A shot of the Patrol Machete (top) and a Battle Mistress and a Tramontina Bolo :
The Patrol Machete is made from 3/16" thick 0170-6, a low alloy carbon steel, uniformly hardened to 58/59 HRC. It weighs 490 g and the static balance is lighter in hand than the Battle Mistress. It has a full height flat grind, of about 2.5 degrees, and a slight distal taper. The edge has a concave curvature, similar to the Machax but not as radical. Near the base of the blade the edge is 0.040" thick and thins out to a 0.018" near the tip. The handle is swelled for comfort and security and has a lanyard hole. The edge is ground at 19/20 degrees per side.
On grasses, the Patrol Machete was problematic due to the low sharpness and easily out cut by a freshly sharpened Tramontina bolo. On some light brush, mainly small alders, the Patrol Machete locks the brush in the curve, however the Tramontina still pulled ahead as it was sharper and the edge was more acute. On thicker woods, starting with a 1.5" thick piece of pine, the Patrol Machete took it down in a hit and limbed it out nicely. However Tramontina was still well ahead, able to sweep off limbs much more readily.
On a 3.5" stick of the same type of wood, the curvature hampers chopping as it presents a concave surface, the same problem seen with the Machax. Moving towards the middle of the blade takes the impacts off of the sweet spot and reduces power. It also sticks significantly, it does a little better better than the Tramontina, but binds much more than the Battle Mistress. A long Himilayan Imports Sirupati was very fluid in the same wood, no binding.
Limbing out the stick, the penetration difference between the Patrol Machete and the Tramontina was obvious again due to the more acute edge on the Tramontina. While cutting through one of the larger limbs with the Patrol Machete, there was a lound snap upon contact and the top of the blade had cracked off, there was also a half-moon piece missing from the edge which was fragmented. The blade was rippled badly in that area as were the bits :
The wood was checked for an inclusion such as a nail, but it was clear. This could not have been the cause of the break anyway as there would be direct impact of the edge. In retrospect as the top of the blade is much thinner at the edge it should be used just for light work, and concentrate on limbing near the handle where the edge is much thicker. However when the limbs are very close together, this is difficult to do and avoid any contact with the tip.
The replacement Patrol Machete had a higher the initial sharpness. It ranged from 80 to 160 g on the light thread and one to three cm on the poly under a 1000 gram load. The edge profile was consistent with the first blade.
Using it for about 20 hours over a few days alongside a few other large knives, the tip was used for bucking and felling on the softer woods and there was some limbing done with the the base of the blade, and some chopping in that region as well. In total, the Patrol Machete saw about 2000-3000 chops, swapping it out constantly to check its performance against several other large blades. It tended to glance on this woods due to the concave curvature and had little prying ability to clear chips when stuck, a flex to about 35 degrees would not come close to disloding chips.
Towards the end of the work, while limbing out a 4.5" piece of pine, clearing live limbs, out of habit, the Patrol Machete was used through the tip to chop off a limb, angle cut about one inch from where the limb meets the trunk and the blade snapped. Several large pieces of the blade had broken away, one piece remained lodged in the wood. This is the same type of failure as with the last Patrol Machete which saw more damage, but that was on a heavier swing. The wood and blade bit :
The Patrol Machete was wrist slapped off a log on the flats lightly to check for crack propagation. On the third hit, the entire top cracked off with a loud crack. These were light hits, easily taken to the back of the hand for example. With the blade in a stump it was flexed close to 80/90 degrees, at which point it shattered. The breaks that happened in the bend are very irregular, not clean.
The next replacement was much thicker at the edge 0.025-0.035", and the edge ground from 16 to 18 degrees per side, sloppy, much wider on one side than the other, the thickness measurements were on the narrow side. The edge thickens to 0.055" at the tip. It was hair shaving sharp out of the box and scored well on the thread and poly cutting.
Comparing it and a few other large blades to a few machetes from Martindale, on light grass and any vegetation up to soft woods, all blades cut equally well, and as the machetes are so much cheaper they stand out as the obvious choice. The Valiant Golok does offer some competition though in terms of comfort in hand. Shorter blades like the Busse Battle Mistress tend to be inefficient as they just don't have the reach to cut close to the ground.
The Valiant however has problems on harder wood work, while debarking a small stick to make a mallet, the edge visibly dented to the side after hitting a knot. The Patrol Machete finished the job easily chisel cutting off any knots. Of course the edge is much more obtuse than the Golok, but it a lot harder outside of the narrow sweet spot on the Golok which is the oly part fully hardened. Cutting thick wood however the performance reverses and the Valiant readily outclassed the Patrol Machete. It doesn't get significantly more penetration, but it is much more fluid, offers much less vibration and induces much less wrist fatigue. It has a very similar feel to a quality hatchet like the Wildlife from Gransfors Bruks.
On limbing neither the Patrol Machete or Valiant Golok are suitable as they just don't have the edge integrity. A 18" Ang Khola worked well as did a custom parang that from Glen Parrell. The Bruks Wildlife works well also but has reach problems and it is difficult to avoid impacts under the head which can damage the handle, if the brush is really thick. The Busse Battle Mistress works well also, high cutting ability with no durability concerns, but has a reach disadvantage over the khukuris and other longer blades.
For light cutting, cardboard, ropes, whittling woods and such the Patrol Machete stands out significantly ahead of Valiant Golok mainly because the Golok isn't sharpened in front of the handle so cutting has to be done far out on the blade which induces heavy wrist strain. It also sharpens much faster than the Golok as its edge is much more narrow. The Busse Battle Mistress tends to be more functional in this regard over the Patrol Machete simply because it isn't as awkward as its shorter. The raw cutting abilities are similar outside of cutting on a flat surface (cutting board) as the Patrol Machetes recurve makes such work very difficult.
In short, regular machetes would be top picks on grass and light vegetation (cheap), the Valiant would be top on thick wood working, and an Ang Khola for limbing and a Battle Mistress for various utility work. The Patrol Machete doesn't dominate in any class, but holds its own on the grass cutting and other light cutting, with reach advantages over the Battle Mistress, fatigue advantages over the khukuris and edge durability, edge retention and edge durability over the stamped machetes. The Patrol Machete is readily outperformed on thick wood by the Valiant, but outs cuts it for most utility work (the Busse Battle Mistress is close to the Valiant in thick wood, and superior to the Patrol Machete for normal utility work). The real downfall of the Patrol machete is the breakages on limbing which really limits the performance for brush work in general.
The holes in the grip tend to be abrasive to the finger tips, and the end-hook has too sharp an angle. The grip on the Patrol machete also it is too slippery. In the winter that isn't much of a factor as you are too cold to sweat and the sap isn't flowing. However in late summer, rotting sap and sweat make a devil of a grip "juice" to work with. Some work was done on the grip on my Machax to texture it give it more security.
There are few high end blades in the 10+" class for use in brush work, lots of flat stamped machetes but they bind significantly in thick woods, and the common ten inch bowie patterns suffer from lack of reach. The Patrol Machete attempts to bring both the cutting power of a light axe on thick woods with the ease of a machete in cutting light vegetation. It handles light vegetation readily but both samples used for wood working suffered gross damage once they went beyond light wood chopping as the edge was just too thin. The last replacement was given to someone who wanted a light machete with better edge retention than the regular blades and the Patrol Machete has worked well in that regard.
Comments can be sent to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or by posting in the following thread on Bladeforums :
| Last updated : | 01 : 10 : 2006 |
| Originally written: | 03 : 11 : 2002 |
