Al Thompson
Moderator Emeritus
Folks, I like big knives and short rifles. Recently, I purchased a Kershaw Outcast from www.knifesupply.com for 69 bucks (+ 8.00 for shipping) and am very pleased with the knife.
This is a bolo, pure and simple. The powder coated blade is about 1/5 inch thick, has enough weight to chop nicely without being too heavy. The D2 steel blade both holds a good edge and is reasonably easy to resharpen. The blade is pretty deep, about 2 1/2 inches at the maximum and is roughly 9 4/5 inch long. The handle is rubber, sort of like the grip on a Taurus revolver and very comfortable. OAL is abot 16 inches.
The sheath is a well designed Kydex unit with numerous lashing holes (hollow rivits) around the edge and a interesting belt clip on the back. It appears (I have not done it) that you can adjust the belt clip to several different positions if you wish. The clip is held to the scabbard by two Chicago screws.
I've had to clear lots of brush around the house and chopped some pine up for kindling. Easy stuff for the Outcast. Splitting some logs was pretty simple - wack the back of the blade with a hardwood billet - sort of like using a wedge and sledge hammer. After all that, no blisters on the hand (love that grip), some wear on the powder coat (no big deal to me) and slightly dulled. A few passes with a ceramic rod and we're right back to sharp enough.
I liked this knife enough that I purchased another one from Knife.com.
Things I didn't like - mainly think the edge bevel was too steep. I played with the angles a bit when I resharpened it and reduced the bevel somewhat. I haven't finished that yet, but my thought now is that I would like to get a very sharp edge on this thing and see how it does field dressing and butchering a deer.
Cheers!
Al
This is a bolo, pure and simple. The powder coated blade is about 1/5 inch thick, has enough weight to chop nicely without being too heavy. The D2 steel blade both holds a good edge and is reasonably easy to resharpen. The blade is pretty deep, about 2 1/2 inches at the maximum and is roughly 9 4/5 inch long. The handle is rubber, sort of like the grip on a Taurus revolver and very comfortable. OAL is abot 16 inches.
The sheath is a well designed Kydex unit with numerous lashing holes (hollow rivits) around the edge and a interesting belt clip on the back. It appears (I have not done it) that you can adjust the belt clip to several different positions if you wish. The clip is held to the scabbard by two Chicago screws.
I've had to clear lots of brush around the house and chopped some pine up for kindling. Easy stuff for the Outcast. Splitting some logs was pretty simple - wack the back of the blade with a hardwood billet - sort of like using a wedge and sledge hammer. After all that, no blisters on the hand (love that grip), some wear on the powder coat (no big deal to me) and slightly dulled. A few passes with a ceramic rod and we're right back to sharp enough.
I liked this knife enough that I purchased another one from Knife.com.
Things I didn't like - mainly think the edge bevel was too steep. I played with the angles a bit when I resharpened it and reduced the bevel somewhat. I haven't finished that yet, but my thought now is that I would like to get a very sharp edge on this thing and see how it does field dressing and butchering a deer.
Cheers!
Al
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