That is one good looking mistress. What is the blade thickness on these ladies?
Justin

These days the woods are full (no pun intended, but it’s inevitable) of bushcraft aficionados who insist that a four-inch bushcraft knife and a small axe are the only proper tools to use in the woods. Anybody carrying a big knife is a Rambo wannabe or else he has drunk the Busse Kool-Aid.

I beg to differ. Here’s a quote from the pamphlet Woodsmanship, which was published in 1945. The subject heading is Brushing, Page 60.

The camper’s preference in brush cutters is the trail knife—an oversized hunting knife with a 10-inch blade, carried in a sheath at the belt. This is really a combination knife and hand-axe, capable of cutting brush, felling saplings up to several inches in diameter, and splitting small firewood. These big knives bring to mind the still larger machete, of which there are endless patterns, but the typical machete is more effective on cane and other soft vegetation than on brush.

I would submit that the Busse Battle Mistress, the Swamp Rat Battle Rat, or the Scrap Yard Dogfather and Dogfather LE would qualify as modern versions of the old brush cutter’s trail knife. I’ve never handled a Battle Rat. I do own the BMCG, the Dogfather, and the Dogfather LE.

Horn Dog loves the Dogfather LE as a lightweight chopper and vine trimmer. I live in the Pacific Northwest, not in a swamp. So I think both versions of the Dogfather are just fine. In my opinion the BMCG is too heavy, even in my neck of the woods. Excess weight to carry, and unnecessarily tiring for long term chopping. I’m hoping that the Bushwacker will turn out to be the trail-knife that the BMCG should have been. A top quality, light weight, long trail knife, useful for many purposes in the woods.

I do hope it will come with the no-choil option. A ten-inch knife is too long for a choil to be a useful feature. All it accomplishes is to keep the near end of the blade far away from the grip, reducing the usefulness of that cutting edge for fine carving tasks.