Hey there guys!
Cheers to
D
DangerZone98
for the tag, I always seem to miss khukuri threads when they come up. Great to see so many people suggesting to take a look at us even as we're quite a young company.
J
JimRockford
Sorry to hear you've been having issues with the website! It's partway though an update right now so things are a little mixed up. Once this COVID business dies down and I'm caught up on work I'll get it all back to normal. You've received a great response here! A lot of great discussion about suitable steels and the practicalities of different sheath styles and blade lengths.
Traditional daps are beautiful things but they're far from foolproof. The specific motion that's required to return one into a sheath makes them a bit tricky and many sheaths get cut straight through- sometimes as soon as they're out of the box or sometimes after a few years. If fingers are in the way at this point it can be a very bad time. Furthermore they're very susceptible to the elements, something our other Stacked Leather/Kydex sheaths really improve on. They've both very rugged, have much better retention, are slimmer and also have a heap of great carry options. The possibility for a dangler and leg tie combo in particular is great for large knives when you're picking through the scrub. Our handmade micarta handles also introduce a level of grip and durability that isn't seen on other nepali blades and could be super useful for how rough your friend is on his knives and making sure he gets something that stands the test of time.
As for steel and perhaps in general, we sit somewhere between the high end MK ULTRA and traditional nepali blades. I know you said you're not big into metallurgy but we have to talk about it haha!
Our steel is reclaimed 5160 but we use a modern heat treat that isn't seen elsewhere in Nepal. We triple normalise our blades prior to quench. This relieves stresses from forging and from the steel's previous life under a truck. It also helps make the crystal grain smaller which allows for a much tougher knife.
A traditional Nepalese quench involves pouring water onto the edge from a teapot and is pretty cool. This allows the smith to "paint" the hardness onto the steel and leave a soft durable spine, however it leaves a lot to be desired. The blade is rarely of uniform hardness along the edge and you usually get a soft tip and a soft bit near the handle. It also doesn't harden through the entire blade and can leave the core of the knife soft. This isn't initially an issue but after a decade of sharpening you can potentially wear through to the soft stuff. Finally the big issue with it is that the thin stream of water doesn't have enough thermal mass and the blade just doesn't get hard enough for us. Instead of this we edge quench our blades in oil. It allows for a full, high hardness along the entire edge and through the knife which puts in a great position to temper.
Believe it or not we're the only company in Nepal that tempers their blades. With a traditional heat treat the hardness of the blade is controlled and balanced through the amount of water applied. They walk the line between a knife that's a bit soft and that rolls or a knife that's a bit hard and it chips. If they manage it then the knife can be a great hard working blade. However, we professionally temper in a temperature controlled kiln which allows us to have a knife that's both hard and tough. It's much less likely to roll or chip making for an edge that's way more stable and awesome for chopping! Our durability is improved so much that we actually grind our knives thinner for less cutting resistance and better performance. Even with a thinner grind our knives have the same, if not better durability than blades we made while working for other manufacturers.
I'd echo the sentiments of
fishface5
and co that if you're looking to a find a replacement for his much loved workhorse you should do a bit of research on the length of blade he's using and what kind of tasks he's using it for. Once you've got that figured out let me know and I'm absolutely certain we can fit him up a with a khukuri that'll fit him perfectly.
Based on the impression I've gotten so far though I'd say an 11.5" historical service issue would be bang on the money. It's as authentic as these khukuris come and has a lot of pedigree both in the hands of gurkhas as a fighter and in the hands of enthusiasts as field knives. Relatively compact, great value and really, really versatile. Decent point, not too big for carving and fine work, still big enough to chop very well and handle a bit of brush clearing. Time tested and also has the fighting knife connection which could be a big help. Here's a pic from a recent customer. This has been getting a workout in the south Island of NZ and he's extremely happy with it. Some other knives I'd suggest are our angkholas, the ek chirra in particular. They're equally hard working but a tad more powerful, ornate and can come with full tang as an option.
However I would also say that trying to replace this knife isn't necessary for you to give him an awesome gift that he'll appreciate and use. Maybe looking into something he doesn't have could open up a different sector of use for him. For example if you did go to a larger blade potentially you could push into something that can handle machete style brush clearing, dish out a lot of chopping power while also being a formidable weapon. This kind of "survival sword" type of thing is actually really versatile and can be awesome on a rural property, if you're way out in the backwoods or as a big bugout blade for something slightly to very apocalyptic. Something traditional that's along these lines would be a mutiny. This knife is both loved by our fans who are martial artists as well as a few who are forestry workers and use it for trail clearing.
The scourge is a pretty awesome knife but I can understand your concern about the comfort of the handle. Unfortunately this knife has been imitated poorly so many times that it's developed a bit of a reputation for not fitting everyone's hands well. While there's of course hands too big or too small, our version is quite refined and works really well for people with palms sized between 3.5"-4.25". It's hard to know for sure without picking something up and that's somethign that really sucks about trying to sell knives to people on the other side of the world. The scourge family doesn't quite have the blade length to handle machete work but they make up for it by being very powerful and efficient choppers. The scourge anniversary in particular is outchops its weight like you wouldn't believe. One other thing- all our knives in the scourge family do feature a cho that works as a bottle opener. I saw it being asked about before and it is a dumb, but very fun feature haha
The final thing that really needs discussing is custom stuff.
We do so many customs nowadays and being able to tailor a khukuri for your friend sounds like it could be a great project. We could so something simple like adding a guard or some more fightery elements to some of these traditional blades. We could also start from scratch and build something more modern up. This is a custom camp fighter that uses a shortened version of our mutiny, plus a sharpened rear fin then matches it with a streamlined modified scourge handle with micarta. Maybe something like this but a bit smaller and more carryable. If you DM me some info about the kind of charity work your friend has been doing potentially we can also waive any custom fees on this one. Would love to help out someone who's being a solid dude and helping out his community.
Anyway that was a very long post but I had a lot of info to get across!
If you've got any other questions or are looking for some guidance feel free to hit me up.
Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash.
He is very well versed in defensive tactics and edged weapon combat, but don't know much about the origins or steel content. The one he has now is a brand-x type and is beat up. It's about the size of that one on Doug's site which leads me t believe that the Desert Condor you found might be a good replacement. In fact I think I might just grab an extra one for myself. With that said, however, I think Andrew's comment is well founded as well. Perhaps not only a replacement, but a second knife might open up new doors. I really like the modern sheaths, and the Kailash knives. I'd love to own one of those myself, and plan to do so. 
