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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
tops ox-06
- Thread starter battboy
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
- Messages
- 2,690
IMO, no. It weights 30oz, and too much of that weight is in the handle. For a backpacking hawk, you are so much better off with a traditional, wooden haft, type of a hawk. Full tang hawks are cool, and very strong, great for battle, fighting, prying , breaching, etc..
For that kind of money, you can get a forged hawk, poll, spike, whatever you want, the mass will be in the head, where it helps with chopping. Plus, you can remove the head and use as a knife. You can make new a new handle in the field, if you break a wood handle, and carry the head in a pack, if need be.
I made the mistake of getting an Ontario RD hawk, thinking it would be great for backpacking, it's not. Again, the 1/4" thick full tang is just too heavy, you work too hard to carry in, then have to swing all that mass, weight in the hand, which doesn't help with the bit chopping into the wood. I love "tactical" hawks, but I'd rather have a very light handle(hickory) for backpacking.
OTOH, Dan Winkler does a tapered tang on his full tang hawks, which does put the weight in the head. And, Omnivore makes several full tang hawks, they are skeletonized to lighten up the handle weights. So, there are some options if you have to have a full tang, but you'll want more weight in the head for chopping wood with efficiency.
For that kind of money, you can get a forged hawk, poll, spike, whatever you want, the mass will be in the head, where it helps with chopping. Plus, you can remove the head and use as a knife. You can make new a new handle in the field, if you break a wood handle, and carry the head in a pack, if need be.
I made the mistake of getting an Ontario RD hawk, thinking it would be great for backpacking, it's not. Again, the 1/4" thick full tang is just too heavy, you work too hard to carry in, then have to swing all that mass, weight in the hand, which doesn't help with the bit chopping into the wood. I love "tactical" hawks, but I'd rather have a very light handle(hickory) for backpacking.
OTOH, Dan Winkler does a tapered tang on his full tang hawks, which does put the weight in the head. And, Omnivore makes several full tang hawks, they are skeletonized to lighten up the handle weights. So, there are some options if you have to have a full tang, but you'll want more weight in the head for chopping wood with efficiency.
