From the Maker :
For the money, the Bushman� knives might be the strongest survival/outdoor knives in the world! Unlike most hollow handled survival knives, there is no joint or seam between the blades and handles that requires a mechanical fastener. Instead, the Bushman�s� blades and integral handles are each expertly cold forged out of a single piece of 2.5mm thick SK-5 high carbon steel. The resulting knives are expertly heat-treated and tempered to RC54 and, when subjected to our tests, have withstood over two tons of pressure on their blade/handle transition!
Every Bushman� blade has been carefully ground to an extra thin edge, and then honed and buffed by hand until razor sharp. The Bushman� knives are versatile too! Their hollow handles will accept survival supplies or a variety of handle extensions which can maximize reach, leverage or ease of throwing. They are available in two blade styles (standard and our new Bowie point). Both feature continuously curved blades that are ideal for skinning, and will pierce, cut, slash, slice and shear like you won�t believe.
They both come complete with our new heavy duty Cor-Ex Survival sheath which features a utilitarian pocket on the front for storing small items.
This review consists of :
The Cold Steel Bowie Bushman, a few specifications :
The initial sharpness was very low for a Cold Steel knife, it could
barely slice a piece of newsprint. The picture at the right shows
why as the edge has a slight roll/burr (the white strip at the edge).
A couple of measurements :
Comparing the rough carving ability to a
#1260 Mora on some pine (0.5x1.5") making
two inch points the cutting ability of the Bushman was clearly
outclassed as that would be expected as :
It was also used to chop some 2x2 alongside the Fiskar's hatchet and it fared poorly in comparison :
Even taking into account it is only 50% of the weight can not explain the poor performance as the Bushman is about 25% of the ability of the small axe but of course the axe is not only heavier it is much more forward balanced and this gives it much more power on the swing. As the wood would get larger the performance difference would grow significantly.
The Bushman was used to cut a variety of materials :
In general it is a nice blade to use for utility work because :
It is also so inexpensive that there are no concerns about aesthetic damage so it can be freely loaned without concern and will dig a hole as readily with its very wide blade as it will cut a piece of rope.
Using the Bushman in the kitchen on :
However, comparing it to a few other larger knives ( Junglas, Forester, MT-151, etc.) the Bushman would be preferred due to
Getting a bit more specific, some comparisons can be seen in the review of the Everyday Essentials Chef's knife where the forces to make a cut were recorded. Again, keeping in mind the Bushman is intended to be used in an outdoor setting the fact that it keeps pace with the kitchen knives shows its use as a general camp knife. In short, for small to moderate vegetables the Bushman will compare well to the thicker kitchen knives and easily offers superior performance to the thicker bladed tactical knives such as the Shikra.
The video at the right shows YT user SpartanJohns doing some splitting and then fine carving with the Bushman and using a handle extension to assist in the splitting. This Bushman was used to split some wood starting with some small pieces of 2x4 only 4-6" long. The Bushman handled this well but of course this was easy to split.
Working up to larger wood it did not take long before a problem was encountered. On a piece of 2x10 about 14" long the Bushman bound right above a knot and the blade was not stiff enough to break the wood apart, instead it just started to flex and the splitting was halted and the wood was split with a wedge.
In short it could easily handle small wood which is easy to split but it does not take much of a piece of wood before the blade will bend before the wood will split. As stiffness is cubic with thickness this knife is only 10% as stiff as a knife with a quarter inch blade thus it will bend FAR sooner.
Using the Bushman harvesting some deadfall showed that while it is capable and of course has value as a knife it is many to one times less effective than a short machete. It is simply a matter of weight, heft and reach though the reach could be dealt with via a handle extension.
For some perspective, the Bushman is actually of similar weight to the extreme large folders and of course it is much more capable for such work. Again the biggest advantage of the Bushman tends to be its low cost and very basic design so it easily handles and gets used for without hesitation :
These kinds of activities will tend to damage, at least severely blunt any knife and as the Bushman is so inexpensive there is no concern about wear so it is used without hesitation. This is one of the main reasons it frequently gets used for gardening and family plot maintenance as the wide blade also makes a nice makeshift shovel.
Using the fine side of a regular benchstone only moderate sharpness could be achieved with the first sharpening. The edge would shave (though scratchy) and slice newsprint but had little ability to do push cuts on the paper and needed a very long draw to make a rather short cut. Looking at the edge under 50X magnification a small burr was seen about a few microns in width. This would not be removed by any method and would reform as soon as the knife would touch the stone.
Checking the edge by attempting to make a draw cut through Berga spinning thread under 40 grams of tension, the knife had only 1/5 of optimal sharpness which would be expected given the less than ideal paper cutting ability. However after a few more sharpening sessions the edge started to respond and would take a fine shaving edge as a plain carbon steel should. As the steel has an insignificant carbide volume it grinds easily and forms little burr. Finished on a 8000 grit waterstone it easily shaves smoothly. From that point on it only takes care to refine the edge to the level of polish required.
The initial edge retention was rather poor, mainly because the initial sharpness was only capable of achieving a fraction of what could be expected given a specific stone. As the knife was used and sharpened the edge started to respond and as it did and the sharpness which could be obtained increased then so did the edge retention. After just a couple of full sharpenings the knife could make 1000 slices into pine and have no :
There are a few obvious problems with the grip on the Bushman :
During a chopping session the Bushman cut into a fairly hard knot and the
primary grind took a large bend. The primary was dented back to the point
where it was 0.060" thick and the bend was 0.1" wide. This was not that
unexpected given the :
This really would not be considered to be a failure of the tool, simply a case where it was pushed beyond what it could reasonably be expected to handle.
As noted in the video in the right, the Junglas easily busted the knot into pieces without having a significantly thicker edge, but simply having a flat grind which directly supported the edge as the full grind made contact with the wood.
Comments can be emailed to Intro : Cold Steel Bowie Bushman
Or the YT Playlist.
Most of the pictures in the above are in the Cold Steel Bowie Bushman
album at PhotoBucket.
| Last updated : | 11:29:2011 |
| Originally written: | 11:29:2011 |