Condor Tool & Knife Makara Machete - 1075 High Carbon Steel - Heavy Duty Machete Knife with a Walnut Handle - Hand Crafted Welted Leather Sheath - 0.1in Thick - 18.3in Blade - 34.2oz

This is a very solid machete.1075 is a good compromise of hardness vs flexibility. And Condor does a good job with the spring temper. There are better steels to use, but only slightly better, at much higher cost.Unless you live on an oceanfront, you want a high carbon spring tempered steel. It will rust if you don't oil it. Use a thicker grease for long term storage so it doesn't seep away. If you are right next to salt water though, obviously stainless steel becomes much more interesting. SS is inferior at holding an edge, and it's not as strong. But if rust is the biggest risk where you are... fair enough.The grip appears full tang, and it is, but the rearmost part of the grip is a bit skeletonized inside. This is for balance, and it doesn't seem to adversely affect durability.I'm "large". Like WMBA large. So I find it easy to use with 1 hand or 2. A smaller person, or smaller hands might not find 1-handing this to be practical, I dunno.That said, this has amazing utility if you can:- 2-handed, it offers crazy chopping power.- 1-handed with a choked up hold, it's basically like a big 18-20" machete with some counter-weight behind your hand.- 1-handed with an extended hold, it gives you a ton of reach, far more than any normal machete. So you can cut things close to the ground without stooping over so much.It's about 2lb, and it's quite long. So it's not a "just in case I need it" machete. It's something you'd bring because you plan to do a lot of 'machete stuff'.The grip is a bit too thin, mostly for the hand nearer the blade. Granted, I have big hands. It's plenty long though, not crowded at all length-wise. I got some baseball bat wrap to give it a bit of shock absorption, and a more hand-filling feel. I have read that the wood grips can sometimes split under heavy use. Spring steel does like to "wobble" when it hits something with poor edge alignment, and the wood grips do taper kinda thin near the blade, so I believe it. But I think the unique advantages of this machete are worth it anyway. Even if there's a possibility of having to make a custom micarta replacement grip for it eventually.The steel is a little too thin for chopping firewood in any major quantity. But definitely more robust than a 'cheap' machete. If you 'had' to, I'm confident you could easily chop down a tree with it though.If you want a machete which is kinda like this, but which could strike fear in the hearts of a whole row of full grown trees (and you dislike axes for some reason)... consider the ZT Reaver Cleaver. But that's like $500, and over 6 lbs. So... "tradeoffs". This would be far less exhausting to use vs. brush & undergrowth. And I think with an extended 1-hand grip, it's even good for large amounts of tallgrass.The blade "height" nearer the end provides a lot of mass for chopping power in the sweet spot. Kinda like a bolo or panga machete does. Different shape, but same effect.Like many others, the very tip of my blade came chipped. about 1mm worth. I don't honestly consider that an issue at all. It's irrelevant to how a a machete is intended to be used. You can't do a sword thrust with a machete, they're far too springy for that. Edge out of the box is adequately sharp. You couldn't shave with it, but it's a chopping tool not a slicer. I'd call it semi-sharp, and sharper than average for a machete.Sheath almost steals the show... thick top grain leather. Looks like it'd last 2 lifetimes with enough oil.Overall very happy with it. I may customize it, to make it "perfect". But that's more a compliment than a nitpick. Most machetes wouldn't be worth customizing.

I love mine. I have the handle double-wrapped with Gonex heavy on the first and third, with the Gonex thinner in the middle where I don't grip. I did that to both, not have to worry about the Walnut exploding from vibration and so I have perfect grip spots. But if you aren't hitting anything thicker than 1.5 inches, I can't imagine enough vibration to snap the walnut.It came professionally, competently sharpened. I don't go after anything thicker than 1.5 inches, but anything under that and it effortlessly cleaves like pepperoni. Once I realized I was overswinging, it was like cutting through air.The weight is great as is the distribution. No, it won't "do everything" but no blade will. Each has its purposes. If you have lots of vines, lots of wispy invasive whatever. This'll dive right at it no problem. You don't have to worry about it being so heavy or un-aerodynamic that it'll bounce off or try to crush through.Any decent 45'ish degree angle mid-effort slice will go through. For its intended purpose, its the perfect edge, weight, length, etc.If you got this to baton, or chop down mature trees, then you're misusing it. I'm 100% satisfied with mine, and it takes down 1st and 2nd year scotch broom with essentially no effort.

Very good machete just don't use this on dry wood or fire wood it's made for bamboo. Bushes. Palmleafes. Foliage. For trees I use the Chinese war sword or an axeThis machete cun cutt trees but its better for foliage light weight .and about the handle I recommend Jack saw that metal piece on bottom off then I wrapped in paracord then sealed it with dexaed shellac so if it does crack it wont matter because its 1 wrapped piece just make shure not to bend this machete to the sides when pulling out it puts stress on wood handle it is a very good quality machete

This thing is more than just a tool, it's a modern hacker with old-school style. I purchased this 2-handed beauty to fight back the hordes of buckthorn here in northern Illinois. The machete came adequately wrapped in plastic with a light coat of oil. There was no rust, the blade was straight and the handle seemed nice and tight. After seeing multiple reviews involving issues with the walnut handle I decided to just wrap it in paracord to be safe. Since I'm actually using this as a tool, I really don't care how it looks (still looks awesome)... After the unboxing I put it to the test... buckthorn.... cut down two bushes (or trees, depending on who you ask) that were 2-3" in diameter. One of them took 3 whacks, the other took 4, but the most impressive part was how quickly I was able to delimb the bushes. This takes me forever with my OKC SP53 and ultimately the reason why I bought the Makara. I was able to slice off most of the 1" branches in one swipe saving me a ton of time. After the maiden dicing, I looked over the blade, and if there are any rolls or chips, they are hidden to the naked eye. Some of these other reviews on here who ended up with rolled blades on the first use must've swung at something harder than 1070 HCS.

I admit to being apprehensive about widely varying quality. My machete arrived with a well formed and sharp blade. The leather case is excellent. Cutting through brush for a wetland delineation revealed the value of the tool. We also used a Ka Bar Kukri Blade for the closer work. It was a good combination.

It looks good. It comes out of the box sharp. And customer service is amazing. I have this to my daughter and, in it's first outing, she found a rock. They are not rock proof. But, in all other ways, this was a very worthwhile purchase. The rock ding will sharpen out and the tool will be good as new.