San Mai Gurkha Kukri

S

Stubai

Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
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Lynn seems seriously proud of his new 12 inch kukri in San Mai. Of course the company claims that this new wonder-knife will slice and dice better than anything on the market. Any users of the San Mai product wish to chime in?
 
I have a SanMai Trailmaster Bowie. I have been using it for about 6 years now I think. I will say one thing right off, It holds an edge for a long long time. I have used other outdoor knives from different manufacturers and never had a knife stay sharp for so long....The knife came from the factory not just hair shaving sharp, but hair flinging sharp. literally the first time I shaved with it the hair seemed to dance off my arm. The edge is rolled, which has it's up sides and down sides. The rolled edge makes it look like it is not really sharpened (because there is not an aparrent bevel line). When you hand it to some one the first thing they usually say (like my older brother) is hey, this thing is not even sharpened. then you have them shave a big patch on their legg. The edge held up under chopping use for 2 + years before I finally broke down and sharpened it......it was still shaving sharp, but I chopped through something and hit concrete and put some very very small marks on the blade. The stainless steel is nice for not having to worry about rust ect. The one real problem is finding some one who can sharpen a rolled edge properly. I went to a few professional sharpeners and they all told me they could not do as perfect a job as the factory edge.....so I finally just did a normal sharpening on it my self.......
All that said, I would think for the money the carbon steel is much more cost effective. everyone knows carbon steel is great, you just have to take a bit of care of it.
That San Mai Kukri will be wicked to use, I would love one, but 400-500 dollars is a lot to spend (depending on your point of view) especially when you can find a CS Gurhka Kukri in carbon steel for $86, and the Trailmaster in carbon steel for 88........ Hope fully the price on the SanMai Kukri will come down in price a bit........

But I love all my cold steel products from the expensive to the cheap (like the throwing hawks, bad ax, special forces shovel, and the new GI tanto.....all worth every penny and also cheap to buy)
With all those good things
 
The trail master makes a good chopper general purpose camp knive, and and would be a good combat knife (if your not limited to a 7 inch knife). I have used if for a lot of chopping, splitting kindling etc while camping. even chopped and limbed and sectioned a smallish sappling (I did not have an axe with me at the time).........
I have even thrown it.....fun...
 
I have a few san mai trailmasters and my results are similiar to bigfattyt's. I really like the san mai trailmasters.

The 2 on the left are 2 of my 3 san mai trailmasters and the 2 on the right are solid stainless trailmasters.

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I have the original carbon V variety (satin finish) which I've used since the first year they were produced. When I first used the knife, it cut like a dream. I did my fair share of chopping pine and some oak. No problems, but the blade did rust easily in the field. I almost like it as much as my Basic 9. The stainless San Mai would be great in a marine environment. The more recent black trailmasters...how do they compare to the San Mai?

Nice photographs of the bowies!
 
barrabas74 said:
I heard that the San Mai was just AUS-8? Just lookin for some verification.
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Not exactly. Cold Steel uses the term "San Mai III" to describe laminated steel that they use in their blades. CS SMIII used to have AUS8 as a center alloy. They have recently switched to VG1, which has a higher carbon content and, based on composition, should be harder and have better edge retension than AUS8. That would make it a good candidate for SMIII center steel.

Knarf
 
Lynn should have stuck with his Carbon V steel in my opinion, but I'm sure he cares as much about my opinion as everybody else does. Yeah, I know those blades were made by Camillus, and now Camillus is out of business, but where there's a will there's a way. I guess where there's a buck to be made there's China, too. :barf:
 
I never knew this about the San Mai III. I actually thought it was something really special since Cold Steel uses it on their high end products.

San Mai III sounds like high performance. Laminated AUS-8 doesn't. Figures...

I think I'm going to steer clear from San Mai.
 
PatriotDan said:
I never knew this about the San Mai III. I actually thought it was something really special since Cold Steel uses it on their high end products.

San Mai III sounds like high performance. Laminated AUS-8 doesn't. Figures...

I think I'm going to steer clear from San Mai.
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I've never tried the stuff. (These days I pretty much only carry pocket knives.) But, a lot of people report excellent experiences with it.
 
knarfeng said:
I've never tried the stuff. (These days I pretty much only carry pocket knives.) But, a lot of people report excellent experiences with it.
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I know. I shouldn't say it's crap if I haven't used it. But then again I'll never probably use anything in San Mai.
 
Stubai said:
. Any users of the San Mai product wish to chime in?
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Have the original Shinobu folder in San Mai. Thing came hella sharp! Had the "CS tanto tip" professionally redone to a more traditional tanto tip, then had the japanese water stones put to it and now it's laser sharp! Damn fine knife.

Matador-
 
Forgive me I am not trying to hi-jack this thread but it is very related. Since you guys mentioned the carbon v versions, Cold Steel now has the sk-5 version of the Khukri and Trailmaster. Has anyone compared these models to past models? What are your opinions on these?
 
PatriotDan said:
mr. Russell, can you expand on as to why this is?

Is the AUS-10 even better? I've never seen it used anywhere on knives.
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I eexpect that it has to do with grain size, the truth is I have no idea. I suspect that AUS-10 cost about the same as ATS-34 and that VG-10 is less expensive and does a better job. The chemistry for AUS-10 is very close to 440C.

What I do know is that using my best efforts on all steels VG-10, ATS-34, 154CM, D2, 440A, 440B, 440C and AUS8 I can get the latter sharper; the edge will not last as long as ATS34, VG-10 or D-2 but you can tell it is sharper.
 
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