Mini-Review: Baugo Blade's Forager's Camp Knife

This is a quick review of the Baugo Forager's Camp Knife designed and sold by Baugo Blades. I ordered just a bare blade, as you can see above, but I plan on adding some hardwood scales at a later point. The blade is made of 9Cr14MoV (440C) stainless steel, according to the web site, that has been hardened to Rc 57, which is pretty hard for a knife. It will take some work to sharpen, but it will also keep its edge for a long time. Fortunately, even the knife blank such as I ordered came sharpened from the factory.

Overall dimensions of the knife. Each square is 1-inch on a side.

       The overall length of the knife is 12.5 inches. The blade is a nominal 7-inches long by my measurement. The weight (and keep in mind this is the blade without scales or sheath) is 13.4 ounces by my scale. My calipers put the width of the spine at exactly 0.2-inches, so it is very thick.

      The knife, as its name indicates, is designed as a heavy duty camp knife, but also useful for foraging. Thus, the point is squared off to facilitate prying and digging. Obviously, you would want a smaller knife for such chores as fine cutting, skinning, and so on.

     Normally I try to avoid torture testing my items just because I don't have the money to waste on purposefully trying to destroy something. I made an exception in this case because, well, it was for what the knife was designed. Since I've been working on taking down an ornamental plum tree, it gave me the opportunity to try the knife out at the heavy duty tasks, and on an actually hard "hard wood."

It made short work of these smaller branches.

       The first task I decided to try was to chop off some smaller branches of approximately 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter. While not quite as good at this as my Gerber parang, the Baugo knife did a good job, and the shorter length made it easier to maneuver and use it amongst the branches and twigs in the pile.

Works on larger branches.

      Next, I decided to try it on a larger branch of about 4-inches diameter. As you can see, the knife worked well enough at this task. Keep in mind, this is wood from a plum tree. It did pretty good for most of the way through. I had trouble at the end simply because I had too narrow a notch and the remaining bit was too springy, and when I moved the branch a bit to make it more steady, I was able to quickly finish up. Having said that, I thought it did better than other chopping tools I've tried in the past, including a Gerber camp ax.

     There is a small projection at the back of the handle that was a nice design feature, because it allowed me to grip the knife with just my first couple fingers, giving a longer arc radius and, therefore, higher velocity where the knife contacted the wood. Because of the shape of the knife, I was able to strike near the front of the knife, which also added to its efficiency.

The results of batonning. 

     Next, I used the knife to split a piece of wood by using a baton to strike the spine of the knife. For this test, and for my safety, I used a squared off piece of pine. At first, I was having problems, but it was because I had too small of a stick I was using as a baton. Once I moved to a larger baton, it easily and readily split the wood. You can see one half of the results in the photograph ... my dog grabbed the other half and ran off with it before I could take the picture.

     One of the reasons that the batonning works well on this knife is because the spine is wide and flat all along its length until the very tip. That meant that the knife was easy to strike on the front portion that was projecting past the edge of the wood.

     When the Baugo knife is compared to a standard style utility knife below (a SOG Seal knife), you can see how the Baugo knife is much better designed for tasks that might include processing wood. The edge and tip of the knife are sturdier to resist bending or chipping. Also, with a standard clip point knife, such as the SOG, you can see that the thinner spine is going to bite into the baton almost as much as the cutting edge will bite into the wood you are trying to split.

Comparison between the Baugo knife and a standard utility knife of approximately the same length and thickness.

    I tested the ability to pry with the tip. Obviously, the tip isn't a wood chisel, but it is thick and sturdy. For my test, I used the baton to hammer the tip of the knife into the stump of the plum tree. I was easily able to pry up the wood. This is useful in at least two major ways for the camper or outdoorsman: it means that you can use the knife to break apart wood to get to grubs or insects to use to bait a fish line, and you can dig out wood to use for kindling. Of course, the primary intent is to allow you to dig and remove tubers, roots, or other food that might be growing under the soil.

    Finally, I tested using the knife with a ferrocerium rod. The spine of the knife is squared off with sharp edges, so, as you would expect, it worked well for striking sparks off the rod.

Digging into the heart of the plum tree.

     In conclusion, I thought that the knife performed quite well as the tasks I listed above, particularly since these are chores generally better left to a machete or hatchet. This knife provides a long cutting edge, but is tough enough to process small quantities of wood for a fire or to build a shelter. Coupled with a smaller knife for finer cutting tasks or skinning/cleaning animals, it should serve quite admirably in its role.