Frag Out! Magazine

a knife has a blade length of 148 mm. theoretically, it's not many, but practically it's a hunk of the knife. i mean quite a lot since one should add a width to it – in the broadest place a blade has 47 mm. so, quite a lot. its shape resembles the ordinary kitchen knife. by pa- rameters not at all. thickness of 4.5 mm and a large, round handle give a weight of 347 g. as for the knife to carry by the belt is quite a bit. a power to spare is here to great, but i'll give details later. the handle covers are made from black micarta. they are slippery and it may seem that a knife would fall out during hard work. howe- ver it turns out that to shaping of handle end of a knife doesn't work in the hand at all. that's good – i have seen many times knives which can slid from the hand or a hand can slid on the cutting edge. there is no such a problem here. in the ridge of the heel area of the knife blade, just before a handle, there are two incisions and a ramp for a thumb. the incisions are help- ful while striking a flint, but a ramp is not so needed. in the thinner it can be a reason of its break – it would be a indent on which arises material tensions, but with that thickness there is nothing to worry about. a knife has nearly flat cut – as a nutility it's also not the best cho- ice, but here thickness helps again. thanks to it on one hand a knife cuts well and goes through cut materials, and on the other hand is resistant to lateral stresses. if a knife were thinner, it would not chop and baton so well. when you read it, you probably don't believe. i have had the same feeling. somebody have kept a knife for several days at home and have written that a knife is a heavy-duty one and so on. so, i have tried that knife for many months to be able to write that it is en- during. one of good tests, i have carried out, has been lending it to work during the survival training. simply, a training participant is given a knife to work in the forest. he doesn't need to worry that so- mething wrong happens with it, he is not aware how expensive it is, etc. and additionally he is not a professional so he would accidentally misuse the knife. and what? all day of batoning along and across wood fibres, striking a flint and other operations. no defects, no damages. maYbe the onlY one. two minutes after receiving a knife a user cut himself in his finger. then i have tried a knife in the different situations. the first test has been taking it for night training in the forest. on the belt kit this knife is a hunk of the great tool. today such large knives are not trendy. with one exception if someone works in the jungle. during training i have dug with it a hole in the damp gro- und to hide here a gas burner to burn canned food. there has been a lot of stones in the ground which, for sure, has been not delicate for the cutting edge. despite of this, after a precise examination i have not found any defect on the blade. but at home, after inspecting it again, i have found that a tip with about 0. 5 mm is missed. as for digging in the ground with such amount of stones it has gone rather well. after the first sharpening a tip has come to its place. then it has been performed typically forest tests. batoning, chopping and leve- ring wood. although many times it has seemed to me that a tip would break, it has not happened. it's a huge merit of good hardening and a choice of n690 steel. up till now, i have not had such good me- mories from the use of this steel, but now i know that a well hardened steel works well. www.fragoutmag.com

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