PEASE NOTE: The animals involved, a young goat and two kangaroos, were shot for food and killed as quickly and as humanely as possible, I took the opportunity to try out these knives. They were not killed for the sole purpose of testing a knife.
I didn't have either of the khukuri's with me while doing the initial skinning and gutting of the goat, so we used the saw blade on my Leatherman supertool to section the carcase which worked very nicely.
Once back at camp I used the villager as a cleaver to cut the feet off the goat legs, the bones were about 1cm in diameter and I was cutting into a hardwood cutting board. The bones cut quite easily and on only one did I have to use more than one swing. The edge showed a small amount of ware in places and it took a few minutes with a pocket steel to bring the edge back.
I had the Bhojpure with me when I shot the two roo's (one a large male and the other a smaller female).
After skinning and gutting the carcases were sectioned, once at the base of the tail and then again about halfway along the spine.
In sectioning the kangaroos, the large male had a tail about 13cm (4.5 in) in diameter and the smaller roo about 6cm (2.5in), roo tails are very tough, with a very dense bone, sinue and muscle layering. To be blunt, most people use either a bush saw or a full size axe (usually taking 2 or 3 chops to cut through them), which is why I'm so impressed with the way this khukuri performed, doing the same job with only 5 solid hits.
After cutting off both tails and through the spines I found that the edge of the Bhojpure was badly chipped and dented, the largest chip is around 2mm deep and 3mm wide. I was not to surprised as due to time (it was getting dark) I was cutting straight through solid bone rather than finding and cutting through the spaces between vertebrae.
In spite of the damage to the edge I am very happy with the way the Bhojpure performed and once I have taken a few pictures (which I will try and post) I will work the dings out of it with a stone and return it to use.
