Companion HeavyDuty (C)

I'm a bit a bit of a knife snob. A good knife, I assumed, started somewhere north of $100. But having seen these knives on Amazon on quite a few occasions got my curiosity up. I have always believed that a strong fixed blade knife design is my first choice for nearly all purposes, and with the rave reviews posted, decided to give this knife a full hunting season of use. As of yesterday, my hunting season ended with a young cow elk which was quartered for packing out. This brought the total of work for this knife, this season, to: 3 bull elk, 7 cow elk, 4 buck mule deer, 150+ pheasants, 23 chukar, and a lost count of waterfowl. Oh, and fish galore. Yes, I am actively involved in the outdoors and hunting, and the assisting of others in the same pursuits. I think that I can say that I put this knife through more use to this point in time than most will ever see. This knife is just flat incredible. Anytime you are cleaning and processing game, your knife is going to become wet and/or bloody in some way. The ergonomics of a knife will either shine positively, or fail miserably. In all conditions, this has been the most comfortable knife that I have used. Ever. Never was an unsure grip a problem. The rubber/plastic grip material always retained a grippy feel to it, offering great purchase, even in cold freezing conditions. The blade itself is maybe the most amazing part of this knife. It is made of a 1095 steel, suitably hardened to a level that I am not aware of, that holds an edge, in my experience, fantastically well. Knowing that this was a carbon steel blade, and would therefore rust if not cared for, I was curious to see the appearance of the blade after some use. Arriving with a signal mirror finish, after several head of game use, the blade showed no signs of rusting, but did show some staining from blood being left on the blade intentionally to see the results. Afterward the blade was buffed with steel wool, and given the boiling vinegar treatment to force a patina to the metal, resulting in a blade that hasn't stained since with the same treatment, and has not ever rusted. Upon arrival, the blade was nice and sharp, almost shaving so. I then stropped the blade with green compound which brought it up to shaving quality (arm hair). The knife was used on two successive elk, and one deer, before any re-sharpening was done. This involved gutting, quartering, and boning out meat from these animals. I would normally strop a blade between animals to retain a shaving edge, but went three to determine at what point the edge became dull enough to make work difficult. It didn't. While it did lose it's shaving quality edge, the edge never dulled to a degree to render it unusable, or dangerous. Sharpening this blade has never required more than stropping with grey and green compounds from Bark River knives. Again, this blade has never once seen a stone or other sharpening device other than a stropping board, with the above mentioned compounds. That, ladies and gentlemen, denotes a blade steel of outstanding quality! This knife has far outperformed almost every knife that I own. I don't own a knife with a more comfortable grip for all-conditions use. I certainly own more expensive knives made with blade steels that perform no better, and worse, than this blade. At the absurdly inexpensive price point of this knife, I have not come across a better value, and am happy to make it known to friends, clients, and all others, that they really should own this knife! If you are a user of knives, you really have no good excuse not to.

This is simply a great knife. Noticeably thicker than the Mora Craftline Q, which is also a great knife (especially for children, or those who aren't used to being, cooking, cutting in the great outdoors). Says it's suitable for batoning. I haven’t used it for that, but have used it for fuzz sticks, making notches, stripping wood, etc. The handle feels great in my hand. I got the hi viz orange. I'm a backpacker - I want to be seen, and not lose anything 3 days in to a 5 day hike. For me personally, I put this in the category of "all around camp knife." It's the one everyone can use to do pretty much anything around camp. For general weekend backpacking or car camping, I pair this with the also excellent Light My Fire Scout, Smiths PP1 two stage sharpener and a swiss army knife (for cutting meats, veges, etc.). To contrast philosophy of use, for my distance hikes in Montana and Alaska, I do take the Bear Gryles Survival knife. In my opinion, the knife, sharpener, and fire rod aren’t as optimized as the previous set of kit, but it’s meant for a different purpose. Nice tidy, survival oriented, something just got really weird and I’m 2 days from anyone and it’s time to go, kind of kit. So with that contrast, the Mora is a smaller blade. It’s definitely a higher quality steel than the Bear Gryles. Honestly the Mora just feels better. It just feels like a knife optimized as the all-around, all-purpose camping, fishing, hunting, and backpacking knife that you can beat the bojangles out of. Also, I like to introduce people to backpacking and camping. This is a knife people can feel comfortable using and experimenting with to build skills with. And if it gets damaged, I don’t care. This is a EXCEEDINGLY HIGH value knife at the price it’s being offered for. As an example, my girlfriend said “the Bear feels like a Rambo-knife… no thank you… Mora please…” That is a direct quote. The knife is robust, sharp, high quality, and feels good in the hand. AND… it’s an exceedingly high value purchase. Highly recommended.

Great general purpose knife for around camp. Nice thick blade. Holds edge well. Just keep blade clean avoid spotting. Hi vis makes finding easy. Great little knife.

My knife arrived today, a day later than expected but given the terrible weather and flooding etc. delivery was delayed and that's life I guess. Well done to Amazon for flagging this possible delay on their website. The knife is very well made, not too big, the blade looks strong and the handle has a very good feel in the hand. The scabbard/sheath has a good positive belt loop that should hold it in place under normal use. When the knife is inserted into the scabbard, it sort of clicks in and is held in place and will not fall out even if you turn it upside down. The blade looks like it has been polished (it looks like stainless steel but is marked as carbon steel) but it has not been sharpened so make sure you have an appropriate means (sharpening stone, grinder) to put a sharp edge on it. I ordered this knife based on the reviews and since ordering I have read even more positive reviews. All good. I'll give the knife 5-stars now and if necessary I will update this review when I've used the knife for a while.

Exatamente o que eu esperava.

手入れしないと錆びるが研ぎながら10年使用しています。 この値段で耐久性あるし研ぎやすいしいい買い物でした。

Wenn ich mal den Jungle muss, und ich darf nur ein Ding mitnehmen, dann nehm ich dieses Messer mit. Verwende es seit 3 Jahren für das übliche das man im Wald zum Übernachten braucht. Allgemeine Camping Aufgaben, Batoning, usw. geschliffen habe ich es bisher noch nie. Große Sorgfalt gegenüber dem Messer wird nicht aufgebracht, es muss einfach seinen Arbeit leisten, Punkt. Und da hat mich dieses Messer noch nie enttäuscht. Eingeölt zum ersten mal diese Woche (nach 3 Jahren), wohl mal aus schlechtem Gewissen weil ich das noch nie gemacht habe und weil ich mir gerade das Messer in zweiter Ausgabe bestellt habe (sollte ich das erste mal verlieren und billiger werden sie wohl nicht). Es ist wunderbar schnitthaltig (immer noch hammerscharf), wie gesagt, es hält es über Jahre (Schleiffreaks hätten es sicher schon ein paar mal geschärft, aber mir ist das zu blöd, ich schärfe Messer nur, wenn sie wirklich stumpf sind, und da sind wir noch weit davon entfernt). Meines hatte nach 3 Jahren minmalen Flugrost an einer kleinen Stelle (ich bin halt auch bei Regen draußen), aber wenn man es nicht bei Meeresluft einsetzt, überhaupt kein Problem. Es hat eine ausreichend lange Klinge die auf Grund der Dicke sehr robust ist. Und, was viel wichtiger ist, einen Super Griff (Ich habe z.B. ein Mora Eldris als Backup im Rucksack, aber ich kann mich einfach nicht mit dem Griff anfreunden, viel zu klein...). Für Anfänger: Legt das Hauptaugenmerk auf den Griff, das wird so massiv unterschätzt, die meisten Messer haben eine Klinge die von der Länge her mehr als ausreichend sind, aber die Klinge ist entweder zu dünn oder was noch öfter der Fall ist der Griff liegt nicht gut in der Hand. Nicht so dieses Mora. Robustheit der Klinge und Griff sind meiner Meinung nach nahe Perfektion, besonders bei diesem Preis. Noch ein Wort zum Stahl. Vereinfacht gesagt: Rostträger (rostfrei gibts nicht) Stahl ist fürs Mulittool (das will ich schon gar nicht pflegen; ich pflege keine Zange...), das Hauptmesser muss aus Carbonstahl sein (bei vernüftigen Preisen; richtig teure Edelstähle kommen den guten preiswerten Carbonstählen sehr nahe und rosten weniger, in der Praxis ist das Rosten aber meiner Meinung nach kaum ein Problem; die teuren Messer sind es einfach nicht wert sie zu verlieren) Zuminstest in mitteleurpäischen Breiten ist das Rosten von Carbonstahl nicht wirklich ein Thema und die Schnitthaltigkeit ist einfach ein anderes Level als bei (preis-realistischen) rostträgen Stählen. Wenn ihr etwas Ballistol daraufgebt, dann ist Rost sowieso kein Problem. Wenn man das nicht tut muss man sich halt vielleicht alle 20 Jahre mal ein neues Mora kaufen (ich habe ein 15 Jahre altes Carbon Mora das immer noch top aussieht auch wenn selten verwendet; die alte Garde der Moras hatte eine zu lange und zu dünne Klinge). Im Vergleich zum Rest der Ausrüstung sind die Kosten für dieses wichtige Werkzeug aber wohl vernachlässigbar. Schleifen muss ich es vielleicht alle 5 Jahre. Und das von jemanden der in den Frühlings bis Herbstmonaten einmal im Monat ein Wochenende im Wald verbringt, mit genau diesem Mora als Hauptwerkzeug.