- Joined
- Jul 29, 2003
- Messages
- 27
Cleared some forest and shrubbery today with my 20" AK.
I'm still getting used to this monster, obviously, so take my comments with a few grains of salt.
It's a quite heavy and hefty blade, to be sure! I experimented with various two-handed grips, but found that I could tackle one handed cuts if I economized the power.
The AK chops well. Interestingly, sometimes it seemed to chop almost effortlessly, whereas other times it appeared to just bounce off the wood. If my angle was a little off, the blade had a tendency to "fall flat" on its side.
When I got the hang of it, I was chopping off 4 to 5 inches thick branches with little... OK, make that *some*, effort. You'd have to be quite dedicated to down a full-grown three with it, but it's not impossible.
I don't think the blade is extremely sharp. It doesn't need to be, either, as the mechanics are comparable to those of an axe. Too sharp, and the edge would become a lot more fragile, I think.
I had to wear gloves most of the time, as the carvings in the handle was giving me palm blisters. I'm wondering whether a leather over wire wrap à la European swords would make it more comfortable to wield without gloves -- have anyone tried something like this?
I accidentally hit a piece of rock whilst chopping, something that resulted in a bent tip. I'm surprised that it didn't break, actually! Won't be a problem getting it fixed, though, and it's still plenty useable.
I'm pretty certain I'll be using my 20" AK more, but I don't think it's my ideal khukuri. It appears to be too massive for anything else but the most serious chopping business, but the good side of that is that the blade will do a lot of the work for you -- once you've managed to raise it overhead...
Good thing I have a BAS by Bura coming up soon, lest my biceps become unnaturally large!
I'm still getting used to this monster, obviously, so take my comments with a few grains of salt.
It's a quite heavy and hefty blade, to be sure! I experimented with various two-handed grips, but found that I could tackle one handed cuts if I economized the power.
The AK chops well. Interestingly, sometimes it seemed to chop almost effortlessly, whereas other times it appeared to just bounce off the wood. If my angle was a little off, the blade had a tendency to "fall flat" on its side.
When I got the hang of it, I was chopping off 4 to 5 inches thick branches with little... OK, make that *some*, effort. You'd have to be quite dedicated to down a full-grown three with it, but it's not impossible.
I don't think the blade is extremely sharp. It doesn't need to be, either, as the mechanics are comparable to those of an axe. Too sharp, and the edge would become a lot more fragile, I think.
I had to wear gloves most of the time, as the carvings in the handle was giving me palm blisters. I'm wondering whether a leather over wire wrap à la European swords would make it more comfortable to wield without gloves -- have anyone tried something like this?
I accidentally hit a piece of rock whilst chopping, something that resulted in a bent tip. I'm surprised that it didn't break, actually! Won't be a problem getting it fixed, though, and it's still plenty useable.
I'm pretty certain I'll be using my 20" AK more, but I don't think it's my ideal khukuri. It appears to be too massive for anything else but the most serious chopping business, but the good side of that is that the blade will do a lot of the work for you -- once you've managed to raise it overhead...
Good thing I have a BAS by Bura coming up soon, lest my biceps become unnaturally large!
