my first mule deer 40-odd years ago with a Russell Canadian Belt Knife, which I still have. It’s 1080 or something close, takes a razor edge. But I never really thought about different steels until Ross Seyfried, professional African big game hunter and a great gun writer, reviewed Cold Steel’s Master Hunter in newly-introduced Carbon V steel in the May, 1990 Guns & Ammo Magazine. I was hugely impressed, and so were a lot of other knife users. The MH is a classic; mine now has a patina that’s a history of some great hunts. A few years later I discovered BladeForums, and of course it’s been downhill ever since.
Along that slippery slope I acquired knives in AUS-8, D2, VG-10, S30Vn, S35Vn, S110Vn, 20CV, CTS-XHP, 12C27, and lately, tool steels like M4 and 3V, which fall somewhere between high carbon and stainless, with some of the better properties of both. But I’ve never lost my fondness for plain old high carbon steel. Tough, relatively inexpensive, and easy to sharpen to an insanely scary edge.
Recently there was an excellent review here on BladeForums titled “Ka-Bar’s Unpopular Mk 1”, the remake of the Mark 1 USN deck knife, which of course isn’t unpopular at all. Worth looking into, I thought. It looked like an entirely practical size, big enough to pry open a durian (rare here in Alberta, perhaps thankfully), or an elk or a moose for that matter, small enough not to alarm any but the most sensitive sheeple. I like stacked leather handles, and the steel pommel – same as on the full size USMC Ka-Bar – could be useful for crushing ice, walnuts, crustaceans, and the like.
Plus, I haven’t bought a new knife since my GB2 last Fall, my birthday was coming up and since our ethically-challenged prime minister is reportedly considering a $500 bribe to seniors, totally coincidentally just before the next election, there might be a little bit of cash in the kitty. (Not that I really need an excuse.) So I ordered one on-line (my favorite Calgary bricks & mortar didn’t have them in stock and would take weeks to get one in). It arrived by Canada Post five days later. CP can’t deliver a birthday card to the US in less than two weeks, but it does OK with parcels, possibly because it charges 10 times the postage.
First impression, the Ka-Bar Mark 1 is basic, no frills. You don’t have to worry about babying it, which probably could be said for any military issue. The stacked leather grip is hand filling and sufficiently long for my hand; people with larger hands might find it a bit short. There’s a stubby finger guard. The flat ground blade is 0.165” thick, 5.125” long and 1.125 wide; overall length 9.375“, HRC 56-58. It has a sturdy clip point, nothing fragile about that. It weighs a hefty 8 ounces, feels good and solid in the hand.
The steel is 1095 Cro Van, which has been around quite a while under various names: Carbon V/0170-6/50100-B. It has 1.1% carbon, 0.6% chromium, 0.06% molybdenum, 0.25% nitrogen, 0.5% manganese, 0.25% silicon, 0.025% phosphorus, 0.025% sulfur, 0.25% vanadium. Not too much different from 52100, which is a fantastic cutlery steel.
The blade is coated with a black epoxy powder, similar to my Cabela’s Grippie in D2 and SRK. I’ve never had a problem with rust, but it does add some protection, and probably a good idea for a knife that could be used in a lot of different conditions. The coating makes it almost impossible to scrape sparks on the spine with a ferro rod, but I haven’t tried that since Boy Scouts 50+ years ago, and I wasn’t successful then. I’ll stick with BiC.
It came sharp enough for government work, as my buddy used to say, but the 20-degree edge was too obtuse for my taste; it would scrape hair but not shave. I clamped it a vise and carefully worked the bevel back a few degrees with a fine file. (I did the same thing for the same reason to my SRK a while back, which coincidentally has the same steel.) A few strokes on the DMT Extra Coarse smoothed the file marks out and raised a nice burr. I finished on the Black Arkansas bench stone I reserve for my high carbon steel blades. Result, a hair pinging edge.
The sheath, made in Mexico, with U.S.N. nicely embossed on it, is not bad. It has a proper belt loop instead of slots and a good retaining strap with a firm snap. Serviceable, as you would expect for military issue. I have a few scraps of heavier latigo leather I might use to make a sturdier sheath, or maybe ask one of the sheath makers here to whip one up that’s classier. I melted in a good dollop of SnowSeal inside and out and rubbed down the stacked leather handle, too.
OK, out to the garage for my highly scientific edge test. Whittled, split and pried a knotty 2 x 2 stick of seasoned pine down to shavings and chopsticks in about 10 minutes. That required some light batoning and twisting that I wouldn’t attempt with a folder. Not quite as easy a slicer as my GB2 with its high hollow grind, but good enough. It wasn’t quite shaving sharp at the end, but a after few licks on the Black Arkansas it was back to shrieking sharp. One of the great qualities of high carbon steel is that it’s easily sharpened on just about anything, a useful quality in the field.
Call the Ka-Bar Mark 1 a rugged, all-round utility knife that will stand up to hard use and then some. It wouldn’t be my first choice for backpacking, at nearly half a pound with sheath (ounces count), but it would be a good addition to a bugout bag, and a handy knife to have along when canoeing, car camping or, goes without saying, aboard a Navy ship.
