Pensioner and Mutiny chopping comparison

R

Rowan McDirk

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Aug 16, 2013
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Comparison of two Kailash kukri, Pensioner and Mutiny.

Weight of the blades, both have the performance grind:

Rosewood Pensioner 585 grams
Rosewood Mutiny 514 grams

Balance point of the blades:

Tip, don’t try to balance the flat kukri on your finger. Because of the shape and weight distribution the kukri will turn edge down.

Rosewood Pensioner 8,5 cm from bolster
Rosewood Mutiny 12 cm from bolster

BfdLTIC.jpg

NtwcQAY.jpg


Pictures of the kukri

TRq02PS.jpg

QX9QzTi.jpg


I chopped a pine beam 30 times, twice to be sure of the result.
Both cuts should have been about 8 cms wide.
Mutiny chops a bit better.
mLD4nhi.jpg

BCvLKd9.jpg


After the chops I counted the total chops the kukr needed to get to the apex of the cut.
Mutiny needed 61 and 76
Pensioner needed 82 and 83
Again the Mutiny did better

nbg0p7L.jpg

sDx9GNv.jpg


Next I did full force chop in the beam to so how deep the kukri goes and add the depths of both sides.
Mutiny got a total of 6,3 cm
Pensioner got a total of 6,1 cm
Mutiny has a slight edge on chopping.

rlEnuG5.jpg

l2UR1Dj.jpg


Last I chopped a dried oak plank, each kukri 30 chops
Mutiny again did a bit better.

oohn1TS.jpg



I think I can say that the Mutiny outchops the Pensioner on a slight margin.
 
Grea test and pictures, thanks for sharing! I've got a Pensioner (and love it) and have plans to order a Mutiny in the near future. Glad to know I'm not too under-knifed for now.

I wonder how they would compare in use against soft targets.
 
Rowan McDirk said:
Comparison of two Kailash kukri, Pensioner and Mutiny.

Weight of the blades, both have the performance grind:

Rosewood Pensioner 585 grams
Rosewood Mutiny 514 grams

Balance point of the blades:

Tip, don’t try to balance the flat kukri on your finger. Because of the shape and weight distribution the kukri will turn edge down.

Rosewood Pensioner 8,5 cm from bolster
Rosewood Mutiny 12 cm from bolster

BfdLTIC.jpg

NtwcQAY.jpg


Pictures of the kukri

TRq02PS.jpg

QX9QzTi.jpg


I chopped a pine beam 30 times, twice to be sure of the result.
Both cuts should have been about 8 cms wide.
Mutiny chops a bit better.
mLD4nhi.jpg

BCvLKd9.jpg


After the chops I counted the total chops the kukr needed to get to the apex of the cut.
Mutiny needed 61 and 76
Pensioner needed 82 and 83
Again the Mutiny did better

nbg0p7L.jpg

sDx9GNv.jpg


Next I did full force chop in the beam to so how deep the kukri goes and add the depths of both sides.
Mutiny got a total of 6,3 cm
Pensioner got a total of 6,1 cm
Mutiny has a slight edge on chopping.

rlEnuG5.jpg

l2UR1Dj.jpg


Last I chopped a dried oak plank, each kukri 30 chops
Mutiny again did a bit better.

oohn1TS.jpg



I think I can say that the Mutiny outchops the Pensioner on a slight margin.
Click to expand...
Great photos and chopping review . For all most khukuris can chop and slice , I always see the khukuri mainly as a martial weapon which Im sure it was intended for originally . In a fighting role I would choose the mutiny every time and that weight of 514g is about perfect although you didnt state what length the blade was ( I assume 15" ? ) . I actually like the shape and less curvature of the Mutiny blade which in my opinion would lend itself to an easier stabbing implement in a combat role but as your test proves above the Mutiny can definitely hold its own .
 
Interesting to see the results of a second run! Edge sharpness can make a big difference, in this kind of deep cross-grain chopping, especially in hardwood. As stated by others the 14" mutiny and the pensioner share quite similar geometry and have similar performance across various roles.

The pensioner is a bit shorter and heavier, making it feel a bit burlier and helping with control in finer camp tasks as well as packability. The mutiny is lighter and longer which makes it more reliant on speed and acceleration to get chopping power. This helps a lot in martial applications and light brush clearing though. Extra weight helps with chopping power but so does POB and length so its a close one.

While the mutiny might outchop the pensioner I also have a feeling that over the course of a full day of fatigued chopping like this the pensioner would be a more pleasurable blade to use. I think that the greater acceleration required to get lighter, longer blades "up to speed" for this maximum chopping power can be a little draining and require a bit more mental concentration also. I think that at lower levels of mental and physical exertion heavier blades can chop more readily and can lend themselves to a relaxed usage style. My mk1 for example feel like you almost just guide it into the wood while dropping it and the result is still quite fierce.

On the other hand though if brush clearing all day is the task then the 14" mutiny will likely be less fatiguing and more pleasant. I think this is really the split between the two in an outdoors application.
 
Pensioner and Mutiny went on a trip to the forest.

My friend found a sword/hunting belt that seems to have been made to carry the Kailash military Dap.
Qjmy8Lg.jpg

6pm2X73.jpg


My friend used his Pensioner to chop down a maple tree that stood too close to the cabin.

HBUbn7V.jpg

AL1t2MD.jpg

V7MVyBv.jpg

7aV4AKX.jpg

dODGvNY.jpg


After that I sharpened his Pensioner and my Mutiny and compared both kukri by 100 chops each in green wood.
The Mutiny clearly came out on top.

Nac2jX7.jpg

KfTuzP6.jpg
 
The pensioner looks so good on that sword belt! That's quite a sizeable tree- I'm yet to fell something that large. Recently we were sent some photos of a customer who chopped his way through a telephone pole. Looks like hard work, especially with the almost perpendicular chopping angle and going through it all from one side.

Would you mind if we shared some of these pictures on social media? It's all great stuff.

Some further discussion on chopping performance in khukuris:
The late, great cliff stamp once reviewed a HI Angkhola and came to the conclusion that the big thick bevel on it (and other blades like it) was optimised for "fluidity in chopping green wood". By this he means an ability to sink into soft green wood and then pull out easily without binding. I think that that style of bevel is actually optimised to avoid breakage (and little else), but I can also understand the reflex to see a feature on a traditionally styled blade and assume that it has been functionally optimised over a long period of time. For someone like him it was also interesting to see- he was very wary of assumptions, industry norms, pre-established truths etc and dedicated a large part of his life to advancing the understanding of the knife community as a whole.

This point about fluidity is a relevant one for khukuri performance and is another area in which the mutiny/pensioner/mk1 are split in chopping performance. The mutiny has the leanest grind, with the least "wedging" effect. In cross section it looks more like a nail, much like a machete does. When this kind of shape bites deep into wood it is clamped on its sides by the wood and can be difficult to remove. Knives sink deeper into softwood so this is more common in such applications. Machetes are particularly bad for this- even if they are large and capable of big individual bites then the reset and fluidity between chops makes them less suited for the task.
The convex and concave curvature in the cross section of many khukuris helps avoid binding in a similar way to an S-grind on a chef's knife helping with food release.
However something like the mk1 has the best fluidity of chopping as it features this same concave/convex cross section while also having a thicker, wedgier overall shape. When the wood clamps the sides of this wedge it actively pushes the knife up and out of the wood.

This wedginess also helps in splitting. If you look at some of the slo-mo from DBK videos you can see that on some thinner knives the blade needs to get almost the bottom of the log before the log gives and breaks. On thicker wedgier knives the logs often jump apart after the blade has only made it a few inches into the wood- the wedge splits more aggressively and sooner. In very hard wood though it could be too aggressive and would require more batoning force to push the blade in further, while the more gentle, pointer wedge has greater leverage and sinks deeper to split more gradually.

Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
Last edited:
Feel free to use the pictures on social media.

I agree that the Mutiny binds more in green wood than the Pensioner does.
But also that it cuts a bit deeper because of the leaner grind.
 
Rowan McDirk said:
Feel free to use the pictures on social media.

I agree that the Mutiny binds more in green wood than the Pensioner does.
But also that it cuts a bit deeper because of the leaner grind.
Click to expand...
These are the tradeoffs! Very rarely is there a free lunch in blade design
 
Kailash Blades said:
These are the tradeoffs! Very rarely is there a free lunch in blade design
Click to expand...
Your conclusion in another post was right on point:
"Mutiny (performance martial/brush clearing), Pensioner (performance all rounder) and Mk1 (performance chopper)"
That makes me very curious about a chopping comparison between a Mutiny and a Mk1...
 
I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd love to see it!
My bet will be that the mk1 will be similar at maximum effort swings but still bite deeper- ~20% more.
As you use less and less power the mk1 will pull ahead more. I think that the mk1 may also pull ahead in hardwood vs softwood but I'm really not sure- it's also wedgier.
I think between these blades you'll also see a big split in feel when "shoulder driven chopping" vs "wrist driven chopping"
Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
My next Kailash is without doubt a Chitlange.
My friend is thinking about ordering a Fort William MkI...
Would be quite interesting since I have an antique Nepali army Kukri to test against the MKI.
I have no doubt the Kailash will perform a lot better than the antique.
 
I've done a bit of comparison between these bhojpure/SGAK blades and the mk1 in the past.
Cutting geo is not bad at all on these SGAKs but our mk1 has a little less resistance, particularly in performance grind.
The mk1 is in my view a more practical weight- plenty of power but it feels a bit more controllable and less hatchetlike. The POB on the SGAK is quite intense ~5" which can make it a bit difficult to wrangle.
I think if the antique was brought to a similar sharpness it would probably chop deeper in these tests- I haven't tested myself though as I didn't want to remove the pre-existing edge damage on mine.
 
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