HI Khukuris: Who has Used Them in the Woods?

Rob, the handles on traditional khukuris are round for a reason, it presents the maximum (workable) surface area to your palm thus minimizing contact pressure. They are very basically optomized for heavy impacts. There are lots of designs that are more secure meaning preventing movement around and up the handle but they all give up impact comfort to achive this.

The only other handle I have used that was as comfortable in high impact work as the HI khukuri grips was on MD's TUSK. It basically achieved this by being very broad. It was more secure than the HI grips as well (slip wise) due to the deep index finger cutout. The only realy problem I had with it is that it was a bit too smooth. However to be fair to the khukuris, the TUSK is a much lighter blade and thus the impacts I was getting while using it are much lighter than what I would get using a 18 AK for example. I don't know how it would have felt if the TUSK had weighed about 2-4 lbs.

Regarding your blade, it sure is damm fine looking whatever you want to call it.

-Cliff
 
I have used my khukuri's for all kinds of yard and wood clearing work. They work extremely well compared to any other hand cutting tool (bow saw, cheap axe, hatchet, the pocket chain saw, and a few others) I own.

The size of the tree and khukuri, and the type of tree determines how much effort I must exert. The worst case I encountered is using 15" khukuri's to bring down a 18" diamter spruce. It took about 3 hours but the tree did come down. I have taken down quite a few 7-10" spruce and birch trees in about 20 minutes with over 900 g khukuri's.

Soft wood such as cedar are extremely easy to take down with a khukuri.

I have found some of the khukuri's tend to twist. These are usually the ones with slimer horn handles. A firmer grip helps to solve this problem. Also, if I am careless and allow the khukuri to move around too much I get blisters.

Sorry, no survival stories with khukuri's.

Will


[This message has been edited by Will Kwan (edited 10 December 1999).]
 
Will, wow, I have not seen an 18" Spruce in a long time. Most of the really large trees around here were cut out for building houses over 25 years ago. It is fairly rare to get them much larger than 12" now. With a Spruce that is still a decent load to carry though and a lot of burning.

-Cliff
 
I`ve had my GH Bhojpure on a few "survival" camping trips. I`ve been very pleased with it. The ring on the grip did bother my finger a bit at first but after a while I didn`t even notice it. It`s chopped wood for shelters,split wet wood to get to the dry core and chopped roots while making firebeds. The blade has some scratches but other than that it`s fine. There`s usually no need to touch up the edge in the field,it holds one pretty well. Truly an awesome tool for the money. I can`t wait to get my WWIII! Marcus
 
Cliff,

The 18" diameter tree was near the cottage so we didn't need to carry wood far. It died a few years ago and had to be removed. Its proximity to the cottage is probably the reason the spruce was not chopped down.

A chain saw was used to section it up since I had had enough for that week.

Will
 
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