Russian Spetsnaz Taiga Machete

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BackstabBowie

Joined
Nov 6, 2012
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Hello there,

As i was looking for a good bowie, i came across the Russian Taiga machete, wich i really liked. The only thing is, that i now very little about this machetes specs ( Steel type, thickness, tang construction etc ). And i also seem to find very little about this blade when doing a google search ( i searched multiple times with different combinations of the key words : Taiga, Machete, Spetsnaz, Saro, Tula ). Also i didnt find any place where they had one for sale ( excluding one site but they were out of stock : www.rusmilitary.com ). So can anyone help me on more information and a website where i can buy one ? I would appreciate it alot.
 
So far, I believe that "Taiga" is a region of Russia, possibly associated with the origins of this machete design.

"Saro" is Russian for "machete", or "Big Knife", or some such thing.

The company that seems to make these things is called Melita-K. Their site is in Russian, so I'm trying to find another way. I'll update when I find the specific pattern you're looking for.

Search for something called the "Yelan Survival Machete". It's as close to what you're looking for as I can find. It may be that the Saro is no longer in production.

Anyway. There are some other places to start.

You may also be able to find something that's 90% of what you're looking for, and have somebody here modify it for you. Many talented knife modders hang out of BF, and the price is more reasonable than a full custom.
 
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Taiga is the great northern forest of Siberia. Basically a forest the size of the 48 States of the USA.
 
Taiga is indeed a forest to the East of Ural mountains. It is big and very sparsely populated so is considered a good name for anything to do with wilderness and survival. Saro is a name of a company that manufacturers various kind of knives and some tourist goods and souvenirs( http://www.saro.su/auxpage_katalog-nozhey/ ). It is NOT considered a high-quality manufacturer by Russian knife nuts probably mostly because of ugly designs and sloppy finishes. The same can be said about another manufacturer which was mentioned here: I mean Melita-M.
As for the machete itself: I do not own nor ever even handled one. I saw a few pictures of it rusted: so it should be a carbon steel. I can not say anything about the steel itself: I am not even sure they consistently use the same steel for that product: there is no particular need for that. As I understand whatever "Taiga" lacks in length it compensates in weight: so it should be a reasonable chopper even when totally dull. So I expect it to do a reasonable job chopping or even digging: that is where the shape comes from. And it does not have to do anything with Spetsnaz (Special Police) or even Tula: just usual marketing rubbish.
 
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Russian manufacturers using Spetsnaz in the name is like DarkOps or SpecOps stuff in U.S. Spetsnaz is a mixture of two words that translates as "Special Operations" and includes special force units for different divisions (police, border service, intelligence, army, marines etc). OMON, for example, is Russian SWAT; Alpha is , I believe, an anti-terrorist group. So to say that something is "spetsnaz" is not specific. OMON, for example, uses urban tactics, they don't use machetes. As do many other groups operating mainly in the urban environment. I don't want to discourage you from buying it, but I think it's better to look for a solid, trustworthy manufacturer. TOPS, KA-BAR, ESEE etc.
 
Yeah, I have to wonder what all these multi-surface "survival system" blades have that a Becker doesn't.

BK11 or Tac-tool would probably take care of all your knife survival requirements. In addition, you get a quality product with good warranty support.

But I'm a town boy, and I don't do wilderness survival. Mostly because it's hard to get a good cup of coffee.
 
HoosierQ said:
Taiga is the great northern forest of Siberia. Basically a forest the size of the 48 States of the USA.
Click to expand...

Taiga is just Russian for boreal forest, most of canada and Alaska count as "Taiga" if you speak Russian.
 
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