I'm a little disappointed in the Condor Hudson Bay Knife.

B

bigghoss

Joined
Jul 27, 2011
Messages
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So I ordered the condor HBK and rodan the other day and just got them in. My initial out of the box impression was that the edge was just too thick to be a really good chopper. I ran it though my worksharp and found out the edge was already about 50 degrees inclusive but I did get it very close to shaving sharp.

I threw it and a couple others in a pack and walked up the river bed that runs behind my apartment a ways to get away from prying eyes and found myself some dead wood to do a little quick testing. Not a full workout but just something to do since it was a nice day and I wanted to go for a walk and play with some knives. The wood I found was hard but my my suspicions were confirmed, it's just not that great a chopper. Not awful mind you but I think they could make it a lot better for the same price.

The knife is about 1/4" thick and the secondary full flat grind is so shallow that it might as well not even be there. I think if they made it 3/16" thick and did a proper FFG it would do everything better; carve, slice, chop and all that. I didn't do a lot of chopping or whittling but with what little I did there was no perceptible dulling of the knife so edge retention is probably good. Handle scales were a little thin but I didn't mind. Handle could be thicker but it feels good to me so I wouldn't bother replacing the scales just for thickness alone. They are a bit slick however so it might be worth it to put some custom micarta scales on to improve grip, thickness, and cosmetics. I was thinking of using some old t-shirts and doing a two tone dark brown and tan with a couple layers of red on the very inside as kind of a liner.

Honestly though I'm not even sure I'm going to keep the knife. I think I might try to trade it off for something else. Might look into having a knifemaker improve the grind on it and see how much that would cost first since I want to like the knife. I like the look of it, it seems like it wouldn't freak people out as much on the trail compared to a black "tactical" looking blade like my becker BK9. But the BK9 is lighter and performs better so for now the bk9 will remain my go-to large woods knife.

Bottom line: the Condor Hudson Bay Knife is well made and worth the price but it's performance could be improved. I would not buy this knife again as it currently comes from the factory.
 
The problem with the knife is that it isn't really a flat grind as it does not taper to the edge. It slightly tapers to about .5" from the edge and then it convexes to the edge from there. I have seen many knives like that. Makes for a strong knife, but a terrible cutter. Nice thing is that if you have a large belt grinder you can put a full convex grind on the blade and it is wide enough that you will make it a good cutter, but it is a lot of work. I have one and I totally agree with your assessment. I may try reprofiling it. This is no worse, however, that some custom jobbers I have had that had a sabre grind down to .7" from the edge then were hollow ground to the edge, on a big bowie. Makes no sense either. Hollow grinds do not belong on big knives IMO. So at least you have lots of metal to work with on this fairly cheap knife.
 
Why not try contacting the North American branch of Condor's customer service? (That's Rick Jones.) I know Condor's had trouble with thick grinds in the past, and I'm pretty sure that they consider it a defect worthy of a replacement knife.
Another thing: the box your Hudson Bay came in should have a date on it, (month/year,) that shows when it was made. It's most likely an old model, since they've had their grinding problems fixed for a while now.
 
I don't think it's a warranty issue, it is more of a design issue. All of the hudson knives are designed this way. They would have to change all of them. It's like looking at the new toyota forrunner with it's ugly square headlights that stick out and saying, I want toyota to fix this.
 
Dan57 said:
Why not try contacting the North American branch of Condor's customer service? (That's Rick Jones.) I know Condor's had trouble with thick grinds in the past, and I'm pretty sure that they consider it a defect worthy of a replacement knife.
Another thing: the box your Hudson Bay came in should have a date on it, (month/year,) that shows when it was made. It's most likely an old model, since they've had their grinding problems fixed for a while now.
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I actually did contact them with my criticisms of the knife, though I haven't heard back. Knife was made in june 2012 BTW.
 
Cobalt said:
I don't think it's a warranty issue, it is more of a design issue. All of the hudson knives are designed this way. They would have to change all of them. It's like looking at the new toyota forrunner with it's ugly square headlights that stick out and saying, I want toyota to fix this.
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Good point. It is a pretty low grind, and I think that most of Condor's grinding issues were fixed by 6/12. Ah, well.
 
I went back to the same log and tried my BK9 and a few others. The wood is harder than I thought so I may have been overly critical of the knife the first time around, but it still could benefit from the improvements I mentioned.
 
Mine chops great. About a year old too. So that probably put it in the pre fixed the grind section. It's not an axe. It's a knife. Technique?
 
If your 9 works, the Hudson Bay should as well. I have both and can chop equally well with both.
 
Mine came with less than stellar edge geometry from the factory but, with some reprofiling on my Worksharp sharpener sans the plastic guard, was able to get a nice, thinner convex grind, that really impressed me and chopped with much more authority.
 
I have one of the originals with the black finish. I stripped it and took my belt grinder to the shoulder and improved it quite a bit. It chops ok for the size. They are a bit meaty in the edge.

They are a decent hunk of steel, with a decent sheath, for a decent price.
 
I like mine but also am not that picky about a $35.00 knife to begin with. Anyhow, isn't it supposed to be more of a replica of a much older knife design? I especially love the Condor Classic finish.
 
Nothing wrong with the Condor. It fills the role of a general survival knife...and does it quite well. If you want a better chopper, look at a longer blade where you can generate some significant speed/power. There is a reason why the 18 inch machete design is a world standard.
 
Bama Joe said:
I like mine but also am not that picky about a $35.00 knife to begin with. Anyhow, isn't it supposed to be more of a replica of a much older knife design? I especially love the Condor Classic finish.
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It's shape is similar to some butcher knives I've seen who's designs likely date back some ways but I doubt the original design was .25" thick.

Nothing wrong with the Condor. It fills the role of a general survival knife...and does it quite well. If you want a better chopper, look at a longer blade where you can generate some significant speed/power. There is a reason why the 18 inch machete design is a world standard.
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As I said it's well made, the problem is with the overall design. So in my opinion there actually is something wrong with it. Machetes are large and cumbersome and a 9-10" bladed knife, such as the Becker BK9, is easier to carry and use for other tasks. If they simply gave the knife a proper FFG (they already spend time giving it a shallow and useless grind) it would perform the tasks it is designed for much better.
 
I like mine since I made a few changes to suite me.

[video=youtube;hyyTZa-kPc4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyyTZa-kPc4[/video]
 
My only real complaint of this knife is that it has no hole for paracord to keep the knife from flying off, since the handle is smooth and small. But the knife itself is built like a tank and with some proper edge work will do fine for it's intended purpose which was frontier work, where getting a replacement knife was not possible and you could not afford to have a broken knife.
 
Cobalt said:
My only real complaint of this knife is that it has no hole for paracord to keep the knife from flying off, since the handle is smooth and small. But the knife itself is built like a tank and with some proper edge work will do fine for it's intended purpose which was frontier work, where getting a replacement knife was not possible and you could not afford to have a broken knife.
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Didn't anyone ever tell those silly frontiersmen about amazon prime? :D
 
bigghoss said:
It's shape is similar to some butcher knives I've seen who's designs likely date back some ways but I doubt the original design was .25" thick.



As I said it's well made, the problem is with the overall design. So in my opinion there actually is something wrong with it. Machetes are large and cumbersome and a 9-10" bladed knife, such as the Becker BK9, is easier to carry and use for other tasks. If they simply gave the knife a proper FFG (they already spend time giving it a shallow and useless grind) it would perform the tasks it is designed for much better.
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Never use a 12"-14" Tramontina? Probably weighs less, cuts better, can be used for thin knife work, choked up on, used in snap cuts, and cuts through just about everything better than a super thick knife. All for a very cheap price.
 
RemyKaze said:
Never use a 12"-14" Tramontina? Probably weighs less, cuts better, can be used for thin knife work, choked up on, used in snap cuts, and cuts through just about everything better than a super thick knife. All for a very cheap price.
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I have machetes. For the most part I prefer a large knife.
 
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