hey everyone David C. Andersen here from the KnifeCenter coming at you from the
woods behind my house because I'm actually back here to show you a new
knife test it out a little bit a little bit of a review on a new Victorinox now
of course you know they're famous for their Swiss Army knives but they
actually recently came out with a bushcraft fixed blade well here it is
let's see what this bad boy can do
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now Victorinox actually calls this knife the
Lobster/Fish Splitter Chef's Knife I'm not sure why because this is clearly
a bushcraft knife I mean just take a look at this edge geometry if you look
back near the heel this section is clearly scandi ground but then about a
third of the way up it starts to thin out sort of scalloped out towards the
edge thinning it out which is gonna make it a little bit of a better slicer down
there and it's actually a really good precedent for this type of geometry I'm
talking of course about the Mora 2000 as well as the newer Mora Kansbol
they share a similar geometry in that we have a shorter blade with the back
section scandi ground for better woodworking and scalloped out near the
front for a little better slicing capabilities a little better as a
hunting knife so with a very similar geometry to that this guy ought to
perform very well now I know I'm not in a remote location here you can you might
be able to see some houses behind me but I've definitely got enough land and
enough brush back here to really put this thing to the test all right the
first thing I'm gonna try and do I've got a bit of a vine standing up here and
this is a longer blade we've got about 13 inches of steel stainless steel it's
a little bit of a simpler formulation it's not a super steel but it is nice
and thick especially here near the back and they heat treat it a little bit on
the softer side so it should be plenty tough for this type of thing so let's
take a swing right here and see how it does
[knife hits vine]
not too bad bit in about halfway through there is a lot of flex in this branch so
it's gonna rob me a little bit of my power let's take a few more swings
[knife hits vine]
you see got a nice big cut out of there now let's go all the way through next
alright I very nearly made it through and just one more swing just missed a
little bit here my follow-through was could maybe have used a little bit more
work but part of it I think is the grip we've got a smooth stabilized almost like
a pakkawood type of handle here and it could do with a little bit more
swelling if you wanted a more secure grip for that heavier work but I think
if you were to say tie off a a lanyard up here so you could have a forward
lanyard that would go a long way to making it feel more secure while you're
swinging it nice and heavily we do however have a full tang which is gonna
be nice for the strength it goes oh yeah technically not a full tang because it
doesn't go all the way out and you do have the front covered up by the wood
handle scales but you definitely are gonna have a lot of strength and a lot
of durability with that nice nice thick piece of steel there behind the handle
alright the next thing any type of camping bushcraft or survival knife is
gonna need to do to be able to make a good tent stake as you can see I've got
a nice piece of wood here chopped from a smaller branch and it really did chop
very cleanly through the edges creating a very clean cut and a good start to
this tent stake now we do have a very wide blade here near the back so you're
probably going to be fighting it a little bit in terms of the absolute
control the scandi ish edge is really biting in there and you'll be able to
clear this pretty quickly even do a little chest lever grip if you want
again a little cumbersome there might have been a little better for detail
work if they kept that a little short little not so wide as you can see I've
got the bark stripped pretty nicely now let's go ahead and get a point in on the
end and a notch at the other side for your line this could maybe be a little
bit sharper this is the factory edge on here I didn't touch it up at all still
doing a pretty decent job but I think it could do better if we sharpened it
as you can see no problems at all doing the point the notch as well
was very easily done but I have to say something I don't think this blade is
any good at carving wood it's just way too thick way too wide here back near
the heel all right so if it's not a very good wood carver what can it do
we've already saw it chop the vine and it did okay there I'm gonna bring it
over to my a wood pile I've got back here try to go through some harder woods
and maybe we'll even be able to baton something with it
[Knife chopping fallen limbs]
so I already chopped
through this particular log once so far no real degradation or no real damage I
can see to the edge probably is degrading a little bit again it's not
gonna hold an edge like a crazy tough or a crazy high particle steel out there
but the the edge of the whole knife including this scandi-ground back section
sorta has a hint of a micro bevel on it you see that a lot with some custom
makers of scandi ground knives they'll hit it with a hard buff to kind of just
a hint of a micro bevel there that's gonna make it a little tougher a little
stronger than just a pure Scandi grind so so far holding up great let me go
through this another time
[knife chopping through log]
so as you can see while I was doing a lot of that chopping of course not a big
problem at work for this knife you can see I was using the back part of the
blade not necessarily out near the tip two reasons for that
one it tells you to the back half there is for chopping it says it right on the
blade front half is for cutting so but it makes sense especially here because
you have more weight here near the back that same thing that makes it not so
great for carving gives you a little bit more weight there for the actual
chopping and that's actually a valid thing you'll see a lot of the blade
sports competitors when they're running through the chopping sections of there
they're our competition courses will actually be using the the half of the
blade closest to them they seem to get more power that way which is kind of
interesting maybe a little bit counterintuitive but it's all down to
your blade and your technique alright now let's do something a little silly
let's see if we can't split this piece of wood alright
[branch hits blade]
we broke one baton let's find another one
[chopping]
I'm actually getting a fair bit of a
small control using kind of a little bit of that weight there at the heel to come
in and very finely knock out some pieces while I make this little hand hold
so this baton might not be too great either but we'll keep going for a little
bit I have found that if you try to start your baton back here in the back
section geometry is a little too thick it's where that thinner geometry out
front will come into play oh yeah this wood is ready to split
[chopping]
all right everyone if you haven't figured it out by now obviously we're
having a little bit of fun out here and having a little bit of fun with this
knife which clearly makes a very poor bushcraft knife that's not unexpected
that said it did hold up pretty well actually no real edge damage back here I
did manage to deflect the tip a little bit when I was kind of jamming it in
some wood and taking it out it doesn't get a little bit thin up there poor
bushcraft knife but it would make a great knife for breaking down
crustaceans bigger fish this is the lobster fish cleaver after all it's just a cool
knife I've had my eye on one of these ever since I started at the KnifeCenter
when the opportunity came up to test one I couldn't say no and it gives me
something productive to do while I'm working from home here during this whole
Coronavirus situation orders still are going out though so if you want to get
your hands on one of these cool knives or one of those Moras from earlier the
the 2000 or the Kansbol, they're very cool knives very capable and very
economical well make sure to leave links down there in the description because
orders still are going out as at this point in time we love you guys thanks
for sticking around stay safe stay sane and stay sanitary see you next time
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