Went camping to chop & baton with BK-7, BK-9 & Kukri & Khukuri

G

Gadgetaholic

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So - the weather was fine & warm and I thought a nice weekend ride was in order, so I loaded up the scooter and headed off for some camping.

Me & my scooter made it:
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And yes, that is paracord holding down the gear!

So then I unloaded my gear and got out some of the knives I brought:
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I had found a nice big fallen branch and chopped of a good sized section. Then I used the stopwatch on my cellphone and timed how long it took the HI 15" Ganga Ram Khukuri to chop through it:
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It took about 2 minutes - not too bad for the size & hardness of the wood.

- to be continued -
 
How do you like the BK7 as a chopper? I have a RAT7 and I think it's too light for anything larger than maybe 4 inches thick.
 
So next the KA-BAR Becker BK-9:
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This took about 2 minutes 45 seconds - definitely respectable, would have been quicker if it didn't jam in the wood so much.

Then I went on to my KA-BAR Kukri Machete:
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This took about 2 minutes & 30 seconds.

I rested a bit and then tried the BK-7, but it was going to be too slow and I just couldn't be bothered. The BK-9 felt like it could bite in twice as deep as the BK-7 and was a vastly superior chopper.

The BK-7 was a bit upset at this point because it hadn't gotten to eat into the wood like its big brother, cousin or the strange overseas knife with the funny accent.


- to be continued -
 
Because the BK-7 was starting to get really upset I decided to let it do some splitting with the aid of a baton:
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This made the BK-7 very happy! It is actually a really good batoning knife, I tried the Ganga Ram but the BK-7 was easier to drive through the wood. You don't really need a heavy knife to baton because it is the weight of the baton that matters (whereas with chopping the weight of the knife definitely makes a difference).
 
This chap wasn't too happy with me:
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It was about as fat as my little finger!

It seems that I had been chopping into his/her home:
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Oh well, you can't keep everyone happy!
 
Skimo said:
How do you like the BK7 as a chopper? I have a RAT7 and I think it's too light for anything larger than maybe 4 inches thick.
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It all depends on how much of a masochist you are - if you like making things harder then the BK-7 is good for chopping, it will take it better than your hand or arm. But the BK-9 will get the job done much quicker & easier - it bites much further into the wood and would probably finish in half the time. The BK-9 is about the same price as the BK-7 (under $70 if you hunt around) and is a much better chopper and about as good at batoning.
 
remmmm said:
Most of the pics aren't loading for me...
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Anyone else having that problem?

I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't work for anyone - they are hosted on a US site and I have plenty of bandwidth & storage allocation available.
 
They're loading OK for me too, check your fire wall settings. My computer changed all the setting on me a month or so back and I had all kinds of problems.

Thanks for the review.
 
They're all there now :thumbup: Thanks for the posting them.

The HI didn't just kill the Ka-bar kuk and the BK-9? I also figured the ka-bar kuk would out chop the BK-9 by a larger amount.
 
Thanks for the post , as I'm in the process of deciding between the 7 and 9. I think the 9 will get my money , as I have a lot of smaller knives already. Looks like a good chopping workout :D
 
remmmm said:
They're all there now :thumbup: Thanks for the posting them.

The HI didn't just kill the Ka-bar kuk and the BK-9? I also figured the ka-bar kuk would out chop the BK-9 by a larger amount.
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The BK-9 really did a respectable job - the KA-BAR Kukri Machete has 11.5" blade length with a lot more belly, but really wasn't that much quicker through the wood. The HI was only a 15" 26oz model - there are much bigger & heavier ones available that would chop much quicker (but would be bigger and heavier to carry also).

I actually expected the differences to be much greater - but that is why I took the knives out, so I could find out for real how they compared.

The HI was probably the worst to baton with out of the 4 (its a bit of a fatty, more work to get it into the wood) - the other 3 weren't that much different from each other. If I were to cut down the number of knives then when taking the HI for chopping I would also take the BK-7 to handle smaller knife tasks and batoning. The BK-9 could do a decent job of chopping wood and then splitting it with the use of a baton - it's a very capable knife!

I also left my tent pegs alone (I was about to use them and then thought - naaaah) and tried out using wood I could find instead - it worked really well! I tried my Izula and it could sharpen the sticks well, then I tried my Mora Carbon Craftsman - WOW! It really does work a LOT better for wood carving. It makes me want a really good strong Scandi grind knife to take whenever I go camping, just because in the XRay pics posted on this site the Craftsman really doesn't have a very big tang - I wonder how much work it could do before the blade comes right out of the handle. I wouldn't like to have my Mora break - that sucker cost me almost twelve bucks! A good strong hard-use Scandi grind ~4" knife would have to be a great bush-craft knife to have on you at all times!
 
hiwa said:
Thanks for the post , as I'm in the process of deciding between the 7 and 9. I think the 9 will get my money , as I have a lot of smaller knives already. Looks like a good chopping workout :D
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The BK-9 is a really good knife, especially for only $70.

Just be careful when chopping stuff softer than wood:
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That knife can go straight through a large watermelon and crack a chopping board in half when you don't even swing it hard! I kinda expected it to go half to 2/3 of the way through the melon - but that sucker just cut right through it like it wasn't there! Any harder and I would have badly damaged the kitchen bench!

Buy the BK-9 and I don't think you will be disappointed!
 
Which one did you find to be most comfortable in the hand while chopping? The timing was a good measurement, but do you have any comments on the perceived effort of the chopping?
 
Gadgetaholic said:
then I tried my Mora Carbon Craftsman - WOW! It really does work a LOT better for wood carving. It makes me want a really good strong Scandi grind knife to take whenever I go camping, just because in the XRay pics posted on this site the Craftsman really doesn't have a very big tang - I wonder how much work it could do before the blade comes right out of the handle. I wouldn't like to have my Mora break - that sucker cost me almost twelve bucks! A good strong hard-use Scandi grind ~4" knife would have to be a great bush-craft knife to have on you at all times!
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I thought the same thing when I tried a Mora, also my first experience with a scandi. I recently bought a 09 Koster off the exchange and once I finally got the 3v steel hair popping sharp I tried it out and couldn't believe it, like going through butter. The Koster is built like a tank and with the 3V it should be nearly indestructible. The factory edge did need quite a bit of work to get to razor sharp though. Of course there are many other good custom scandi's out there as I'm sure you've seen. I'm personally thinking about either a tonym or regular bushcraft model from Brian Andrews next...
 
Snow said:
Which one did you find to be most comfortable in the hand while chopping? The timing was a good measurement, but do you have any comments on the perceived effort of the chopping?
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Well, none really felt uncomfortable. The round wooden handle of the HI was quite comfortable, but so was the BK-7 & BK-9 with their full tang and Grivory scales. At this point I am not worried about getting Micarta scales because the standard ones feel fine in my hand.

I suppose the HI Ganga Ram felt like the most effort, because I was swinging 26oz. The BK-9 would have been the least effort if it didn't jam in the wood - I think that issue would vary with the type of wood being chopped.

One thing I should mention to anyone buying a BK-7 or BK-9:
Before you go into the woods with it you should unscrew the bolts that hold the scales on, apply threadlock and then screw them back in. My first trip with the BK-7 was before I knew to do this, this trip both the 7 & 9 had the threadlock and they were as good as gold.
 
Talfuchre said:
After all the chopping - how did the edges of each blade fare?

TF
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No damage and minimal blunting - a minute or two on the strop and each is back to 'shaving sharp'. The BK-7 & BK-9 probably lost the least sharpness because 1095 CroVan is one of the best steels in the world! But the 1085 on the Kukri isn't bad and the 5160 on the HI is a good tough steel too.
 
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