A shot from the Fehrman Knives website :
The review consists of :
The Extreme Judgement weighs 560 g and has a blade heavy balance. It is ground from 1/4" CPM-3V with a full flat grind and a slightly recurved edge. The blade swells out to over 2" wide at the max. The edge thickness ranged from 0.027-0.028" and was ground at 15-16 degrees per side.
The Extreme Judgement was used first to split a lot of rounds which were too big to direct burn in a wood stove with the aid of a smaller stick as a baton. It was fairly cold during the work -15 F to -20 F. Through the first hundred rounds, fairly clear wood, it worked well, no flex, no excessive shock and no damage to the edge.
Using Roselli axe as the baton, the knife was hit hard enough to cause the coating to shatter off the flats from the vibration. There was no spine mushrooming, however the edge took damage on the harder knots, 0.1-0.2 of a millimeter deep, under magnification they were clearly fractures.
The initial edge was rough which weakened it in regards to impacts and it was resharpened to a high polish. More wood was split for about an hour and the edge still chipped but smaller, no longer visible by eye but felt by thumbnail. On one six inch round with heavy ring knots the edge rippled. The blade took a bend about 1/2" in length and up to 0.05" thick on the primary grind, twice the edge height.
As a check on edge durability it was also lightly chopped into a concrete block. Just wrist pops which induced cuts a fraction of a centimeter into the block, the edge fractured readily.
The handle was a step up from the similar grip on the Steel Eagle, the same basic design with a couple of much needed improvements. Removed are the hand mangler serrations along the top and the index finger groove is more rounded and comfortable. However it is a still flat along the top and bottom. The index finger cutout on the blade however is decently well rounded, one of the better jobs seen in that regard.
During some of the wood work, rawhide gloves were worn and the handle was problematic as the index finger groove was too small for the heavy glove and the handle as a whole was cramped so there were some impacts off of the end hook - which is however nicely sloped. In general grips without such shape specific designs tend to work better. The feedback was solid, much less feedback than the Ontario RTAK , similar to the Ratweiler.
The Extreme Judgement came with a thin (0.08") Kydex sheath. It was difficult to draw from and wore on the coating with each draw. The knife also cut into the Kydex readily and on the draw took pieces away from the inside of the sheath.
The Extreme Judgement was returned with either a request for a refund or replacement if this behavior was not to be expected, especially in regards to edge chipping. A refund was given on a credit card with no communication from the maker.
In the time since this was bought and used much experience was gained in regards to performance of knives with as-boxed edges and in regards to functional durability in regards to cross sections in heavy use. Reflecting back on this experience from 2012, seven years after this knife was bought and used the initial poor performance of the edge was likely caused by how it was sharpened which is the very common combination of
Based on current experience if the knife had been sharpened several times it is likely that the improvement seen initially would have continued and the edge may have stabilized at a high durability which would be expected considering the composition of the steel.
In regards to the edge rippling, considering the thickness of the edge this is likely not indicative of a fault in the steel or heat treatment as without proper use of transition bevels this thickness is at a level where rippling is likely in extremely heavy use.
It is unfortunate that the maker responded as they did as this knife could have turned into a positive user.
Comments can be emailed to Extreme Judgement
More information can be obtained at the
Fehrman Knives website
| Last updated : | 23/12/2012 |
| Originally written: | 01 : 04 : 2005 |