As-Boxed :
Description from Cold Steel :
Machetes :
These blades are made out of 1055 Carbon Steel with a tough spring temper and are surfaced with a black, baked-on anti-rust finish. Each Cold Steel� machete comes with a good utility edge which, with just a little work, can be made hair shaving sharp. The tough, Polypropylene handles of our machetes are designed to provide a comfortable secure grip, and they are rugged enough to resist chipping, cracking or breaking, so they last practically forever.
Khukuri machete :
There's no single edged weapon that we can think of that can out-chop or out-cut a good Kukri. It's true that the best Kukris, like our LTC and Gurkha models, can be somewhat expensive. While those "thoroughbreds" perform extraordinarily well for the money that they cost, it sometimes seems that what's required is a good, inexpensive, "workhorse" model. Our Kukri Machetes are those workhorses. They are available in two sizes, one has a thirteen inch blade and the other, our new "Magnum" model has a whopping seventeen inch blade. Both are ready to plow through the toughest chores life can dish out. Each features the distinctive weight-forward balance of our "top-of-the-line" models, and always present their edge on an angle so they're guaranteed to "bite" deep with every stroke. Additionally, they come complete with a sturdy Cor-Ex sheath! They're a solid value, ready for long, hard work.
This review of the Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete consists of :
The Cold Steel Khukuri Machete, a few specifications :
Initial impressions :
Based on experience with the regular kukuri machete it is obvious this one is going to have to be modified to be made into a functional tool and there is room for significant modifications. Therefore the review will start with some stock testing to show how the modifications made on the kukuri machete bring out the performance of this one, the Magnum Kukri machete.
With the the initial edge the sharpness was non existant as the bevels did not even meet. The edge was formed very roughly as a hollow grind with no fine cutting ability. With this edge making two inch points on on some pine (0.5x1.5") takes 46-50 slices. Attempting a cut on some 3/8" hemp was pointless. A 100 lbs push cut would not break the surface of the rope and a 50 lbs draw over two inches just scored the rope. Attempting a chopping comparison was also pointless as after even just a few sections of plywood cut (41 chops) the large burr on the edge had collapsed and an attempt to benchmark it against the 14" Sportsman Fiskars small hatchet in terms of chop count showed the Magnum Kukri machete being outperformed nearly 3:1 and many times more in terms of fatigue due to binding and it was breaking the wood as much as it was cutting it. The very poor performance in the carving, rope cutting and chopping was mainly due to the very low initial sharpness.
With the knife sharpened
with the original edge profile it was compared
against the Fiskar's again and this time (after many sharpenings) it
had enough edge retention to do a reasonable amount of work. The histogram
at the right shows the results of 65 pieces of various construction lumber
cut with each blade. A few things are immediately obvious :
Some clarification on this point and some other issues can be seen in the video on the right. A few highlights of the video :
With the the reground edge the performance was dramatically improved.
A summary of the results of the above can be seen in the following table :
| Condition | Carving | Hemp | Chopping (vs Fiskars) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NIB | 46-50 slices | 100+ lbs push, 50+ lbs 2" slice | 30% |
| Sharpened | 19-21 slices | 100% | |
| Reground | 4-6 slices |
Using a cheap hardware store coarse/fine stone on the as-boxed edge it took approximately 15 minutes minutes for the majority of the edge (more than 90%) of the as-ground edge bevels to meet clearly. At this point it was safe and functional to use. An attempt was made to raise the bevel polish but it would keep fracturing above 1000 grit waterstones. The edge was obviously burnt during the initial grinding. A deep hollow bevel is also present on the edge indicating it was formed on a wheel.
Working the edge can be frustrating for some time as the edge will not fully sharpen. Checking even under magnification will show that it keeps breaking apart due to being over heated in the initial grinding. On the regular kukri machete it took six complete sharpenings before the edge would start to form clean and then have decent edge holding. To speed the process up on this one, the second time it was sharpened it was first ground right into the coarse stone edge first to file a flat right along the edge and remove some of the weakened metal. This made a major improvement in ability to sharpen and the edge responded much better and an improvement could be seen moving past the 1000 grit waterstone.
Regrind : the machete was later reground, the primary grind was variable and produced an edge thickness which was :
The primary grind is dual flat. It start out at about 6.5 dps and runs to 0.075" thick and then is reduced to 2.5 dps for the rest of the height. The optimal grind is likely closer to 0.045 at least. With this modification :
With the initial as-boxed edge, the edge retention was nonexistant. A couple of dozen chops into wood was enough to collapse the large burr on the edge and the machete could only get very shallow penetration into woods as it was no longer cleanly cutting. At this point the machete was not even save to use. Even after the first sharpening even one cut of a 2x4 could be completed without seeing a major loss of sharpness. The first ten chops were decent, smooth cuts into the wood. However the blunting was so rapid that a difference could be seen in the performance of the blade from the initial cuts on the 2x4, to the last cuts on the 2x4. The blade was not even able to maintain a high level of sharpness through a dozen chops into a moderate hardness wood (spruce). This not only reduces all fine cutting ability to basically zero, but it drastically hampers wood chopping by :
Moving away from the construction lumber it was used to delimbing a piece of deadfall and buck it to length. However again the edge retention was not enough to even complete this task as noted in the video on the right. Specifically after a total of about a hundred or so chops the edge was again severely blunted and was crushing the wood. The performance being shown is vastly inferior to what was seen on the regular kukri machete from Cold Steel as that blade could handle a few hundred chops even after the first sharpening before it would go sisibly dull but this one is obviously going to require more work to even get to that point. That should have been obvious though as the magnum came with a huge burr along the edge which was more than a mm wide which is often a sign often of a very heavy over heating. However what is important is that steady progress is being seen so this should turn around shortly and get to quality steel.
The grip has a very decent shape, oval enough to prevent rolling in hand but not so thin that it is a high pressure point. The checkering is very aggressive and well suited with a light grip commonly used in snap cuts. No issues with retention / slipping or in general excessive shock or discomfort. However a number of people have complained about the handle
The Cold Steel Kukri machete has a number of strong attributes :
The most surprising thing is that this is not really a "Magnum" version of the regular kukri machete in the sense that it is a more heavy duty or more powerful blade. It is basically the regular version much more stretched out so it is much more like a machete and much less like a kukri. Note they are almost the same weight.
Comments can be emailed to Knife Review : Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete
Most of the pictures in the above are in the
album at PhotoBucket. The video's can be seen in the YouTube Playlist
| Last updated : | Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:46:05 Newfoundland Daylight Time |
| Originally written: | 27/12/2011 |