Hey folks, 12-Gauge Chimp back from a long break.
Many of you might remember the Scourge kukri I did an overview on a couple years back. Well, today I have another kukri to review. It's not a Scourge, but a Sirupate kukri.
What's a 'Sirupate', you might ask ? Well, it's sort of a cross between a kukri and a machete. A kukr-chete or a mach-ukri, if you will. For me, it's an excuse to hack old watermelons and foliage around my house without looking like a doofus.
Anyway, I did a little searching and found Kailash Blades. Andrew Lucas, the brains behind the Scourge kukri, is the man behind this new company. So, I browsed the site, saw several kukris I wanted, but I decided I wanted a Sirupate because I've never owned a traditional style kukri. After clicking my preferences, hitting the 'place order' tab and making sure my payment info was correct, I was well on my way to having a real traditional kukri in my hands.
Now, shipping from Nepal takes awhile, so I had to wait about a month or so for it to get here. Which it did this past Monday. I eagerly opened the heavily taped box like a kid on Christmas and inside was my kukri.
I ordered the 16 inch blade Sirupate because it was the more sensible choice. They have blade lengths up to 24 inches or so, but those are more for ceremonial purposes and display due to the size and weight. 16 inches is the sweet spot for the Sirupate for me. It's long enough to make short work of bushes and the like, but still able to be wielded for long periods of time without tiring me out. Even so, the blade is long and if I needed to (or wanted to), I could probably use it as a short sword. It's just perfectly balanced for both utilitarian purposes and defensive purposes as well.
The blade measures about 16 inches and the handle is about 5 3/4 inches, with an overall length of 22 inches. The blade is highly polished and has almost a mirror-like sheen to it. There's a bit of traditional style engraving on the back of the blade towards the spine as well. The width of the blade at the spine is a little over 3/8ths of an inch. Still pretty beefy, but not as much as the Scourge with it's almost a half inch thick spine. Like the Scourge, the handle of the Sirupate is made from Rosewood with a nice polish to it. It's a little slick for me, but a quick wrapping with some grip wrap and it'll be good to go for me. That's really my only issue with it, a slick handle, but it's merely a personal preference and in no way a fault of the guys at Kailash Blades. The blade also came with a traditional water buffalo leather and wood scabbard that holds the blade in tightly, but not too tightly. It's got just enough grip to keep the blade from bouncing out, but it lets me draw the blade smoothly.
It's kind of unfair to call this a review when I really haven't tested the blade enough to warrant it, so it's more of an overview. I'm planning to do some cutting with the Sirupate from Kailash Blades here in the near future and will update this entry with my findings.
Overall, I'm happy with my purchase and plan to make more purchases from Kailash Blades as time goes on. They're a great company to deal with and Andrew Lucas kept me updated on my order during the entire time it was going from a simple piece of steel in the form of truck leaf springs all the way to a finished blade on its way from Nepal to the US. Not many companies will do that these days, especially not the head of the company either.
As always, this is 12-Gauge Chimp signing off.
ETA: I was recently contacted by Mr. Lucas and he informed me he's actually not the owner of Kailash Blades. The company is Nepalese owned and operated, with him as sort of a public relations/ quality control/publicity/media relations/designer type person. Sort of a jack of all trades deal, I guess. Either way, I'm glad to see him and the guys from Kailash Blades making kurkis and other blades again and I hope Kailash Blades is around for a long time to come and wish them well in all their endeavors.
No comments:
Post a Comment