A shot of the modified A1 swedish survival knife from the Fällkniven webpage on the A1 :
The modified A1 was donated for a review by Tom Lagan of LagaNet Ltd. This is a Swedish survival knife made by Fällkniven , "modified" refers to the coated blade . The total length is 280 mm (eleven inches), with a blade length of 160 mm (6.3 inches). The blade has a thickness of 6 mm (just under a quarter of an inch) at the spine and 1.6 mm (.06 inches just before the edge. It has an full tang which extends past the butt to create a pseudo-hammer. The A2 weighs in at a solid 300 g. The steel is VG-10, and it is heat treated to a uniform RC of 59. The handle is Kraton and the sheath is Cordura.
The modified A1 was used alongside a Kellam puukko and Marine Raider bowie through a variety of tasks. On the lighter materials, thin plastics, fabrics, webbing, light - heavy cardboard, and whittling wood, the puukko was much more efficient due to its thinner blade profile. However it suffer from durability problems on light metals and the heavier plastics. These materials have to be chopped (use of a baton with the Kellam) and even plastic rain gutters could significantly fold the edge requiring honing on a 600 grit DMT plate and a few strokes on an 800 grit ceramic rod to restore.
The A1 had a slight advantage in cutting hard materials as it has a slight angle to the edge which reduces slippage on hard materials, the longer blade also means more can be cut per stroke. In regards to chopping, the A1 was far more powerful than Kellam. The hard plastic which defeated the Kellam posed no problem for the A1 which chopped it up into sections with little effort. The A1 suffered no edge impactions or rolling on the hard plastic or light metals. It started to have difficultly on soft wood the size of a 2x4 and smaller if seasoned or just harder wood. After all this hacking, the A1 was just lightly steeled, and given 25 strokes on each side on a fine DMT pad and then finished with a ceramic rod. It sharpened much faster than the Kellam as the the edge was not as blunted and had no visible damage.
The Marine Raider bowie is much thicker than the A1 which lowers its slicing ability. It is longer though so this does makeup for the thicker blade a little on long cuts however it is by far the most awkward blade to use for any precision cutting due to its size and its blade heavy balance (1.5 inches in-front of the guard). It has the highest fatigue rate for such work. However wood that poses a problem for the A1 to chop through is not difficult for the Marine Raider Bowie.
In short, just as it fares in between in size, the A1 is in the middle ground in cutting and chopping ability between the Kellam puukko and Marine Raider bowie. For some tasks this middle ground allows for an overall more functional profile. For example roughing out a wood club the A1 was faster than either knives as it could hack out the rough wood much faster than the puukko could carve it away, and then could finish the whittling to shape much faster than the larger bowie.
UPDATE : this review was one of the first written and methods to compare and contrast blades were still being developed, for more quantitative procedures see one of the more recent reviews [ref].
Using the A1 for a variety of wood work it was found that it didn't have the necessary power to fell even small soft woods (three to four inch clear pine) however, it could easily limb out such small sticks and could be used effectively with a baton. A small quality folding saw is a nice complement as well.
Peter Hjortberger of Fällkniven recommends that on thicker woods that the point of the A1 be hammered into the sticks, working around until it has been so weakened that it can be broken. This is an effective method, however it isn't as efficient as using a larger knife to chop, nor a quality saw .
The blade held up well to extended chopping with no problems. It was also used in assisted chopping with a mallet, and saw a lot of splitting of thick and very knotty wood with no effects on the blade. It was also used for a lot of throwing, mainly at 1.5 turn distance (about 20 feet) which it also handled fine. It was dulled a little from hits off the ground, but the tip was not impacted or bent in any way. The knife is nice and heavy for its size which gives it a nice feel for throwing and its high moment of inertia makes it resistant to side rolling so it flies nice and straight. The extended tang also makes for a decently durable makeshift hammer. It could for example easily break concrete bricks without significant damage which readily tears up the pommel on the Ontario Spec Plus knives.
The A1 was also used for a lot of prying and digging in woods. It easily took the heaviest side loads possible and broke out thick chunks of wood with little side flex. The A1 and the Kellam puukko and Marine Raider Bowie were further compared when the blades were used side by side to dig holes in some 2x8 and 4x4. On the 2x8 the holes were straight through, on the 4x4 the holes were made halfway from both sides. The A1 was a much more powerful prying tool than the puukko and was thus much faster. It was also much more efficient than the larger bowie because the A1 was much more precise and could get in much more focused hits and thus cleared out much more wood through a given number of stabs.
As the blade was as of yet not seriously damaged, more demanding tasks were undertaken to fill out the functional profile of the knife.
The A1 was used for a dozen stabs into the roof of an old car with penetration passing the halfway mark on the blade. No significant tip indentation or edge damage resulted. Chopping right into some rolled metal and the fender getting more than a quarter inch of penetration only slightly rolled the edge. The knife would still slice up the seat covers and belts. Only fifteen swipes with an 800 grit ceramic rod were needed before the A1 would again cleanly slice paper. There were a couple of catches where the blade had rolled a little more which were fixed with a steel to align the edge and then a few minutes on a fine DMT pad.
The A1 was also chopped into a a 0.5 mm thick hardened stainless steel boot liner. The knife made a one mm deep but and took a 0.2 mm dent. The A1 was later used to dig a couple of two foot square hole in the ground to the full blade length. After the soil was loosened (used the A1 as a pick) the edge was used to till the soil a dozen times in each hole. This had the knife grating directly over and through rocks. The largest dents were a fraction of a mm in depth, and there were only a few of them however the edge was quite blunt and could not cut through and old piece of fabric.
As an experiment in "field" sharpening, a a smooth rock, a brick and the pickaxe were used to hone the edge. After fifty strokes per side on the pick the A1 sliced through the material in about ten to twelve passes. The brick produced an edge which cut through the fabric in six to eight strokes and the rock made a decent sharp edge that only needed three to four slices to cut the fabric. Those little indents in the blade from the digging were now little holes, for optimal results some alignment work would be done before hand. Using a coarse AO hone it took two hundred strokes per side to remove almost all the nicks, except for two of the worst ones from previous impacts on rock, and those couple remaining were much reduced. A light ten strokes per side at a slightly elevated angle removed the burr and the blade would now nicely slice paper.
Finally the edge was examined under heavy lateral loads. The A1 was pounded edge first into the edge of a 4x4 (using the spine of the Cold Steel Recon Scout which knocked the coating off of the Scout). With the 4x4 at waist height the A1 was leaned into until it snapped out of the wood with a large crack. This was repeated a few times with problems. The TUSK, a much more expensive custom blade broke under much less force [ref].
The A1 was pounded tip first into wood that deep that when subjected to side loads, the blade held firm and could take all the force that could be applied with one hand. Pull ups of 180 lbs were done on just a short section of the tip driven into a tree with no problems.
The gross blade strength is tremendous due to the thick cross section and high alloy steel, it is much stronger than other blades such as the TUSK, khukuris from Gurkha House and various Ontario Spec Plus knives.
UPDATE : Fallkniven has done break tests on their blades and the results are worth reading : Break Test of knives Testing at LTU 2000 . They should be commended for not only doing such tests but as well making them public.
With no protected from any type of oil or other corrosion inhibitor, and with crud from cutting left on the blade over night, the blade showed no spotting. However extended salt water soaks on VG-10 can be a problem [ref].
The A1 is a very strong knife with good edge holding and durability over a wide range of tasks.. The handle is durable and shows little wear after extended use however it can be cut or torn rather easily some some care is needed in this regard. Similar grips on Cold Steel knives are far less durable and experience has shown them to quickly break down and so slick in use.
The blade durability does come with a drawback which is a reduction in cutting ability. A higher flat grind and more importantly thinner and more acute edge would would improve cutting performance significantly but at the cost of durability. The slicing ability can in general be increased by using a more coarse finish on the edge as illustrated by Mike Swaim and Joe Talmadge .
UPDATE : Fallkniven switched the geometry of the A1 to a convex sabre grind which produced a thinner edge and thus a directly more efficient cutting tool. They also switched steels and are now using a AISI-420 / VG-10 / AISI-420 laiminate.
Comments can be sent to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com. Feedback can be seen in the following thread [ARCHIVED] :
Fred Perrin and Nemo have also reviewed the A1 and have used the newer Fallkniven laminates.
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