Machete's: What type is best?

I've been meaning to a acquire a good machete for work around the house and also in the wilderness. A simple look at Cold Steel's website will show you how many shapes and types are available. What machete's do you recommend in terms of

a. versatility
b. price-to-performance ratio
c. overall quality

Thanks!

I have the Cold Steel Kukri machete. It is cool I have had it for many years I keep it in my car, and have only played with it a little bit.
Mr. Noss at knife test.com liked it,
http://www.knifetests.com/ColdSteelKukriMacheteDestructionTest.html

When looking at all their machete shapes I noticed they are mostly habitation driven, So what are your kneeds where you live and are going.

the khuk is my favorite also. the barong is nice or something wider at the end of the blade like a bolo or panga.

Tramontina Bolo.

I like my Ontario machetes. The only thing I don’t like is if you use them for a long time w/o gloves, the handle rivets will make blisters on your hands. I’ve thought of wrapping it with athletic tape or something to pad it.



One that I’ve heard a lot of good things about that I’ve wanted to get is the Fiskars/Gerber Brush Axe. There’s an article on it in this months Backwoodsman. The only thing is, most places sell it for $30-$40 which I think is a little high. In the summer, I found them at Walmart for $20! That was a lot better. I went back to get one, and they’d sold out and got rid of them along with the other summer yard equipment. The hook looks like it would work well on light brush and thorns.

what style you want is personal preference.i think a khuk works better than any other style for chopping but a traditional style is what will work best for normal machete use like clearing leaves and vines,jungle type stuff.

as far as brands go i would really go with cold steel.i'm not a knives test guy but i was very impressed with what that $10 cold steel machete could take abuse wise.i have two of the khuk style ones.

ontario also makes a great machete.

while there are some more expensive ones out there than these i really dont think that there are any tougher.

i had the BRK&T KSF machete.it worked great but to me a machete sees the ugliest work out of any of my blades,always accidentally going into the dirt and hitting stones and all types of stuff and i didnt like the idea of doing that with a $200 machete when a $10 one will do the job with 90% of the same efficiency.

put your own convex grind and edge on,strip the coating and you got the same thing

Tramontina ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Yes, Tramontina.

Tramontina and Ontario have worked best for me. I've recently acquired a Condor and it seems like a pretty good chopper too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

I like Tramontina, Cold Steel, and Condor. In the short 12" models I like the thicker Ontarios best, but the Cold Steels are just as good. CS has a large variety in types. I have their panga, barong, bolo, and bowie machetes. Their kukri machetes are good, too. I gave mine to my brother in law and he loves it.

Have a CS magnum kukri machete and that is the worst piece of s*** I´ve ever seen!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I recommend Linder machete <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Once you put a good edge on the CS kukri machete, it cuts very well.

The edge looked like it was made with a angel grinder och helt snedslipad. Så kass hade jag inte förväntat mig att ens en Hobbex-machete skulle va <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" />

I had a CS Latin 24" machete which was much better <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The article in BWM caught my eye as well Andy, I will be checking them out for sure !!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

I have the Gerber (Fiskars). It is an efficient cutter, especially for cutting things close to the ground. But I consider it more of a landscaping tool than an all-around machete. It is hard to beat the traditional latin style machete.

I love my Collins and Co. Its pretty old but by far the best one I have owned.

Thanks for the responses, I'll take them into consideration. I have an RTAK-II, so I'm not really sure if I need a machete, but we'll see. I'm also looking at a good axe, like a Gransfors Bruks, which would maybe be more useful in a woodland climate like mine. All the same, thanks for your input

I love the Swedish rant Simon! Can I buy a vowel?

The regular CS kukuri is MUCH better than the magnum.

I like Tramontonias especially the panga for a longer brush clearing machete and the 1095 Ontario's for the shorter ones.

The small CS kukuri is awesome ,I gave mine to my sister for a self defence tool
that does not take a lot of skill or strength to use.

Every machete will need edge work. They literally just take a few swipes with a grinder and toss them in the box.

Hang on to that Collins. They were the best. I still have a few. Whenever I would have some clearing to do when I was with the city water dept, we would just go to the nearby hardware store and buy a few. After the job was done, the machetes somehow "walked off" with the employees. So somewhere back in the 'hood are four or five good Collins machetes. They are probably saving them for for the next Hotel Rawanda style "celebration".

what where you expecting for $15 bucks,a highly polished,convexed ground work of art??

its meant to be treated like crap.to me buying and using an expensive machete is like buying and using a fancy garbage can.

to me all a machete needs to be is tough and the cheaper i can get a tough machete the better.

now if you dont know how or have the means to put the proper edge on it you may have problems.

I gotta agree with N1; I bought a couple of the Cold Steel machetes, and for $20 a piece, they do what I want them to do. They're nothing pretty, they're beaters that I'll continue to beat and abuse until they're useless, and then I'll toss 'em in the junk.

Get a belt sander and just rough grind the edge on it so it's sharp enough for hacking; that's what they're worthy of, nothing more.

From a machete I dont expect much but that one...
Reprofiling the edge is okay but have to make a complete new edge, you shouldn´t have to do that even on a $15 machete. Maybe this one was a mondaycopy (directtranslation from swedish)

The Linder machete have a convex edge and in Sweden it´s cheaper then the CS Magnum kukri machete and it´s like comparing a piece of iron (CS) and a scrapyard knife (Linder)

It's cheaper than a $15- 20 USD machete? Besides, different companies do different things to cut costs to provide cheap machetes to their customers. I don't see having to sharpen the edge up to be that big a problem, but to each their own.

Tramontina for me. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

i gotta admit that maybe my idea of a good machete might be different because in all actuality i dont use a machete for real machete tasks.machetes arent designed for north american hardwoods really.

i dont do much vine clearing,trail making with my machetes and is why i like the strength of the high carbon machetes like ontario and cold steel.i've never used a tramontina.

i googled linder machetes and people had good things to say about them but they all felt the need to work on the edge out of the box due to its thickness.

i've never heard of them before this.the ones i saw all seemed to be stainless,low saber ground,convexed edge with wooden handles and they say solingen on the blade.

they seem fairly priced as well

the BRK&T was the best machete i've ever used but just too expensive to treat like that and i found the polished micarta handle to be slippery

I have a 12" Tramontina, but I want to get the edge done up nicer. I haven't had a chance to use it before my wife bought me an Ontario SP5. Just barely shorter and much more comfortable.

Not a ton heavier either, and much more suited to North American vegetation as Northern1 was pointing out.

I gotta go outside and beat these two up! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

I got a long, twenty-four incher from Ecuador I use to whack at weeds...