My Secondary Knife: Chisel Knife Review

Like any important element I like to have a secondary knife with me should something happen to my Primary knife. Yet to avoid total redundancy I want a secondary knife that is different than my Primary and has different strengths and weaknesses. The knife that caught my eye was a Mastercraft chisel knife. Mastercraft is not a well known knife manufacturer and generally make other tools like wrenches but so far mine has held up well.


The knife is stainless steel, has a Mora style clip on plastic sheath.  The handle is a rubbery plastic material and seems to fit well in the hand and takes a bit of abuse from hammering it when using the chisel.  It is a fairly heavy knife (4 mm thick) and has handled all the batoning and prying that I have done with it and I have been using it for about 2 years now. It seems to handle most basic carving tasks and I even managed to whittle a spoon with it. The spine of the knife works well for striking a ferrocerium rod and has nice 90 degree corners.

My only real complains with it is that I wish that the chisel end had a chisel grind instead of a full flat grind with secondary bevel like the knife blade. I also wish that it had a full tang although it has never given me any problems so far. It looks like Mora makes some knives that have the chisel grind and come with stainless steel or high carbon steel so that might try upgrading to one of them at some point.


I have not made any real modifications to it other than sharpening it and that I have the sheath wrapped with 25 feet of 550 paracord. So for a cheaper knife it does all I need it too and has yet to really fail.

What types of knives do you like to use?



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