- Joined
- Jun 6, 2000
- Messages
- 3,625
I have been using and testing three Ka Bar knives, I use the term Ka Bar though two come from the company Ka Bar and one from Camillus. So to make this more easy on the brain, I will try and avoid confusion!
The three knives are, the D2 Ka Bar by Ka Bar, the Marine 1095 Ka Bar by Ka Bar and the Ka Bar by Camillus! I will call the two 1095 steel blades the Marine knife and keep the two as seperate paragraphs. The D2 blade I will discuss seperatly as well.
The Ka Bar Marine knife has an interesting history. Some time in 1942, around the time that America was gearing up for war, United Cutlery submitted a design intended for the United States Marine Corps. This knife however was not accepted by the Marines. Camillus were at the same time making a fighting knife for the Navy, called the Mk1 knife.
United and Camillus basicly worked with this design and with imput from the USMC made several changes and thus the Mk2 knife was born. Camillus made the knife for the Navy and United for the Marines. This knife (the Mk2) is commonly seen as the Ka Bar fighting knife, the Marine and Navy versions were at the time different in only two respects. The Marine version was marked USMC and was made by United, while the Navy version was marked respectivly and made by Camillus. It is noteworthy that demand for said knives has resulted in many companies making the Mk2 patten knife over the years. Ka Bar, Ontario, Camillus, United to name the main producers.
As time went on, this knife was adopted by other military branches of the United States Military as were appropiatly marked. Several improvements were made to the design over the years, most significantly the way the butt cap was attached to the tang of the knife. This was greatly strengthened on later models to reflect the practical use of soldiers in the field. Origionally the butt cap was screwed to the tang, while later versions were pinned and had a larger, thicker butt cap.
One thing is true of the Mk2 knife. The use of high carbon steel. Not stainless or similar. This is perhaps surprising considering its marine envivoment usage as well as the conditions in the Pacific. However in the day, stainless steels simply did not perform as modern stainless steels do and even today, it is unlikely that a modern stainess steel would be as easy to sharpen in the field as well as be tough and hold a good edge. The steel used is commenly accepted to be 1095 carbon steel. It was usually hardened to a Rc of between 56 and 58. This makes it a very good choice of steel when you want a soldier proof knife that must be able to withstand digging, cutting and opening ration cans in the field without breaking!
I would like to talk about how I preped these knives for cutting testing. Firstly, I wanted to make sure the tests would be fair on all the knives. So to start with all the knives were sharpened to the same 20 degree angle on a Sharpmaker. This took a lot of time on the Camillus blade as it came noticably less sharp than the Ka Bar brand knives. Then I sharpened the swedge on each knife. Again to a 20 degree angle. The blades were finished on the flats of the white sticks on the sharp maker and I was very careful to avoid a wire edge and make sure each blade was shaving sharp. The Ka Bar brand knives did not really need this sharpening, but I wanted all three blades at the exact same angle and level of polish edge wise. Also I wanted fresh steel at the edge. As the D2 model knife has serrations, I taped all three blades so as to limit them to a 5" plain edge for testing. I did not want the serrations to play an unfair part in the tests.
Well, lets talk about the knives under review.
First off the bat we have the Mk2 Knife made by Camillus. As you can see, this has the brown leather stacked handle (though black is available) is 1095 steel and has a black phosphate coated blade. It has of course a plain edge format and a nice leather sheath with the USMC logo on it. The blade came with a very durable edge angle of about 25 degree's per side and the swedge is semi sharp. This knife would not shave hair out of the box.
Secondly we have the Ka Bar made Mk2 knife. Very similar to the Camillus model, but you do notice several differences right away. Firstly the blade has a nicer finish to the blade, Ka Bar uses an epoxy powder coating, rather than the phosphate coating of Camillus. This has a couple of noticable differences. The Epoxy finish is more pleasing to the eye, it looks more uniform and looks much better when new. However it does show scratches up very easily and looks a right mess when the knife gets hard use. It is not very durable, but does offer a good level of rust resistance reduces reflections. The phosphate finish is rather more durable and is better for a dull non reflective finish than the epoxy finish. It does however look very rough and ready out of the box.
The Ka Bar Mk2 has the same leather stacked handle desgin as well as the same 1095 steel blade. The knife came with a very very sharp edge. It easily shaved hair and was around 20 degree's per side. The swedge came semi sharp like the Camillus.
Lastly we have the D2 Ka Bar knife. There are a number of obvious differences, but let me point them out anyway. Firstly the blade has 2" of serrations near the guard, secondly there is no longer a top guard, thirdly, the handle is no longer a stacked leather handle, but rather a Kraton G. The guard and pommel are now made from powdered metal for added strength and the blade steel is the semi stainless D2 steel. You will also notice the Eagle industries sheath, rather than the leather pattern sheath.
Performance.
The Mk2 Camillus.
Once this blade was sharpened, It cut very nicely. In fact it was able to shave hair with ease! I started with the sort of test every field knife must perform. I cut wood in the woods. I chose some dead branches and started hacking away with the knife. Chips of wood flew and after 5 mins exactly I stopped and looked at the edge. No damage visable, though in a couple of spots the edge would only roughly shave hair now. The chopping test was a bit of a let down as it did not perform even close to other blades I own in the same weight and class. This basic design is simply not as good for chopping as I thought it might be. The blade is quite light for the job really. The handle made chopping very comfortable on the hand and wrist though.
The second test was battoning. I made sure the tip was pointing upwards slightly to reduce the stress on the tang and battoned some 3" thick branches, using a large branch to hit the spine. No problems here, in fact this knife battoned very very well. No edge damage was evident
The next test was feather sticks for my fire. I cut ten feather sticks and proceeded to feather them. The knife was more than sharp enough to perform this task, though I noted that a larger blade like this was perhaps a bit of overkill for this task. I was able to do all ten feather sticks with a little more care than usual due to the size of the blade. At this stage, I had not noticed any drop in performance and the edge was holding up just fine, in fact it still shaved hair, though to be acurate it was scrape shaving rather than hair popping now.
I then used the blade to remove bark from a tree for tinder, I was very careful not to cause too much distress to the tree and the knife did this with ease. Then I used the knife as a draw knife on a dead log and proceeded to create nice wide shavings of wood for the fire. Again the blade held up just fine and did this with ease. At this point I would warn users about the swedge... I did sharpen it and its my fault! It bit me at this part of the test. Be careful!
That was it for the edge testing in the field, so I finished by stabbing the knife into the dead log and mildly twisting it out. This popped wood chips all over the place after doing this ten times. The edge was undamaged and the tip was still very sharp. No bending was evident.
After all this work I wiped the blade with a cloth, put a little oil on it and returned it to its sheath.
The Mk2 Ka Bar
This knife was also hair poppingly sharp, so I began with the chppong on the dead branch test. I again timed myself to 5 mins of chopping and to be honest the results in using the knife were pretty much identical while using the blade. Performance was reasonable, no better or worse than the Camillus blade. The same limitations apply to this knife and that is no surprise really as they are almost identical. However, edge inspection did show up a couple of surprises. Firstly the edge was slightly more dulled, in fact it would no longer shave hair in one section of blade (the area most used) and there were a couple of dings on the edge. Nothing serious, but impact damage none the less. I was in two minds at this stage, I had brought a steel and Spyerco ceramic stick with me, and in field use would certainly have used them right now to minimise further edge damage. However if I did this, this would not be a fair test. So I decided to continue without further thought.
I moved on to do some battoning again with the same items and it performed very well. The edge showed no further damage from this test.
Next I went on to do the feather sticks, again the size of the blade made this a bit of a chore, but while it performed to an acceptable level, I noticed it was a bit harder to do than the Camillus knife and the couple of dings in the edge were having a small effect on the task. Sometimes you would feel the wood "catch" on these dings and it was a bit disconcerting to say the least. I did all ten sticks and looked at the edge. The dings had become slightly more noticable and a couple of white lines were now visable on the edge. This indicated that the knife was dulling a little bit. I tried to shave and to be honest this was now simply not possible.
The three knives are, the D2 Ka Bar by Ka Bar, the Marine 1095 Ka Bar by Ka Bar and the Ka Bar by Camillus! I will call the two 1095 steel blades the Marine knife and keep the two as seperate paragraphs. The D2 blade I will discuss seperatly as well.
The Ka Bar Marine knife has an interesting history. Some time in 1942, around the time that America was gearing up for war, United Cutlery submitted a design intended for the United States Marine Corps. This knife however was not accepted by the Marines. Camillus were at the same time making a fighting knife for the Navy, called the Mk1 knife.
United and Camillus basicly worked with this design and with imput from the USMC made several changes and thus the Mk2 knife was born. Camillus made the knife for the Navy and United for the Marines. This knife (the Mk2) is commonly seen as the Ka Bar fighting knife, the Marine and Navy versions were at the time different in only two respects. The Marine version was marked USMC and was made by United, while the Navy version was marked respectivly and made by Camillus. It is noteworthy that demand for said knives has resulted in many companies making the Mk2 patten knife over the years. Ka Bar, Ontario, Camillus, United to name the main producers.
As time went on, this knife was adopted by other military branches of the United States Military as were appropiatly marked. Several improvements were made to the design over the years, most significantly the way the butt cap was attached to the tang of the knife. This was greatly strengthened on later models to reflect the practical use of soldiers in the field. Origionally the butt cap was screwed to the tang, while later versions were pinned and had a larger, thicker butt cap.
One thing is true of the Mk2 knife. The use of high carbon steel. Not stainless or similar. This is perhaps surprising considering its marine envivoment usage as well as the conditions in the Pacific. However in the day, stainless steels simply did not perform as modern stainless steels do and even today, it is unlikely that a modern stainess steel would be as easy to sharpen in the field as well as be tough and hold a good edge. The steel used is commenly accepted to be 1095 carbon steel. It was usually hardened to a Rc of between 56 and 58. This makes it a very good choice of steel when you want a soldier proof knife that must be able to withstand digging, cutting and opening ration cans in the field without breaking!
I would like to talk about how I preped these knives for cutting testing. Firstly, I wanted to make sure the tests would be fair on all the knives. So to start with all the knives were sharpened to the same 20 degree angle on a Sharpmaker. This took a lot of time on the Camillus blade as it came noticably less sharp than the Ka Bar brand knives. Then I sharpened the swedge on each knife. Again to a 20 degree angle. The blades were finished on the flats of the white sticks on the sharp maker and I was very careful to avoid a wire edge and make sure each blade was shaving sharp. The Ka Bar brand knives did not really need this sharpening, but I wanted all three blades at the exact same angle and level of polish edge wise. Also I wanted fresh steel at the edge. As the D2 model knife has serrations, I taped all three blades so as to limit them to a 5" plain edge for testing. I did not want the serrations to play an unfair part in the tests.
Well, lets talk about the knives under review.
First off the bat we have the Mk2 Knife made by Camillus. As you can see, this has the brown leather stacked handle (though black is available) is 1095 steel and has a black phosphate coated blade. It has of course a plain edge format and a nice leather sheath with the USMC logo on it. The blade came with a very durable edge angle of about 25 degree's per side and the swedge is semi sharp. This knife would not shave hair out of the box.
Secondly we have the Ka Bar made Mk2 knife. Very similar to the Camillus model, but you do notice several differences right away. Firstly the blade has a nicer finish to the blade, Ka Bar uses an epoxy powder coating, rather than the phosphate coating of Camillus. This has a couple of noticable differences. The Epoxy finish is more pleasing to the eye, it looks more uniform and looks much better when new. However it does show scratches up very easily and looks a right mess when the knife gets hard use. It is not very durable, but does offer a good level of rust resistance reduces reflections. The phosphate finish is rather more durable and is better for a dull non reflective finish than the epoxy finish. It does however look very rough and ready out of the box.
The Ka Bar Mk2 has the same leather stacked handle desgin as well as the same 1095 steel blade. The knife came with a very very sharp edge. It easily shaved hair and was around 20 degree's per side. The swedge came semi sharp like the Camillus.
Lastly we have the D2 Ka Bar knife. There are a number of obvious differences, but let me point them out anyway. Firstly the blade has 2" of serrations near the guard, secondly there is no longer a top guard, thirdly, the handle is no longer a stacked leather handle, but rather a Kraton G. The guard and pommel are now made from powdered metal for added strength and the blade steel is the semi stainless D2 steel. You will also notice the Eagle industries sheath, rather than the leather pattern sheath.
Performance.
The Mk2 Camillus.
Once this blade was sharpened, It cut very nicely. In fact it was able to shave hair with ease! I started with the sort of test every field knife must perform. I cut wood in the woods. I chose some dead branches and started hacking away with the knife. Chips of wood flew and after 5 mins exactly I stopped and looked at the edge. No damage visable, though in a couple of spots the edge would only roughly shave hair now. The chopping test was a bit of a let down as it did not perform even close to other blades I own in the same weight and class. This basic design is simply not as good for chopping as I thought it might be. The blade is quite light for the job really. The handle made chopping very comfortable on the hand and wrist though.
The second test was battoning. I made sure the tip was pointing upwards slightly to reduce the stress on the tang and battoned some 3" thick branches, using a large branch to hit the spine. No problems here, in fact this knife battoned very very well. No edge damage was evident
The next test was feather sticks for my fire. I cut ten feather sticks and proceeded to feather them. The knife was more than sharp enough to perform this task, though I noted that a larger blade like this was perhaps a bit of overkill for this task. I was able to do all ten feather sticks with a little more care than usual due to the size of the blade. At this stage, I had not noticed any drop in performance and the edge was holding up just fine, in fact it still shaved hair, though to be acurate it was scrape shaving rather than hair popping now.
I then used the blade to remove bark from a tree for tinder, I was very careful not to cause too much distress to the tree and the knife did this with ease. Then I used the knife as a draw knife on a dead log and proceeded to create nice wide shavings of wood for the fire. Again the blade held up just fine and did this with ease. At this point I would warn users about the swedge... I did sharpen it and its my fault! It bit me at this part of the test. Be careful!
That was it for the edge testing in the field, so I finished by stabbing the knife into the dead log and mildly twisting it out. This popped wood chips all over the place after doing this ten times. The edge was undamaged and the tip was still very sharp. No bending was evident.
After all this work I wiped the blade with a cloth, put a little oil on it and returned it to its sheath.
The Mk2 Ka Bar
This knife was also hair poppingly sharp, so I began with the chppong on the dead branch test. I again timed myself to 5 mins of chopping and to be honest the results in using the knife were pretty much identical while using the blade. Performance was reasonable, no better or worse than the Camillus blade. The same limitations apply to this knife and that is no surprise really as they are almost identical. However, edge inspection did show up a couple of surprises. Firstly the edge was slightly more dulled, in fact it would no longer shave hair in one section of blade (the area most used) and there were a couple of dings on the edge. Nothing serious, but impact damage none the less. I was in two minds at this stage, I had brought a steel and Spyerco ceramic stick with me, and in field use would certainly have used them right now to minimise further edge damage. However if I did this, this would not be a fair test. So I decided to continue without further thought.
I moved on to do some battoning again with the same items and it performed very well. The edge showed no further damage from this test.
Next I went on to do the feather sticks, again the size of the blade made this a bit of a chore, but while it performed to an acceptable level, I noticed it was a bit harder to do than the Camillus knife and the couple of dings in the edge were having a small effect on the task. Sometimes you would feel the wood "catch" on these dings and it was a bit disconcerting to say the least. I did all ten sticks and looked at the edge. The dings had become slightly more noticable and a couple of white lines were now visable on the edge. This indicated that the knife was dulling a little bit. I tried to shave and to be honest this was now simply not possible.