I know, I promised a chop off today. The rest of my yard will just have to wait until I take care of THE YARD. Thunder is all around, but as you can see, my yard needs rain, bad.

So out to the chopping stump we go. Starting with three well-known 9" choppers, the Becker BK-9 Combat Bowie, Ranger RD9, and the new Swamp Rat M9LE. The Becker is 3/16" thick 0170-6C, the Ranger is 1/4" thick 5160, and the Swamp Rat is 1/4" thick SR101 or modified 52100 steel. The Becker and Ranger have micarta handles and the SR has G10 scales. You would be hard pressed to find three more similar choppers. The M9 has the thinnest scales of the three. I already knew that the Becker and Ranger were top notch choppers.

I found some good dead but not dry Red Bay for the test. I chopped 22 chops into the wood, starting with the BK-9. This a comfortable knife to chop with.

Next was the RD9 with 22 chops. It is also comfortable to chop with, but not as much so as the Becker.

Finally, it was the M9s turn.

All chopped closely, but the M9 went just a bit deeper than the Becker, followed by the Ranger. The difference separating them was only about 1/8".
I did a little light brush thinning with the M9 and its speed made it work well for a bowie. Not a golok, but not bad.

Then I remembered the Busse NMSFNO. But it is an 8" blade, not a 9".

It's a chopping beast with that full convex grind, and the heaviest knife here. It almost went all the way through in 22 chops. No contest.


So there it is. My NMSFNO will out chop my M9LE, definitively.
Here is how they ranked, but the bottom three are very close. For all practical purposes, the three bowies chop about the same.