Hey everyone David C Andersen here coming at you from the woods behind the
KnifeCenter because today we're taking the TM hunt m18 out for a spin.
Let's check it out. So the M18 by T.M. Hunt certainly looks like nothing else out
there. But while it may seem a little bit outlandish every curve and edge on this
has been very carefully thought out. The more you actually use this knife the
more it makes sense. Today we're gonna go through each section of this blade and
show you exactly what it can do. Now Todd Hunt is very well known for the
performance he's able to get out of O1 tool steel and that's why the m18
features a blade that's about ten inches. That's a full quarter inch thick made of
O1. They've got very girthy handles that are very easy to hold on to. They are
contoured very nicely so you have a lot of traction even though there's not a
lot of texture on these handles. So the front section of the M18 is made for
chopping because of that it's convex ground with a pretty thick secondary
bevel that's gonna help it withstand these hardcore chopping tasks. We're
gonna put it through some of that right now.
Make sure the lanyard here is tight enough
get a little bit of security.
So I've not spent too much time at all hitting on this big log and you can
already see quite the gouge that it's left out. Now this is a pretty big log to
be tackling with a knife like that but it's still as you can see, didn't do a
bad job at all. The way I'm using the knife right now I'm actually choking
back a little bit on the handle so that my pinkie finger actually wraps around
the other side of the bird's beak here. Combine that with the lanyard here for
retention and it allows you to get a really good snap cut going with this
blade which is going to magnify your force when you're doing stuff like this.
So I don't have a ruler out here to measure but I'd say that this log right
here was maybe about six inches in diameter that's probably a little more
than you'd want to normally tackle with the M18 but it's good to know that the
knife can stand up to it if you really need to do it. This is gonna be even
better though going through smaller logs and far fewer swings so we're gonna see
if we can find some stuff Down here that's ready to be taken down. So we've
actually got a lot of younger trees out here that are growing pretty closely
together which means they're a little bit in competition with each other. So we
know we can safely remove this one right here and demonstrate what the m18 can do
on Greenwood
That was cool. So now that we've got this down it's a good opportunity to take the
m18 and see what it'll do on some lighter stuff where you might usually
use a machete such as delimbing the top of this tree right here. So it is a bit
heavy to be using all day long like a normal machete but it is gonna get the
job done and for those heavier chopping tasks that a machete just won't cut it
this will also get the job done. So it's a good bridge to being that one
tool option for all your yard work and survival needs. so normally if I was
taking this tree down for myself I would have taken it down a little bit closer
to the root but the reason I cut it off up here not only did it look a little
nicer on the camera but I'm also going to use this since it's propped up and
stable to demonstrate why the M18 is great in a draw knife scenario.
So while the chopping section at the front is convexed as I mentioned this
recurve section of the back is actually hollow ground. That's going to make the
shoulders right behind the edge a little more narrow than up here which is going
to help it to slice a little better. This is also a shape that works very well as
I said when using this in a draw knife configuration it's also very comfortable.
Because on the back of the spine here this part where it dips down behind the
convex edge it's actually completely crowned right here and that does a
couple of different things. But in this context it makes it very easy to hold
onto with your fingers when you're using it as I said as a draw knife so first
I'm going to clear a little of the bark here and then see how fine curls we can
make pulling up with that section there.
Ss you can see it's working very well at removing the bark so if you were
preparing logs or timbers for some sort of survival or bushcraft shelter that's
going to make a great tool for clearing off that bark and giving yourself a
smoother surface to work with.
So even though I wound up cutting off a lot of my curls as I was doing that it
was doing a very good job so now let's see how it works in a forward grip for
doing more controlled feather sticking.
So I have been having a little bit of trouble not cutting off my curls as I'm
pushing through this but that's more down to my technique as well as this
particular piece of wood. I've never been the best feather sticker but as you can
see right here we're certainly get plenty of curls off of that piece right
there which is indicative of what I've been achieving with this this whole time.
There is another area of this blade that I found to work well for feather
sticking and that's the forward section of this recurve right before it
transitions to the convex and if you hold it just so I'm pinching up on the
blade a little bit right here and you can actually use that to carefully pull
towards you and achieve a similar result. As you can see I've got plenty of small
curls coming off of this now. What I would normally do in this sort of
situation because I am accidentally cutting all of these off is underneath
of the area you're doing this you can place either a bandana or a smog to catch
all of these things that way you'll be easy to collect them when you're ready
to start your fire. So if there's any one thing you can do to test out an outdoors
knife that really gives you an idea of how it's gonna perform you can make a
tent stake with it doing this is going to require a few different types of cuts
both including long stripping motions as well as finer motions so we're going to
use the m18 now to make ourselves a tent stake. So I'm gonna use this section here
that I was using to feather stick here just a moment ago start with the length
I need and I'm gonna score all around the side
so I've essentially made a stop cut that goes all around the edge here. Now I can
do the next part two ways of course I could chop with this and just chop
straight through where I want but because I want to test the smaller
dexterity right now first by push cuts cutting in towards that stop but the
other thing you can do with the M18 with this front section here it can function
almost like a wood chisel. So if I have this braced I can actually get in use my
thumb on the back here and do my push cuts with the end of the knife. Whichever
is easier for you go ahead and do it that way but having that there gives you
one more option to use the tool in a different way.
Depending on what you're doing this can actually be a little bit more
controllable by doing it this way than it was if you were doing it in a typical
grip. Now this is not bad by any means but you do have a little bit more weight
out here to contend with when you are doing it that way but again having those
multiple options as a way to do it is very helpful cut away the curls.
Now despite the weight of this knife I'm actually not having much trouble at all
doing these finer tasks. So far the balance of this knife sits a little bit
forward right about where the edge starts and because of that when I'm
choking up to do those smaller tasks like so especially with my thumb behind
here on the spine I'm actually working right along the pivot point. So the edge
is coming into contact with the wood with equal weight on either side so that
makes it very easy to control despite the size of the M18.
So I'm just gonna snap this off now.
Now I want to clean this top up just a little bit real quick I'm gonna get rid
of some of this bark.
I'm gonna come in with a reverse grip keeping my thumb well below the level
here and just kind of shear some of this off. You can also do this of course in a
typical forward grip as well.
basically we just want to level that out a little bit to provide a smoother
surface when we go to hammer this into the ground. Next step we're actually
going to want to crown the edges on this a little bit which is gonna help keep
this from splitting when we're hammering on it. For this I'm just gonna go in
with a reverse grip just chew a little bit off as I go around. I'm doing this
the same way as I would be doing it with a smaller knife.
next up we're gonna want to put a small notch up here at the top to catch our
guy line that's gonna secure our tarp when we drive this into the ground. Now
you can do this anywhere of course but we actually had a small branch coming
out right here and that forms a small knot. so I'm gonna put it right
underneath that so that the strength of the knot right there reinforces it. Again
start with a stop cut and then we're gonna come in like so.
Again pinched up like this for the stop cuts very balanced very easy to control.
There we go that should do it right there. So I could clean this up a little
bit more but the only thing really left to do is to put a point on it and when
I'm doing points like this again with a big knife like this I could chop with it
but I'm testing the smaller knife skills of this right now and when I'm putting a
point on a tent stake I like to use the chest lever grip and when I'm doing a
chest lever grip instead of holding the knife as it indexes naturally you're
gonna rotate at 90 degrees in your hand then you're gonna take the knife and
brace it against your chest and bring the stick into the edge and this is
gonna allow you to exert a lot of pressure and a lot of leverage onto this
cut allowing you to get a bigger cut with less effort no problem.
Smooth it out just a little bit more so again no problem with the M18 on these
smaller tasks. It is a little bit more fatiguing than it would be with a
smaller knife that's to be expected that said the balance is very good as I
mentioned throughout. Makes it very easy to control it despite the length and the
weight. One thing to keep in mind when you're making the point on your tent
stake is that the very center of your stick is gonna be pithy and soft so you
want to make sure your point is a little bit off-center from that Center pith
right there. So not my best work but that's a perfectly serviceable tent
stake right there made with the M18. So these have all been fairly conventional
grips when it comes to this knife so far but there's another one I haven't shown
you yet. Now you have seen me using this lanyard when I was chopping but there's
actually another use that's integral to the design of this knife I've buried
this knife in the tree that we chopped down to keep it secure while I do this
but if you hold the lanyard up like so and carry your arm forward through it
you're actually able to use this hole at the front to index we've got some nice
jimping right here and you can actually use this to use this section of the edge
for smaller tasks. Now the beauty of this when you have the lanyard properly
tensioned is it holds it nice and snug to your arm and despite the length and
the weight of this knife you're not fighting it. Your arm is actually holding
the weight which allows you to use this section very acutely and very precise.
Now I don't have anything to demonstrate this on out here but I've actually seen
someone who's used this section of a knife to skin a deer and although this
grip doesn't perfectly work for me I've even seen some folks who prefer it when
doing the smaller tasks like so. Again it is useful because the weight of the
knife is supported and it allows you to get your thumb up here on the jimped
section and be very precise with your cuts. So as we've been walking back into
the woods to get to our next spot I want to show you the sheath real quick which
is how I've been carrying this down as we're moving. Now there is no belt
attachment to this sheath so you are either going to carry it in hand like so
or keep it in your pack. It is a Kydex system quite obviously and there are
plenty of grommets along the side that are gonna allow you to attach it to your
pack in a different manor if that's what you wish. Now this
is a spine draw design. You're not gonna be actually pulling the knife out this
way as you can see the back is open but the knife is secured by a strap with
a pull the dot snap here on the other side now a pull the dot snap is a
little bit different than a standard snap and that it can only be disengaged
if you're pulling it in one direction. It's not gonna come loose if you try to
pry it this way so that makes it a little bit more secure but when you're
ready to use the tool simply pop that up kick the tool up out of the back. You're
ready to rock. So next up we're getting ready to do everyone's favorite
controversial subject and that's battoning. I'm going to use this stick to beat this
m18 through this log right here. So this is another area where this crown section
of spine here comes in very handy this is the area I'm gonna want to use to
baton and it's gonna allow me to beat on the back of this without tearing up my
piece of wood quite so much as it would as if it were a perfectly square spine.
also when I get down a little deeper that jimp section at the front is gonna
be very nice for grabbing the baton and getting enough transfer of power to keep
on splitting.
So as you can see the M18 had absolutely no problem powering through this.
now there's gonna be a lot of people out there who say that battoning a knife is
abuse and while you're not wrong on a knife that's this hardcore and meant to
be used in extreme conditions like this if they can't stand up to this you got the
wrong knife and I'm pleased to say that the m18 is not the wrong knife. When it
comes to a hard use tool, a single tool option for survival the M18 is actually
going to be a fantastic option and it's going to be hard to beat for the
versatility. If you want to get your hands on one of these click the link in the
description below to head over to KnifeCenter.com