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Sunday, May 24, 2009

KA-BAR Kukri review


This is the KA-BAR Kukri machete. I bought one of these from Poor Fish, an E Bay seller. It cost $50 shipping included. I was a bit skeptical at first since the blade is made in Taiwan. However after giving it a full days workout, I am impressed. It came out of the box razor sharp. There was a small section of the blade that felt like it had a bit of a burr so I gave it a lite touch up with a diamond hone and a chrome oxide loaded strop. I was able to chop through some very tough, seasoned western red cedar logs about 6 to 8 " in diameter in less than a minute. It cut through some brush with ease. I did a little drawing with it to remove the bark from a few cedar logs. The knife batons quite well, although its a bit thin at the front on the top false edge and eats the baton up fairly fast. At the end of the day it was still shaving sharp. There is a bit of wear on the Parkerizing at the sweet spot and this is to be expected. I love the comfortable Kraton G polymer handle ergonomics. I was able to work with it for several hours and didn't experience fatigue as with wood or plastic handled big blades. This knife weighs nearly 1 1/2 pounds with the leather/Cordura sheath and measures 17" total, 11 1/2" blade which is 3" at the deepest part. The blade is made of 1085 high carbon steel 5/32" thick. They did a great job on the manufacture and heat treatment of these knives. Typical KA-BAR quality. Though its called a machete, I consider it more of a heavy camp knife and I highly recommend it for shelter construction, firewood gathering, general cutting chores, etc.







6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello.
Great review. I got mine a couple of days ago and I am very happy with the product. Not as tough as my nepalese khukris, but an exelent tool/weapon. I wanna put it to some real test in the woods.
Keep up the good work!

P.S. Excuse me if I made spelling mistakes, english is not my native language.

tom faranda said...

Nice review. I have the kabar kukri and its a great tool.

Anonymous said...

Got this at a gun shop in Portland a few days ago, finally have time to play with it a bit today, made a leg buckle for it with some 3/4 '' black nylon, buckles and a small caribbeaner so I can remove the strap without cutting the nylon because the buckles are too big for the O ring on the bottom, looks amazing, and it was also razor sharp. Can't wait to test this thing in the woods.

Unknown said...

What do you use to sharpen Ka-Bar Kukri?

Ron Layton said...

I use the ceramic rods in the Lansky 4 rod Turnbox kit, diamond rod by EZ Lap, or an Arkansas stone. The KUKRI is carbon steel so its easy to maintain a razor edge.

Anonymous said...

Re sharpening, you are right. Mine had 2 - 3 dents in the sharp parts, and was slightly dulled. However a few careful work with a carbo stone, then refining with Lansky ceramic rods, made the blade again scaringly sharp.