grunt soldier
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2009
- Messages
- 4,555
Well the little one was in school, the wife was at work and it was -2 degrees outside so I figured I had better get busy testing this knife and myself lol.
I have been using it in the kitchen for the past few weeks leading up to this point. It's obviously not made for kitchen duty but it works well enough that you can do what you need to with it. very suitable imo for camp cooking and chores. I really dig the sharpened swedge sometimes and then others I'm like damn it I didn't mean to cut that lol. It's mostly beneficial though. I really like it for striking the firesteel. I think for processing game it would be nice for opening the chest cavity on deer or other large animals with the little curve it has. make your first cut then use it much like a gut hook. I didn't get to test that but playing around with it has lead me to believe it would.
The handle is very comfortable on it. no sharp edges and well contoured. it's easy to choke back for chopping or get plenty of real estate for finer work. and controlled cuts. John put a lot of thought in to this whole design and it shows. It's definitely made to handle pretty much any task. It isn't an amazing chopper but at this size you shouldn't expect it to be either. However in a situation where you need to chop with this knife, it handles the chore well with no noticeable hot spots. I was wearing gloves all while chopping and what not outside due to the frigid temps and it felt good in the hand even with gloves on. The edge wasn't crazy sharp when I got it but it had been through 3 other testers. It was still a very usable though. I imagine with it shaving sharp like John normally sends them out it would be a wood processing machine. It still made shavings well even dulled down some.
It batoned like a champ but the swedge will chew up your hammer log lol. I had a very frozen seasoned piece of ash and it took a beating from the swedge. It batoned through 6-8 frozen seasoned pieces of oak though with no problem.
I have no complaints at all about this knife. I would like to see a full scandi version with out a micro bevel but that is just the bushcrafter in me talking. Being a true survival/combat knife and doing those jobs I think it needs the micro bevel on it.
enough talking for now and on to the pictures. I wish I had some more time with it but it's not looking good for the next few months so I'm going to pass it along to the next person. All in all this is a seriously nice knife and well suited for pretty much any task. If you about to deploy to the mountains of Afghanistan or just the backwoods for a few days this knife will do all you need it to and then some! I'm thinking this will be a good seller for Mr JK!
You can see here how it chews up the batoning log. not really a problem but something to think about when doing it.
this was some Knotty rough frozen wood but it went through no problem.
It was cold today so I wanted to test the fire starting skills. I couldn't get it going with the frozen wood shavings. Maybe just to wet or to cold or my hands were lol. So I busted out a piece of fatwood and scraped some dust on to it and then a few shavings. they lit up almost instantly. I used the swedge to strike the steel and it did a very nice job.
getting some love marks lol
still sharp enough to slice paper but you could feel some burrs or whatever in certain parts. I ran it on the steel and it fixed those quickly.
some food prep. made quick work of these carrots and peppers. I was making BBQ sauce and needed roasted red peppers and roasted garlic for it. had to grill them in the -2 weather lol.
I have been using it in the kitchen for the past few weeks leading up to this point. It's obviously not made for kitchen duty but it works well enough that you can do what you need to with it. very suitable imo for camp cooking and chores. I really dig the sharpened swedge sometimes and then others I'm like damn it I didn't mean to cut that lol. It's mostly beneficial though. I really like it for striking the firesteel. I think for processing game it would be nice for opening the chest cavity on deer or other large animals with the little curve it has. make your first cut then use it much like a gut hook. I didn't get to test that but playing around with it has lead me to believe it would.
The handle is very comfortable on it. no sharp edges and well contoured. it's easy to choke back for chopping or get plenty of real estate for finer work. and controlled cuts. John put a lot of thought in to this whole design and it shows. It's definitely made to handle pretty much any task. It isn't an amazing chopper but at this size you shouldn't expect it to be either. However in a situation where you need to chop with this knife, it handles the chore well with no noticeable hot spots. I was wearing gloves all while chopping and what not outside due to the frigid temps and it felt good in the hand even with gloves on. The edge wasn't crazy sharp when I got it but it had been through 3 other testers. It was still a very usable though. I imagine with it shaving sharp like John normally sends them out it would be a wood processing machine. It still made shavings well even dulled down some.
It batoned like a champ but the swedge will chew up your hammer log lol. I had a very frozen seasoned piece of ash and it took a beating from the swedge. It batoned through 6-8 frozen seasoned pieces of oak though with no problem.
I have no complaints at all about this knife. I would like to see a full scandi version with out a micro bevel but that is just the bushcrafter in me talking. Being a true survival/combat knife and doing those jobs I think it needs the micro bevel on it.
enough talking for now and on to the pictures. I wish I had some more time with it but it's not looking good for the next few months so I'm going to pass it along to the next person. All in all this is a seriously nice knife and well suited for pretty much any task. If you about to deploy to the mountains of Afghanistan or just the backwoods for a few days this knife will do all you need it to and then some! I'm thinking this will be a good seller for Mr JK!
You can see here how it chews up the batoning log. not really a problem but something to think about when doing it.
this was some Knotty rough frozen wood but it went through no problem.
It was cold today so I wanted to test the fire starting skills. I couldn't get it going with the frozen wood shavings. Maybe just to wet or to cold or my hands were lol. So I busted out a piece of fatwood and scraped some dust on to it and then a few shavings. they lit up almost instantly. I used the swedge to strike the steel and it did a very nice job.
getting some love marks lol
still sharp enough to slice paper but you could feel some burrs or whatever in certain parts. I ran it on the steel and it fixed those quickly.
some food prep. made quick work of these carrots and peppers. I was making BBQ sauce and needed roasted red peppers and roasted garlic for it. had to grill them in the -2 weather lol.
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