- Joined
- Nov 7, 2013
- Messages
- 465
I know this knife isn't new, but I haven't seen a useful review anywhere on it other than people saying it's not a great knife, so I figured I'd do one.
Firstly, it isn't bad at all, for 40$ it's a great knife if you need a large chopper or even survival purposes.
Steel: 8cr13mov
Length of blade: 9.5"
Handle: kraton digigrip
First thing I noticed, out of the box the edge isn't great. It appears the edge was ground rough and then buffed quickly. I had to sharpen it all the way from a rough India stone up to a hard arkansas, complete resharpening like you'd do with a fairly dull knife. It isn't unusable out of the box but the edge is not to par.
It sharpened easily, and terminated to a very sharp edge.
Second thing I noticed wrong with it is the serrations: they're too deep and the small serrations too narrow, great for sawing and ripping but not for fast cutting like wider, shallower serrations do. I generally haven't found a good serration geometry in any knife except gerber's blades.
The blade is nice and round at the belly, making it excellent for biting into wood or for slicing things, the knife is less than a pound total, light and lively but heavy enough to dig deep when chopping. Edge angle is between 25-30 degrees, perfect angle for its intended purpose.
After sharpening razor sharp, I tested it out.
First I chopped a 1.5" diameter piece of dry wood off at both ends.
Then cut a 3-4" log for batoning off.
I then batoned about 1/3 of the log off at a time twice.
No damage to the knife, and the edge still shaves. Even the hard coating didn't rub off. Nice.
Only complaint is the handle, even though it's kraton, isn't as grippy as it could be. Most of my cold steel knives are very grippy and sticky, this one is slightly harder. It isn't uncomfortable, but after lots of chopping my hand slides back, thankfully the bend at the end of the handle does a good job keeping the blade from flying out of my hand.
The saw is all but useless. While the edge geometry of the teeth is excellent and goes right through wood, there is a primary grind behind them, making the saw teeth narrower than the thickest point of the blade. This causes it to bind once you reach halfway point in the blade. The saw is useful up to a point, but you're not going to be sawing entire logs with it.
All in all I like it. It's cheap, built tough, decent steel, and feels good in the hand.
Firstly, it isn't bad at all, for 40$ it's a great knife if you need a large chopper or even survival purposes.
Steel: 8cr13mov
Length of blade: 9.5"
Handle: kraton digigrip
First thing I noticed, out of the box the edge isn't great. It appears the edge was ground rough and then buffed quickly. I had to sharpen it all the way from a rough India stone up to a hard arkansas, complete resharpening like you'd do with a fairly dull knife. It isn't unusable out of the box but the edge is not to par.
It sharpened easily, and terminated to a very sharp edge.
Second thing I noticed wrong with it is the serrations: they're too deep and the small serrations too narrow, great for sawing and ripping but not for fast cutting like wider, shallower serrations do. I generally haven't found a good serration geometry in any knife except gerber's blades.
The blade is nice and round at the belly, making it excellent for biting into wood or for slicing things, the knife is less than a pound total, light and lively but heavy enough to dig deep when chopping. Edge angle is between 25-30 degrees, perfect angle for its intended purpose.
After sharpening razor sharp, I tested it out.
First I chopped a 1.5" diameter piece of dry wood off at both ends.
Then cut a 3-4" log for batoning off.
I then batoned about 1/3 of the log off at a time twice.
No damage to the knife, and the edge still shaves. Even the hard coating didn't rub off. Nice.
Only complaint is the handle, even though it's kraton, isn't as grippy as it could be. Most of my cold steel knives are very grippy and sticky, this one is slightly harder. It isn't uncomfortable, but after lots of chopping my hand slides back, thankfully the bend at the end of the handle does a good job keeping the blade from flying out of my hand.
The saw is all but useless. While the edge geometry of the teeth is excellent and goes right through wood, there is a primary grind behind them, making the saw teeth narrower than the thickest point of the blade. This causes it to bind once you reach halfway point in the blade. The saw is useful up to a point, but you're not going to be sawing entire logs with it.
All in all I like it. It's cheap, built tough, decent steel, and feels good in the hand.