Busse Combat Battle Mistress

The Busse Combat Battle Mistress after extensive use and sharpening :

The review consists of :

• specifications
• general work : food, field, miscellaneous
• edge retention
• ease of sharpening
• grip
• sheath
• overview
• comments and references

Specifications

The Battle Mistress is made out of INFI and is 15.5" long and weighs 660 g and balances an inch infront of the handle. The blade is 0.275" thick and 1.8" wide with a sharpened edge length of 9.25" . The included bevel angle is about 35 degrees and is intentionally asymettric, one side is convex and much more acute than the other side. The handle is swelled along the underside and slightly along the top enhancing comfort and security. There are grooves cut in the Micarta around the position of my index finger to aid in grip retention. It came with a Kydex sheath.

UPDATE : this knife is several generations old. The next generation was "Ergo" line, some comments can be seen in the review of an Ergo Battle Mistress. This was replaced by the Fusion Battle Mistress which is the current production model.

Food

The Battle Mistress was used extensively in the kitchen. A lot of kitchen work isn't very dependent on the shape of the edge and just demands high sharpness such as meats, soft vegetables and fruits and the Battle Mistress cuts those well well though is far heavier and more forward balanced than necessary. This is more of an issue for precision work such as peeling potatos as while the cutting ability is high enough, the blade is just too heavy in hand to be efficient :

Similar with fine dices, used in the traditional pinch grip around the choil, it has no problem making fine cuts, however there is a lot of fatigue compared to an efficient kitchen utility knife which will have much thinner blade stock. However for preparing small meals this really isn't a functional concern as it is only a few minutes of cutting :

However for longer food preperation the increase in force could be a concern. Some specific details for a few foods :

What is interesting is that the relative performance is actually closest on the foods which are most difficult to cut. What happens on the stiffer vegetables is that the Battle Mistress will induce them to crack on deeper cuts which reduces the force significantly. On the softer foods this doesn't happen so there is more wedging induced because of the thicker blade stock. On the rhubarb, this was a dozen small pieces held together, cutting one small piece won't actually induce enough force to show up on the scale. Moving beyond the force required, It is possible to make very thin slices on softer vegetables, cutting up pieces of celery for example until they are transparent :

Or cutting an apple into wedges and then cutting out the core :

Cutting out the core on a half of an apple with the point is problematic though as the point is so wide and there is no distal taper, similar with tryign to remove the eyes from potatos. The biggest functional drawback of the thickness is seen when trying to section thick vegetables like turnips as it takes a lot of pressure on the spine with the off hand to make the cuts.

The Battle Mistress works best as a heavy cleaver, separating joints, taking apart bones aggressively, crushing nuts and similar tasks. The corrosion resistance of the steel was high enough to prevent no visible patina even after extended exposure to acidic foods, it was generally not rinsed and cleaned during the cooking unless necessary for other reasons.

Field

For precision work, the Battle Mistress works well for a large knife due to the high flat grind and relatively thin and acute edge due to the high relief of the convex side of the asymmetric bevel. The index finger cutout also permits forward grips and thus allows precision cutting with lower fatigue rates. It compares well to the Project I on shallow wood carving and does much better on deeper cuts because the higher flat grind keeps the profile thinner for longer than the low sabre hollow grind on the Project I. Note specifically at the same height on the Battle Mistress (0.80") that the Project I is full thickness (0.25"), the Battle Mistress is only 0.148" thick. Compared to most tactical knives like the WB from Strider, the Battle Mistress is more productive by more than two to one. It has no problem for example making an one pin toggle trigger :

Or an upside down figure four :

These were carved from some wood splits made by batoning the Battle Mistress from a round to break off the initial larger pieces which could then be just chop split to finer woods as desired :

On larger lengths of wood the shingles are very useful for construction, and at under 1/4" thick then just a few sticks of wood can yield enough material to cover a very wide surface area. These shingles can also be planed flat to make useable note pads, and the same can often be carved out of dead wood sticks to take some notes on performance when the writing paper is left at home :

As a chopping tool, the Battle Mistress has a solid weight, balance, and decently thin and acute edge profile needed to provide solid chopping performance. In regards to raw penetration, it can consistently match the performance of the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet. The Battle Mistress easily takes down small saplings 1-3" thick in 5-15 seconds :

This is actually faster than can be cut with a decent pruing saw, outperforming the Felco #60 for example in respects to both time and effort. Large woods are readily cut as well :

This is only about thirty seconds with clean cuts, however on this size of wood the smaller width of the bit on the hatchet tends to make it more efficient, a general trend which is noted on thick wood cutting. The Battle Mistress also tends to bind more in harder woods the the small axe especially around knots but never to the extent that withdrawing it is a significant problem unlike for example the PAB which had to be actually cut out of the woods at times with another blade. The Battle Mistress is in general binds much less in woods than heavy machetes and machete like large blades like the RTAK and Patrol Machete. It is given solid competition for penetration and fluidity in woods by blades such as the Valiant Goloks and Himalayan Imports 18" Ang Khola which are also very nice large wood working blade.

On lumber, the Battle Mistress is also a strong performer. It and a number of other blades and saws were used to cut a bunch of clapboard to cut to length to burn. The Battle Mistress had now modified to its final edge profile. One hundred and forty seven sections were cut in total with the following blades :

That is an 18" Ang Khola, a Gurkha House Service #1, the Battle Mistress, a 20" Sirupari, a Wildlife hatchet, a Zeta saw and Timber saw. The angle of the Zeta saw was adjusted back as it was way too aggressive at that drop. the Performance :

The rank reflects the effort in use. The saws had little to no fatigue and would actually benefit from cutting multiple pieces at a time. The larger blades tended to be problematic as they could shatter the wood readily if swung heavily and thus the Battle Mistress was easily the most efficient chopper as it cut cleanly with little force however even it was overkill in terms of chopping power for this class of wood. The cut wood :

On heavier lumber the performance was significantly different, as the wood was strong enough for the heavier knives to be at full capacity. The knives used to cut eight inch board were an 18" Ang Khola, a Gurkha House Service #1, the Battle Mistress, a Wildlife hatchet, a Zeta saw and Timber saw and Ratweiler with a modified edge.

The Performance through 16 sections of wood cut :

The saws were again ahead but the blades were much closer this time with the Battle Mistress being just a little behind simply because it is trivial to run clean cuts with a saw as they just cut in a straight line, however the blades have to be very exact in the angles they cut or they will bind or stick. Experience comes into play strongly here of course, this was the first speed chopping done in awhile so technique was less than ideal. However even with optimal technique the last two blades are readily behind the saws. The Ratweiler was comparable in time but at that performance could not last beyond a few cuts at which point fatigue would be a factor. The Gurkha House Service #1 has a significantly lower chopping ability than the first three larger blades and also binds more because the edge is actually hollow ground as is common the the cheaper khukuris. The performance will improve as it is eventually reprofiled. The board :

Similar chopping was performed on 2x4's, more effort was concentrated on speeding up the chopping through 14 sections of wood cut with each :

With the thicker and more rigid wood the blade moved closer to the saws. The wood was being cut on a saw horse and just held down with the off hand and the heavy impacts of the khukuri and hatchet would cause the wood to move under the impact which wasted a lot of the energy. The Ratweiler felt more natural chopping fast but the others could be run at near idential speeds. The hatchet was behind in terms of time but compared well in terms of chops. It simply felt unnatural to run that fast and unless it was heavily focused on to do so, a slower and heavier pace would be relaxed into. More lumber was cut but this time the 2x3's were placed on a 2x6 so the 2x3 didn't move as readily under the impact of the chops.

With the wood being supported on a 2x6 the performance of the heavier chopping tools increased massively but the saw and Ratweiler just scaled as expected with the wood size which predicts 70% of the number of cuts. However with the heavier blades now being able to bring more of the power into the cuts they had the cuts reduced to about 50%. With a bit more focus on technique and speed the hatchet has no problems being run as fast as the larger blades. Similar work was also done with 2x6's :

The Fiskars hatchet had a modified edge profile which improved the cutting and chopping ability significantly, as previously noted does the Battle Mistress the other blades were with the stock profiles. The Fiskars hatchet tended to move a little faster as it seemed both more natural to do so and was a little more fluid in the wood than the Wildlife hatchet. The better penetration as evidenced by the latter was just due to the swing being slower and more powerful, again not inhernetly a limitation of design as much as natural inclination from years of use. The khukuris are very fluid but swinging at that speed is even more odd with them. The much larger 22" Ang Khola is very difficult to swing at very high speeds. It also has such impact energy that it knocks the board around and thus the chopping efficient is low similar to the performance of the other blades without the additional board support of the first 2x4 cutting run.

For limbing, the long blade on the Battle Mistress has a large advantage over a small axe as it can sweep off limbs all along its length and can work easier in thick growth because the axe can't risk contacts with the handle under the bit. Limbing off this thick trunk is only minutes work with the Battle Mistress :

In general for such work the Battle Mistress is comparable in raw power to quality machetes such as from Martindale and Barteaux. The machetes tend to be more efficient in general for such smaller wood work and general brush work due to the longer reach. The Battle Mistress is better for thick woods and more knife like work. It tends to be the most optimal choice in general when a multitude of tasks have to be done such as cleaning up a site like this :

A long blade is much more efficient here than a axe, saw or small blade, and even than all of them combined. It easily cuts away the brush deftly, chops through the larger sticks as necessary in a few seconds and prys up the roots when necessary or hacks through them. Some of this is old fencing as well so it readily works as a prybar popping the sections off of the nails. It only takes about 15 minutes to turn the above into :

For that type of work the Battle Mistress made it ease to haul out massive amounts of material with the combined ability to cut small brush, chop heavy wood and hammer/pry as necessary. In about an hour a large amount of debris can be removed :

For fire making, the strongly chopping and splitting abilitycombined with the ability to create fine wood shavings, gather bark and cut light grasses efficiently, make the Battle Mistress a fine tool to assist in firemaking :

The blacked spot is the remained of a brush fire used to remove boughs. Once the fire has been burning for some time with the dry wood, then thicker wood can be split and added to keep it going, altering the size and type of wood to control the burn rate :

As a digging tool, the Battle Mistress works well with robust point easily able to pry up rocks and the edge readily cutting through rooty soil which makes use of a digging stick problematic. Depending on the type of soil this can readily be used to gather water :

This hole is in fairly marshy ground and it filled in with water as fast as it could be drained out. The Wildlife hatchet doesn't do well for that type of work, however the wide blade machetes are more efficient than the Battle Mistress as the blades are wide enough to work well as scoops. The axe however in general makes a better digging tool on thick ice than the longer blades.

Miscellaneous

As a general utility blade the Battle Mistress works well being able to cut decently well on cardboard, ropes and plastics and be a very rigid and strong prybar for heavier work.

Edge retention

The edge retention of INFI has been demonstrated live at knife shows by Jerry Busse piece of one inch hemp with the blade staying at shaving sharp for a very long time slicing paper after thousands of push cuts. The edge retention exhibited by this Battle Mistress compared well to 10V on rough comparisons on cardboard, ropes and woods.

On used carpet the Battle Mistress did well. With the edge sharpened on a norton crystalon stone and lightly stropped on leather loaded with chromium/aluminum oxide compound, it slice off 16 sections from a length of carpet and cut the last strip within a few percent of the first, in regards to the number of slices required. A Basic #7 was similar however TOPS Steel Eagle degraded so fast the last strip took twice as many cuts as the first. There is more to edge retention than resisting wear, more carpet cutting was performed with the Battle Mistress, a CPM-420V fillet knife (59 RC) and a CPM-10V light utility knife at 62.5 HRC. All the blades had similar edge angles, around 15 degrees per side. Again sixteen strips of carpet were cut, this time the runs were broke up into groups of four. None of the blades suffered much loss in slicing aggression, however however while the total effect of the blunting was small for each blade and similar in extent it was very different in nature.

The edge on the Battle Mistress was more extensively rolled, light reflected from much of its entire length. The CPM-10V blade only reflected light from one spot about two mm long and the CPM-420V blade only had four spots each one to two mm long. Under magnification the CPM-420V blade showed numerous chips along the edge, the largest of which was one mm long by 0.4 mm deep and was visible to the naked eye. The 10V and INFI edges were not chipped. This damage makes sense as the CPM-420V blade is the most brittle out of the three steels so it should readily chip and the CPM-10V blade is the hardest so it should resist rolling the best. As the blunting was very different in nature, it made a large difference in how the blades responded to sharpening. After a light steeling on a butchers steel the Battle Mistress shaved and all blades sliced paper well. It only took ten strokes on a twelve inch fine DMT rod and fine on an 800 grit ceramic rod to make the 10V blade shaving sharp again. However the 420V blade needed much more work, a bench-stone was required to remove all the fractures and completely restore the edge.

Edge retention while chopping was very high in general. A freshly sharpened Battle Mistress and TOPS Steel Eagle were used for two hundred and forty chops through some wood cutting with the sharpness measured by the amount of edge needed to cut through rolls of fabric. The blades were then given a light steeling and stropping to restore the sharpness to optimal and the process repeated a total of three three times with a similar amount of wood cut in each case. In all three trials the Battle Mistress blunted very little, a loss of cutting ability of ten percent or less. However the Steel Eagle suffered edge degradation by fifty percent or more with each session, showing an edge retention advantage for the Battle Mistress of many to one. As a further consideration, the Battle Mistress cuts far more wood per chop, more than two to one. If the edge retention comparison was performed by having both knives cut a similar amount of wood, the results would be even more in favor of the Battle Mistress. The lower chopping ability of the Steel Eagle is due to its much thicker and more obtuse edge geometry and shallow primary hollow grind. They are both of a similar weight, the Steel Eagle is about 620 g compared to 660 for the Battle Mistress.

UPDATE : the above comparisons of edge retention are quite crude compared to current work. It would be informative to repeat some of it in more detail.

Durability

The edge had shown itself to be very durable through the wood cutting taking no damage on the hardest of tasks. The Battle Mistress could also cut up harder materials, bones, wire and the occasional harder bit of steel such as nails with little damage :

After fifty chops though TV video cable the edge showed no loss of slicing ability as measured by slicing up some rolls of fabric, there was no damage and just some copper being brazed to the edge. A S1 also suffered no significant damage through the same cutting but need need a slight bit more honing, just a few passes on a ceramic rod, to allow a smooth paper slice after the cutting. The edge was also examined for resistance to rippling chopping the edge into a piece of board and exerting 200+ lbs on the handle to split the wood. For reference, the #7 Basic and Steel Eagle could also handle this level of work with no problems. The Basic however did show more flex but easily returned to true after the split. Far less stressful work readily broke two TUSK's to suffer gross damage.

The point of the Battle Mistress easily held up to digging hard wood such as hickory and well seasoned Spruce. Full power stabs getting up to three quarters of an inch of penetration with hard pulls to the side caused no problems, the tip didn't even significantly. The penetration on a stab is relatively high 698 (44) pages into a phonebook but on a push it is low at 117 (4) pages. The tip is fairly robust in profile and thus needs the high energy stab to penetrate well and it achieves a lot of impact energy as it is fairly heavy. The robust nature of the tip allows it to do well digging through 2x4's in 29 (13) stabs in 3.0 (1.1) minutes.

The blade was also used for heavy prying on more than one occasion, and takes very heavy force to bend to about 45 degrees which isn't close to the break point limits as demonstrated by Busse Combat. It is much stronger in this regard than differentially tempered blades, especially the ones with the annealed spines.

Sharpening

Since INFI resists damage and wear well generally little metal tends to have to be removed when sharpening. The recommended procedure for sharpening from Busse Combat is to lightly hone the flat side of the asymmetric bevel. Over time the dual edge will get distorted and periodically it is best to hone the convex part of the bevel to conserve the edge shape.

One important note about sharpening larger impact knives in general is that heavy impacts can weaken an edge and problems can build up if this is not addressed. Through a long session (weeks) of limbing, bucking and felling with the total about of wood was about the equivalent of a 1000 or so pieces 2x4 cut, the edge was maintained using a a steel and a loaded strop with some infrequently passes on a ceramic rod. Towards the end the edge started to show low slicing aggressiion even when freshly aligned and some comparisons against other blades showed lower edge retention and it even had durability issues on light bones.

In general larger chopping knives like the Battle Mistress are sharpened by using a fine stone, usually a 4000 grit waterstone is enough to restore a fine shaving finish with a few minutes work after extended chopping sessions and the minimal abrasion of the stone will prevent any buildup of weakened metal along the edge. After extended sharpening sessions the profile was eventually converted to a more symmetric profile, ending up with a high relief grind of about eight degrees which swept into a 12 degree bevel when the edge was 0.040" thick. The edge was maintained with modified Fike's style honing method.

Corrosion resistance

After being used in the cold the Battle Mistress and a Himalayan Imports Ang Khola khukuri (spring steel) were left uncleaned and checked after seven hours to examine the effects of condensation. The khukuri had about 75% of the blade covered in one millimeter spots of corrosion. The Battle Mistress was unaffected except for some spotting under the index finger cutout where some cord had been wrapped around. The rust on the Battle Mistress wiped off with a towel, on the khukuri it was removed it in less than a minute with soapy water and a scotchbrite pad. The Battle Mistress was also soaked in fresh water overnight which induced small orange rust spots along the flats and a couple on the spine. It cleaned up very easily with a light scrubbing with a Scotchbrite pad and some Ajax.

Mainly as a check of several corrosion inhibitors, the Battle Mistress was coated in sections with Rust Check, Marine Tuf-Cloth, WD-40,oil and one part was left bare (different arrangements were used on the opposing sides). The coatings were left dry overnight and the next morning the blade was used through 250 cuts on weeds and then covered with a salt water solution made from one teaspoon of table salt per two cups of water. Six hours later the blade was checked and the blade had the same rust pattern on both sides, corrosion had ignored the protective coatings which must have been burnished off in use. The largest rust spots were two to three millimeters in diameter. After a light cleaning with a Scotchbrite pad just a few black specs were visible as noted in the following picture :

The Battle Mistress is never oiled, and only rarely is a light coat of grease applied to the very edge after a fresh sharpening. More than half a dozen years of use has still not produced a signficant patina on the blade. This is not surprising given the alloy makeup of the steel which implies significant corrosion resistance.

Handle

The grip is decently ergonomic and secure when wet or dry, however is slippery when lubricated, the guard is however prominent enough to still allow heavy stabs, but the contact off the hand can be painful. The steep curvature of the rear talon was also problematic in this regard as it was a frequent contact point and would frequently cause a hot spot initially. If it was on a angle and especially supported by the micarta the contact pressure would be greatly reduced. In general the grip was found to be a little thin, it can be wrapped with tape to thicken it which was done at times.

The index finger cutout was also of significant advantage at times as it shift the balance towards neutral allowing lower fatigue in precision cutting. However it could benefit from much more extensive rounding. The micarta near the top of the grip was also squarish and could also be rounded further. The exposed tang was also found to be problematic in the cold as the metal conducts heat much faster than micarta. If the handle was fully encapsulated it would be more functional in temperature extremes.

The Micarta slabs are resistant to heat, they will blacken a little when exposed to direct flame but are very resistant to catching fire. It is also very wear and cut resistant, much more so than the rubber grip on the Basic #7. Accidental cuts will not bite significantly into the Micarta and even hard cuts only make shallow penetration. The impact toughness is also very high and the handle can withstand very heavy pounding without damage.

Sheath

The Kydex sheath holds the securely with no rattle. It has a lip for retention, a hole near the bottom for fluid drainage, leg strap, and handle strap. The leg strap goes outside the sheath which first appeared awkward but kept the sheath tight reducing snags while walking through the woods. The additional belt loop was also appreciated for quick and easy removal of the blade from the belt, and allowed the knife to to ride lower on the leg putting the hand in a more natural position to access the knife. The additional loop can easily be removed if desired. Additional slots for the leg straps would make it more accommodating over a range of user heights and the additional top belt loop should also be able to be easily completely removed along with all attachments.

Overview

The Busse Combat Battle Mistress proved to be a solid working large blade in all respects. The only signifiant drawbacks noted were with the grip which have been addressed in the new Fustion Battle Mistress.

Comments and references

Comments can be emailed to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com and posted to :

• clapboard cutting
• felling : shbm, wildlife, fiskars
• work with a battle mistress

Most of the pictures are from the Battle Mistress album on Photobucket. More information on the Battle Mistress and other Busse Combat knives can be obtained from the Busse Combat website. Performance videos were also at one point available online. This knife was bought through Pete's Tactical and Custom Knives who was easy to get a hold of by email and upfront about delievery times. Busse Combat also handled several postage problems efficiently.