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Pros: Blade Material, Blade Sharpness
Cons: Handle Material
One tough chopper... just don't forget your gloves
For the price, this thing is a surprisingly good, functional tool ... plus it looks cool and is fun to use. :) It came with a decent edge, and the stock thickness gives it a lot of durability. I used it for a couple hours in the yard while taking down a couple of trees, mostly for quickly knocking off smaller branches from the larger limbs; with the right angle I was slicing off 2" branches in one swing, and a handful of chops for 3 - 4" branches. Went through a 5" branch for fun, but that took a bit more effort and a dozen or more swings. For comparison, my other cheapo $20-$30 machete can handle maybe 1" branches, and needs sharpening after about 1/2 of what I did today. The grip is not very shock-absorbent, however, and my hands were ringing a few times when I let my grip get a little slack. Also the handguard and pommel ring are *not* hand friendly at all. My off hand pinky got shocked and jammed a few times by the pommel ring, even with a hollow core 550 paracord wrap. The handle itself has a nice sword-wrap print to it, which is grippy, but does little to help with shock. I'll be giving it a full paracord wrap soon. After all that chopping, maybe 20% of the edge was slightly dulled/rounded, but still could slice through the wad of paper towel I cleaned it with at the end. I also didn't notice any bend or warping, even though some strikes were at bad angles and torqued the blade. I imagine this would hold up to a full day of abuse before needing to touch up the edge. The black coating did start to come off near the primary bevel, and even hilariously got some "splinters" jammed under it. All this means to me is a slightly wider patch to oil after use, since SK5 isn't stainless.
