So today marks exactly six months since I handed my credit card over the counter at Blade Atlanta to pay for my Regulator Bowie and Killa Zilla kukri. Not long after the purchase, I held a bit of a chopoff in the backyard, and posted the results here - BUT, I censored those results to remove the results for the killa zilla and the regulator, as those were test team blades, and I agreed not to post reviews for six months.


Well, six months are up, so here's my review!


So I had some stuff that needed to be done in the yard today, and decided to put some knives to the test. Specifically, THESE knives:


And here they are without their pants. Left to right:
Cold Steel LTC Kukri, Busse Killa Zilla, Swamp Rat M9LE, Ka-Bar Heavy Bowie, Busse NMSFNO, Scrap Yard Regulator Bowie, Swamp Rat Mini Uncle Mojo.


Most of these knives have the factory edge. The LTC kukri was touched up on a strop a few times after having used it heavily in the past, and the mojo was reprofiled to a beefy convex edge after it got damaged on some nails. The M9LE was crazy sharp from the factory, and the second sharpest in this test, after the mojo. The NMSFNO and Killa Zilla weren't very sharp from the factory. The Regulator was somewhat better, but still not on the level of the M9. The Ka-bar had a pretty good edge from the factory.

First, I cut down a few small trees that were in the way. I did some chopping with most of the knives and got a good feel for how those worked. I also slashed a lot of brush and branches from other trees, but didn't take many pictures.

The LTC kukri really excelled at brush clearing, and was a mean chopper too. The NMSFNO fared pretty well but was nowhere near as good as the LTC.


The M9LE was a mean brush clearer, and pretty good at delimbing and chopping too. The great balance made this thing a joy to swing.


Here are the knives after the brush clearing - getting ready for the next stage, which is the CHOP OFF!!!!



Chopoff rules: I selected a fairly uniform tree that was freshly cut down. It's some kind of hardwood, and still very green. The trunk was a couple inches in diameter - nothing crazy, just a good tree to chomp on. I took a picture after 30 chops, and then counted the total number of chops needed to break through. Take these results with a grain of salt, due to the varying levels of sharpness from the factory. If all the knives were sharpened to similar edges, performance might be much different.

Up first, the killa zilla:


Next, the LTC Kukri


And the M9LE


NMSFNO


Heavy Bowie


Regulator
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2466/3601070257_663bab84bc.jpg[/img]

Mini Uncle Mojo
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3628/3601070453_6bf9bf3639.jpg[/img]

And the number of chops needed to get through:

Killa Z - 48
LTC - 32
M9LE - 51
NMSFNO - 65
Heavy Bowie - 39
Regulator - 53
Mini Mojo - 75

And the aftermath of the chopping...

[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/3601884358_5fdcdf34e4.jpg[/img]


And just for fun, since the LTC kukri is such a standout winner in the chopping, I decided to take it to another, much larger log, this time made from birch. This LTC completely out-chopped the competition - I would love to see a similar design from the Yard!

[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3621/3601071075_47621e59b6.jpg[/img]

And now onto the batoning! There's no easy way to do a measurable comparison of these, but I will post my general impressions at the end of this post.
Killa Z
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3368/3601071253_068851db22.jpg[/img]

LTC
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3632/3601885242_1bc8b18f80.jpg[/img]

M9LE
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3338/3601071643_50767af282.jpg[/img]

Regulator
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2466/3601071813_0b16284e11.jpg[/img]

NMSFNO
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2479/3601885812_dc368c09b1.jpg[/img]

Heavy Bowie
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3601886042_9cdf4f9970.jpg[/img]

Mojo
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/3601072381_8eaf0b4867.jpg[/img]


And just for fun, I used the one with the sharpest factory edge, the M9LE, to make some fuzz sticks. I really suck at this!
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/3601886374_a5362df3fd.jpg[/img]

All that choppin and splittin had to go to some good use, so I built a fire...
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/3601886564_47be67e7e5.jpg[/img]

And all the great tools laid out next to the fire:

[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3398/3601072919_cecf774f9d.jpg[/img]


My thoughts on each of the knives, and how they performed today. [color:"green"]Updated[/color] impressions after five months of use are included.


[color:"red"]Killa zilla: [/color] One word: disappointment. The edge was so obtuse that it was out-chopped by the much lighter and much thinner LTC kukri. It was also so obnoxiously heavy that it was exhausting to swing, and because it was so thick with such a lousy edge, it sucked at clearing brush, which is a task kuk's normally excel at. Not very impressive batoning, either - took a lot of energy to get it started and a lot more to get it to split a log. Right now, I am NOT a killa Z fan <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> [color:"green"]five months later:[/color] I've sharpened up the zilla, and it performs much better than it did with the factory edge, but I still don't find it to be worth what I paid for it. I'm selling it, hoping it will find a home with an INFI fanatic who loves big fat knives.

[color:"red"]LTC:[/color] Undisputed chopping champion! It destroyed the killa zilla, and all of the other Bussekin blades for that matter. The thin blade bites deep on every swing, and it goes through logs FAST. It's also a brush-destroying monster, and kudzu trembles before it. It's suprisingly light and nimble in the hand, and does a decent job batoning for how thin it is. Great knife! My only complaint is, when chopping, it bites SO deep, that it can tend to bind a bit. [color:"green"]Updated:[/color] Still my best chopper, although I dont carry it very often because I do more batoning than chopping.

[color:"red"]M9LE:[/color] My favorite of the Bussekin blades tested today. Not the best chopper by any means, but really nimble in the hands, a champion brush clearer and kudzu slasher, and a real beast batoning. Great, great knife! [color:"green"]update:[/color] I recently sold this one off and regret it, but needed the money to pay for the Bushwacker mistress, which will also be light and fast, but not rust so much. I expect to pick up an M9CG at some point, and am just waiting to see if they ever do a bama clay version at one of the shows

[color:"red"]NMSFNO:[/color] Underwhelming. The factory edge's dullness probably has a lot to do with it, but the coating seemed to bind up quite a lot, too. It didn't bite very deep when chopping, and it wasn't very impressive batoning. The hand-shaped micarta handles were VERY comfortable, so that's something positive, and the curved spine didn't chew up the baton as badly as some of the other knives. [color:"green"]Update[/color] The factory edge on this knife was abysmal. After comparing my results to Horn Dog's, I decided to thin it out and go convex, and what a world of difference! The NMSFNO has become one of my favorite camp knives.

[color:"red"]Heavy Bowie:[/color] A real beast, especially considering the ~50 dollar price tag. This was bested only by the kukris, and barely beaten by the Killa Z, for a WHOLE LOT less weight, and a more comfortable handle to boot. It's also very effective for batoning, with its full flat grind. One of my favorite knives of the day. It wasn't as effective at brush clearing as the other large knives like the M9 and LTC, though.[color:"green"]Updated[/color] Still a great chopper and batoner, but it gets left at home in favor of INFI, SR-101, and SR-77


[color:"red"]Mojo:[/color] The smallest knife here, and it shows - it's not all that great at batoning, and the pointyness of the tip tends to get caught on the baton. It's also obviously the weakest chopper. The slight recurve makes it surprisingly effective as a brush-clearer, though. It's a good knife for the size, but if I were doing serious wood destroying, I would choose something larger. [color:"green"]updated[/color]This one has a new home with a fellow Dog - I dug the knife, but had a lot of stuff around this size, and it's a size I rarely carry. Mostly replaced by an SJTAC.

[color:"red"]Regulator:[/color] AWESEOME! For the size and weight, this thing is a TANK! It's much shorter than the M9, but chopped nearly as well, and the ridiculous thickness made quick work of some big logs while batoning. However, the fighter style tip did chew up the baton quite badly, and the res-c guard got messed up by the batoning, too. That guard needs some tweaking, ideally some metal to support it. This knife was really crazy effective at slashing through brush, too. For its size, this knife just blew me away. With a few small tweaks, it will be awesome![color:"green"]Updated[/color] Stil an awesome knife, and I plan to use it a lot more often, now that I'm allowed to post pictures. Great, great design Dan - love it!

awesome!

Bummer you didn't like the KZ that much. It's pretty great looking...don't know about $800 of great looking though! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Saw you sell the M9 and thought that must have hurt.

Great to read about the regulator finally!

Great review and chopoff, nice pics too <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Awesome review. The point you made about the guard on the regulator is one concern that I have had with the limited amount that I have seen this knife. I wonder if that has been addressed? Knowing the yard I would think the release version would come out with some bomb proof type. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Justin

awesome review, man. Bummer to hear the Killa Z was a disappointment....that is a lot of bread for such mediocre results. I'd still love to see the Yard come out with a Kuk of sorts

After sharpening, both the NMSFNO and Zilla were WAY better.


But for what I paid for the zilla, it should be perfect right out of the box. Of course, most of the people who bought them will probably never notice if they are sharp, because they went right into safes <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

A thinner profile and sharper edge would probably make the zilla easily destroy every knife in the test. The kukri design, when done well, is one of the best choppers in existence. Just use a thinner convex profile and it would be amazing.

But I'm not completely reprofiling a knife as expensive as the zilla. I'm not THAT confident in my belt sander skills.

Too-thick profiles on knives from Ohio is hardly a phenomenon limited to the Killa Zilla <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Look at the massive performance gains seen in knives that come out of the Third World Grind Shop.

Jerry makes his knives beefy and thick, and his customers eat it up. I don't think he has to change much to sell a truckload of these, and honestly even the small amount of edge thinning and polishing I did made a huge difference.

I just hope he does a CG version - this one is about .260 thick. A nice .220 or .200 would be awesome.


Actually, a .18 or so SR-77 version would be a dream <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Great review and thanks for updating it. I am finally glad to see the KZ and hear some reports on it. I am really wanting to try out a Kukri, but from the sound of it I will try a HI or CS first.

From the reading I get that the KZ is better now. You also mentioned that the NMSFNO had the blade worked over and is a better tool now. In what way did it improve?

Reg--hmm, I can't say what I think yet!
Thanks for the update MM.

They both just weren't very sharp from the factory. All I did was sharpen them - the zilla I just polished and thinned slightly, while the NMSFNO I put a convex on (it had an obnoxiously obtuse V ground edge from the factory).

They just didn't cut well - didn't bite deep when chopping, were tough to get started batoning, pushed brush out of the way rather than slicing through it. Just poor edge performance all around. Now, with a properly sharpened edge, both can make fuzz sticks and, if freshly stropped, shave arm hair.


Just have to sharpen them up, but that's true of almost every Busse I've bought. My Scrap Yard and Swamp Rat knives have actually had much more consistently sharp edges on them.