Jungle Fighter Knife Legion-14 Blade-Designs Field Test

Jungle Fighter by Legion-14 Blade Designs

Fully handmade in Germany!

FIELD REVIEW!!

Hi all here is the first of a series of field tests using the Jungle Fighter from Legion-14 Blade-Designs in Germany. The Jungle Fighter is fully handmade from Sleipner tools steel, carbon fiber and micarta. I took it into the forest on the mountains for a hard day trip and it was a pleasure to use this big 8 inch knife. Check it out and see what you think.

Legion-14 Blade-Designs Jungle Fighter Knife

Hi all here is a quick video preview from previous blog post of this fantastic knife, the Jungle Fighter, entirely handmade from Legion-14 Blade-Designs in Germany. Check it out!

Jungle Fighter Knife

By Legion-14  Blade-Designs (LEG.XIIII)

A Quick Preview! Initial thoughts 

Legion-14 Blade-Designs are  absolutely great looking knives from an emerging but experienced young knife designer and maker in Germany. They are fully manufactured by hand in Germany from a true craftsman. This model called the Jungle Fighter has been made from Uddeholms AB Sleipner tool steel.  Legion-14 Blade-Designs, or LEG. XIIII as he is also known, performs the  heat treating himself. He says of this knife that his heat treatment regime "gives the blade flexibility along the spine but a HRC of approx 62 at the edge". The Jungle Fighter was also cryogenically treated. It came deadly razor sharp.

LEG. XIIII also makes his own micarta handle material. The micarta scales are fixed on with Carbon fibre pins and glued together "so they will never come off" he tells me.

LEG.XIIII also makes a large range of really nice looking knife designs in various types of steel alloys. See here for more information.

The Jungle Fighter is no small knife at 8 inches for blade length at home in the wilds! 

The Jungle Fighter is NOT a small knife, with the following dimensions. 

Blade length as measured by my trusty Mitutoyo vernier!

Handle length, the scales are permanently fixed to the full tang with Carbon fibre pins.

The Spine is just over 6mm thick.

 Despite it's rather Combat style name, the Jungle fighter is really more suited to serious outdoor adventures, as it is really too heavy (IMHO) to be a knife considered for rapid deployment and movement, these latter two items most associated with knives intended for combat.

It also weighs 17Oz and has an overall length when in the kydex scabbard of 370 mm/14.6 inches from the top of the belt dangler to the bottom of the scabbard.

IN THE MOUNTAINS ON A DAY TRIP

I carried the LEG. XIIII Jungle Fighter into the mountains on a day trip, 

In the Autumn forest a quick 14km trip.

Swinging cuts with the Jungle fighter were a breeze. The balance and ergonomics were very nice and at no time did I feel I needed to attach lanyards, wear gloves or make the handle "grippy" etc. The design was great for the handle. This is what I would expect from a good knife maker's products ie some serious thought into handle design. This latter point so much more important when designing large knives.

The joys of walking in a pristine region, is that if you are paying attention, ie not making lots of noise and looking where you you are walking, then you can see stuff like this Fire Salamander (Salamandra salamandra) in fact we came across others.

with a relatively light pack weight of only 10kg/20 odd pounds as I was hoping to bring the pack back full of good wild stuff.

Just a note here unless one wants to get pulled up by the cops, A note about travelling and carrying large knives-COMMON SENSE: as I travelled by public transport to the vicinity of the trailhead, this knife WAS NOT carried visibly, which meant inside my pack. Now the biggest problem with this, was the "skull crusher" type butt end. Perfect for ripping holes into the sides of my pack and or any other object inside the pack such as dry bags, clothing etc! Personally, I don't like butt ends featuring acute angles, as I feel, whilst they look really cool, they have limited use with the exception of "Rescue Knives" and or "Persuaders" as might be found on a much lighter knife intended for such roles.  So, to avoid damaging my pack I needed to put the knife into a sturdy cardboard box, which was a bit of a pain but not totally inconvenient.

Ok, so I know a knife name means nothing, you can call it the "cosmic blaster" and it of course doesn't have to be a "cosmic blaster" (whatever the heck that may be LOL).

Legion-14's workmanship is excellent in every detail, for this large 8" fixed blade featuring two different cutting edges, slightly reminiscent of the FKMD Trapper and FKMD Tracker Sniper knife, both excellent knife designs too IMHO (see my reviews). 

Starting with 6mm ie 1/4 inch billets from Uddeholms AB, he fashions everything by hand without the use of lasers or CNC equipment. Just look at some of this eye candy below!

His Logo LEG. XIIII and aggressive but comfortable finger/thumb gimping.

THE Blade Geometry

The Blade profile features a tanto style tip, a generous belly and a recurve section which is actually hollow ground, whereas the remaining blade geometry is flat ground. 

Overall knife- almost camouflaged against the forest background here. Careful not to loose it in this boulder strewn terrain! personally I Like unobtrusive knives.

The Legion14 Jungle Fighter and a huge collection of Oyster Mushrooms on a fallen Oak trunk, later to disappear into our belly's!

Legion 14 Jungle Fighter in the Montane forest. Note Uddeholms AB Sleipner IS NOT a stainless steel, although it does contain Chromium.

Note Sleipner IS NOT a stainless steel alloy. It has only 8% Chromium content, much less than D2. However, it does have some great characteristics for a knife steel, of retaining an edge but can still be made very tough through the right heat treatment. See my reviews on the LionSteel M7, also made from Uddeholms AB Sleipner.

Wearing my Garmont Dragontail approach shoes, very reliable shoes 

Upper Blade surfaces are finished  almost raw, whilst the lower blade surface was chemically blackened.

Spine and tang were finished with  highly polished surfaces

I tried some basic tasks such as chopping, cutting food items, cutting plant material and prying wood. It performed very well. The balance is perfect with the fulcrum being at the base of the handle.

The perfect balance with the fulcrum at the base of the handle.

Chopping/swinging ergonomics was great too and the knife despite is weight of 490 gm/17 Oz. never felt like it was going to leave my hands during some chopping of seasoned birch timber.

Chopping into a fallen well seasoned birch trunk, no problems!

I put the Jungle Fighter to use in the kitchen preparing food and despite it weight it was easy to use. Cutting onto knife-edge abusing bamboo chopping boards is a good test of edge holding abilities.

Crushing Garlic!

Bashing Garlic with the broad Spine, you MUST be able to use a knife to prepare food with.

ABOUT SLEIPNER ALLOY TOOL STEEL

As time will tell how the surface of the Sleipner on the Jungle Fighter holds up, as Uddeholm technical department told me (see text in blue print) that for the best corrosion resistance, the surface finish (if not PVDed) should be made as smooth as possible. Now this is of course based on data for tool making, not knife making. Certainly this was the case for my LionSteel M7. My experience with Sleipner as a knife steel is to treat the blade as if it were made of carbon steel, ie wipe it down carefully when possible, don't holster it wet. Remember Sleipner was NOT developed for the sole purpose of making knives for outdoor use, it was developed for cold work tooling applications. That being said, when properly prepared Sleipner alloy performs very well in an abrasive environment.

WHAT'S NEXT?????

 I plan to really test the Legion-14 Blade-Designs Jungle Fighter in the Australian bush and coastal regions later this year on some very serious adventures so stay tuned and I'll let you all know what I think of it after a really long proper workout. So far so good. I like what I see. Those of you who have seen my review on the FKMD Trapper know that I really like this blade that sports two significantly different geometries. Keep watching!

Jaktkit Knv3 GenII Hunting Knife

Ok here I review the smaller version of the Jaktkit's Knv2, the Knv3. made with the same super tough super sharp 99Cr18MoV stainless alloy. It's a nice little knife. Good for hunting as the name suggests. Convex type grind Jaktkit are calling Extreme V edge. Synthetic handle made from TPEE polymer , that's Thermoplastic Polyester ether elastomer, See what you think.


Hardcore knives.

Aitor Knives Oso Blanco Cut Down Version

Hi all here is my review of Aitor Knives Oso Blanco Olivo. I reckon it's a great knife and a top performer for many outdoor tasks.  Who knows what the steel analysis of Mo Va alloy they use but in reality it holds a edge, doesn't chip out and was easy to touch up the edge.

Watch the video and see what you reckon.

The Tang of the Aitor OSO Negro /Blanco

How to make your AITOR OSO BLANCO OLIVE WOOD HANDLE Better.

Firstly I have to say the steel AITOR  is using is good! After lots of tough outdoor treatment to be excellent and has really held an edge! with no noticeable damage to it's edge.

However, the problem with the above knife is this:

On this model Aitor is using a natural wood handle made from Olive Wood, which is a very nice hardwood and strong.
The hole profile for the tang is circular and the tang is rectangular. You see my point?

Now the only thing which stops the handle twisting around the tang is that the guard end of the handle is asymmetric and resists a twisting motion against the guard as long as there is adequate pressure against the pommel by the pommel bolt.
This is absolutely fine however I did notice a very slight handle movement. I could really clamp down that bolt.

But there is always a danger to damage the natural olive wood. I know what your saying Olive wood is very good at withstanding compressive forces and these are compressive forces against the end grain too. If the handle was to be really well designed a rectangular inner profile would be there and you could do this with a handle made from Forprene or the like from an injection molded method.

So I decided to fill the space with a mixture of waterproof epoxy resin and chopped natural cotton strands.(I chopped it up with scissors 

This Epoxy has a Shore D hardness when fully cured (over 24 hours at 23C) of approximately 80+_ 2 

The epoxy will bond to the inner surface of the wood, with some penetration/infiltration into the wood itself and the cotton will form a kind of poor mans "micarta" and help strengthen the epoxy filler.

Don't freak out about the size of the tang, my Ontario Spec plus tang is similar 

and after 20 plus years of heavy field work is still in one piece! Also my FKMD with a similar sized tang after >3 years abuse. See levering test of this Aitor Oso Blanco in the upcoming field test video.

In order to do this properly I had to protect the threaded end of the tang with some foil as i didn't want to get epoxy over the thread. It was 20 minute set stuff and waterproof.

I would have preferred to see a better job done at this end with the 5MM thread, although no great forces under normal use would be seen here.

I have to say the Aitor OSO BLANCO is a very well balanced knife.


More to come and stat tuned for upcoming field test results and review.



Ok now that the initial resin has set, ie greater than 24 hours has elapsed, I filled the remaining space to the DISTANCE OF WHERE THE SECURING POMMEL BOLT EXTENDS. If you choose to do this you must protect the threads of the tang with something like I used in this second part, ie PVC tubing. Measure correctly the distance required of tubing so as to properly protect the threads and add about 3-4mm max of extra for any "slackness" that may occur over time. This will allow you to tighten the securing bolt further.

Once all the space has been filled with a high quality epoxy resin then it will be virtually impossible for the handle to move. Now that epoxy is against the tang, this will provide even forces against the tang, which could not have been present before. 

Update/11-10-2016

I have decided to totally fill the existing space within the handle with Epoxy resin. The only reason why i did this was that I figure I will never need to remove the handle. I mean why would I? i have  never done this on any of my knives, some more than 20 years in use!

Same procedure as above but minus the chopped cotton fibers.
PS the anchoring bolt IS NOT made from stainless steel.

Aitor OSO Blanco Olivo review continued:

Cutting up meat on the bone no problems

The Aitor Oso Blanco was razor sharp out of the box and with almost no pressure applied I could cut up a large chunk of ribs. I also used the knife to cut through between the joints/cartilage and there was no problem. The knife edge was still just as sharp as it was prior to cutting anything.

Sunset reflected off the blade in the wilds

I chose the olive wood grip as it looks a whole lot nicer than the reinforced nylon grip. It will no doubt be good in sub zero temperatures (no problem of that here, it was almost 30C at the time the picture was taken.

The lanyard is off a Kizlyar Supreme knife of mine :) Butt and guard are of brass, anchoring bolt is steel with a 5mm socket head

Real Olive wood not Stamina or Plastic.Let's see how this holds up in the coming weeks of field testing.

So far so good with my findings on the Aitor OSO Blanco. The saw back design clears dead wood very easily and really removes wood fast. Let's see how it clears green wood tomorrow. Certainly it is a much better design than on my FKMD Combat Survival knife and that says a lot as that saw design is very good but the AITOR OSO BLANCO saw back design eclipses it totally.