The Rambo V thread on here got me interested in these Rambo knives. And the net provided a few which looked interesting to me for comparison purposes and possible use.
The Rambo First Blood seems to be an early United Cutlery version, and came with the box and papers. It doesn't appear to have been used. It has a full llat grind all the way to the sawteeth, and is the lightest of the 3.
The Explorer version has a similar blade shape, tho a different swedge profile. I was interested as I have had good luck with the quality of my other Explorer knives. It has a saber grind, with the top of the blade actually thinning toward the sawteeth. It is made in Japan, is slightly heavier than the Rambo, with a touch more weight to the rear. The handle feels very robust.
The Aitor feels the more robust of the 3, heavier, chunkier, touch weight forward.
All three blades measure .4" at the hilt best I can measure.
I plan to sharpen and use the Aitor and Explorer. Should I do the same with the Rambo? It is actually a United Cutlery version, or a clone?
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Looks real to me, if shallow at the front.
Of the 3, the United is likely by far the most useable if you dip the saw teeth front and improve the sheath.
This was my initial impression of the United Cutlery Rambo II versus a real Lile:
[QUOTE="Gaston444, post: 17705713, mem
UC vs Lile:
MC(left) vs UC
MC vs UC
UC vs Lile
Gaston[/QUOTE]
To this I will add some further observations. The 420J steel of these cheap knives performs poorly in extreme cold (-30 degrees Celcius), and takes somewhat larger than expected dents when hitting metal or rocks. When batoning, 420J will not bend laterally beyond 20 degrees and spring back straight.
Other than that, 420J seems like the best steel I have used for chopping wood, on both the Master Cutlery and the United Cutlery: It has no rolling tendency at all, does not chip on wood, and sharpens almost as easily as Carbon steel. In my chopping tests, edge holding at thin 15 dps angles was so great the steel did not even really need a 20 dps micro-bevel to prevent micro-rolls, unlike 440. S30V, CPM 3V and CPM 154 all grabbed nail fuzz in a few chops from micro-rolling at 20 dps. INFI wobbled badly around 18 dps. INFI did not micro-roll (curiously enough) but was not really in the running.
Phonebook paper slicing ability of 420J did not visibly deteriorate after 100 chops on Maple.
The previous highest figure for this was a Stainless Randall Model 12/14 at 50 chops, the Lile in D-2 being also around 50, but later proving prone to chip.
After 200 chops between sharpenings, the fine edge retention of this particular $39 (sheathless) MC knife was still possibly the best I have seen (and I have owned several customs in the thousands, including RJ Martin):
I do not like the tang attachment on the Master Cutlery, which was not waterproof and had a barely perceptible blade wobble (fixed by running thin glue). I did not like its 0.040" -plus thick edge either. The United was thinner edged (0.030") and its tang-tube connection correctly assembled with resin (same as customs and Liles do), although a second United I own had a very slight
guard side to side wobble that I easily fixed with thin super glue. That second United was not quite as perfect as my first, but still rates above the Lile.
I would not say the $2000 Lile "Mission" in D-2 I had was crap (it had a fair 0.030" edge), but it definitely chipped and was far rougher in surface finish than the United: No comparison. The Voorhis custom in 5160 got better after a micro-bevel, the Lile not so much:
The biggest difference between a real Lile and a United is the consistency of the edge: The $2000 Lile is machine ground on a dual grinder, and is far less precise than the hand-made $100 Taiwanese-origin United.
Because of the dual grinder expedient on a real Lile, each sawback slot interacts with the dual grinder and creates surface wobble: My Lile Sly II I had had this "wobble" all the way, the Mission mostly at the plunge line (but edge centering was not perfect near the belly: Not bad, but enough to make sharpening harder).
A dual grinder should
never have been used on a serrated spine knife. At least not
after the serrations are cut...
This and other imprecisions in the grinding mean the edge on a Lile is not entirely consistent in thickness,
or centering, resulting in mediocre edge touch ups, tenacious dull spots, uneven bevels and very hard sharpening generally. I know it sounds like I am a United salesman, but the edge on both the older Rambo clones I own are the most consistent in thickness, and the best centered, that I have seen outside of Seki City (probably the Taiwan workers trained there), except that Seki edges are usually thicker at around 0.040", thus usually less inherently sharp than the United R2s at 0.030"(...)
Construction wise, the clip taper is dead straight from above on both Uniteds and the Master, Lile so-so on the Mission and dreadful on the Sly II. All blades were straight to the handle from above (something Randall 18s do not always get right). The assembly is resin around a tang that is 1" X 0.25" X 0.75" on the Lile, and 1" X 0.23" X 0.62" on United: The tang is a little narrower on United, but the interior handle space diameter seems the same, so it could be there is no metal-to-metal contact on United. I doubt it makes any difference, and it may even be better for vibrations.
There is no screw in either the United or Master. Supposedly there is a screw in the Lile: ?.
Combined with the edge-holding, and the ease of sharpening of 420J, the United Rambo II clones are the best knives of their kind I have owned. They may not
all be as perfect as the first I got (slight side-to-side guard movement etc), but the symmetry and centering of the edge is first rate.
My first United now resides in the Lile sheath, the Lile having been sold with the United sheath (which is squarish and bulky, but not awful, especially on the second one I got)
As for the other two knives in the OP's post, the low sabre grind of the Aitor was a real impediment to its use for me. The old triangular sawback was really great, maybe among the best, and this makes this knife quite a valuable, and rare, collectible. The other knife has a 1/8" thin blade, and so is not a real chopper.
Unfortunately the Rambo I is not blade heavy, so it is poorly balanced for real chopping: That is why the "Mission" (R2) is a better knife, at nearly the same weight.
All the United and Master clones do not have dipped sawback teeths, but they can be "dipped" to work very well using just an extra-coarse dia-sharp hone and a lot of patience(!)... Some real Liles were not dipped either, including my Sly II, which is just awful.
Because of its fatter handle (seen from above), the "Mission" vastly out-chops the CS SMIII Trailmaster, and probably the BK-9 as well, but will not baton that well: The thin clip softens the blows and bends sideways more easily in twisty wood. A blunt tip knife like the GSO-10 will prove better at chopping owing to the greater mass at the tip (a great design in its own right, including the handle), but again the cheap 420J steel still holds up better to Maple than CPM-3V, even at 20 dps for both...:
So much for "display only"...
Gaston
