KA-BAR7503 KA bar, Jarosz "Turok"/Ultramid Handle with Celcon Sheath,black

The first thing striking about this knife is that everything is high quality, very well thought out and designed, with even grinds and immaculate quality of fit, finish and molding.The handle is very comfortable in any grip, with no hot spots, and the scales texturing gives optimal amount of grip vs mobility. The full tang is great to have as it provides maximum strength to the entire knife in hard use, especially when most all Ka-Bar designs feature stick tangs.The blade is nice and large but still compact enough. Great for chopping and batoning, and the long swedge lends to very effective piercing despite the blade being wide. The swedge stops 1.5 inch before the handle, leaving plenty of room for the thumb to rest on for more precise cutting. 1095 Cro-Van works very well for hard-use tasks thanks to toughness, holds a good edge, and is easy to sharpen.The sheath deserves special attention—it is hands-down one of the best sheaths commercially available right now. It's made of Celcon which is strong, light, and stands up to wear. The molding, fit and finish, overall design and the layout of mounting eyelets (grommets) are truly superb—no need to purchase a separate kydex sheath, this one is better. The retention is excellent, the knife will never deploy on its own—it requires a strong push with your thumb to release.On top of that, the sheath is ambidextrous—velcro strap on the belt loop strap allows for quick and easy change of configuration. You can also remove the belt loop strap altogether and mount a Tek-Lok belt clip in any position: vertical, diagonal or horizontal, to match the carry style of your choosing—for me works best in 20-deg canted scout carry.It's fairly heavy at almost 12oz, but in a capable camp utility/combat knife like this, weight is what you want. The knife is handle-heavy, with a balance point behind the index choil, which lends to good maneuverability for defensive applications.Overall, it's a great knife with even better sheath, ready for action in any configuration your situation might call for. Be sure to get a Tek-Lok with it and some 3/8" or 1/2" chicago screws, because the ones that come with the Tek-Lok are way too short.

Until this past weekend, my Knives of Alaska Bushcamp knife was my favorite. To be honest, the trouble with it was that it was too nice for me to be rough on as you would a bushcraft knife. After a lot of hunting around, I settled on this Turok and decided to give it a try. I'm very glad I did. After 4 days in the woods I am very fond of it. As others have suggested, I took a diamond hone and turned the false edge on the back of the blade into a narrow flat with sharp edges. This made the knife fantastic for peeling shavings off of my piece of fatwood and worked even better for striking sparks from my ferro rod. I started a couple of fires with this knife/fatwood/ferro rod combo and lit my vitalgrill stick stove with it a couple of times as well. It's very nice having the false edge for these chores. I also split a fair amount of firewood with it. With my pocket saw I cut a piece of nice straight grained maple from a deadfall. It only took one good whack with a stick to split this 4" log. Yes, the false edge does chew up your baton a bit, but so what? Its just a stick! It would be harder to hammer it through a log with knots in it, but I wouldn't do that to any knife. After all the splitting chores, the edge still slices paper like new. The handle has nice texturing without being aggressive and feels solid on the full tang. By the way, this is a solid, not skeletonized tang. As for the sheath, I like it. The knife doesn't rattle in it and I like the fact that it locks in solidly. Maybe I have strong thumbs, but I had no problem popping it loose when I wanted and was comforted by how securely it is held. Nothing worse than reaching for your knife and finding an empty sheath!!! The sheath is black, not brown as the description says. You can switch it to left hand carry or use it without the nylon belt strap at all if you like to carry it Rambo style.I like everything about this knife. The feel of the handle, the heft of it in your hand, the nice long cutting edge, the thickness and angle of the blade grind that splits wood efficiently, the false edge for starting fires and the secure sheath. The slight angle of the hilt in relation to the blade seems to give a more natural position for slicing. After all of the wood splitting and fire starting, the black coating (which is very smooth, not like the pebbled texture you tend to find on "survival" knives) is still intact. I find the blade length perfect for me, not too long or too short.Finally, when I left the cabin at night to "commune with nature", something growled at me from the brush. This knife came out of it's sheath fast and smooth and I was very glad to have it's very capable blade in my hand as I backed away and considered peeing myself. It was a hell of a lot more comforting to have with me than my Swisstool. I have no desire whatsoever to do battle with any beasties with nothing but a knife, but if I have to I have never owned another knife that I would want with me more.Update 7/30/18: A few weeks ago I went camping. The firewood I got at the camp store was red Oak. Naturally it was all in chunks too big to start a fire with so I ended up splitting a fair amount of it with this knife. I’m sure most of you know this but red Oak is a very hard wood once dry and it did a real number on the epoxy coating on the blade. As I have seen people do on YouTube I decided to go ahead and strip the rest of the coating off using Kleenstrip epoxy stripper. I have also heard on YouTube that this stuff is very nasty. They are correct. I used nitrile gloves which the epoxy stripper ate. Luckily they were thick ones and they gave me enough time to clean the stripper off the knife blade before I had to quickly take them off as they turned to goo. I got a drop on my arm and it started to burn very quickly so be careful with this stuff! I have to say that I actually like the blades look better without the epoxy coating. I don’t think I’m going to polish it because I like the dull stained look that the steel has got. I had to soak it in the stripper a good two hours before it loosened all of the coating up and I was able to brush it away with a stiff brass bristled brush. The astonishing thing to me is that even after all of the splitting of red oak and the process of taking the epoxy coating off, the edge will still slice paper like brand new. The steel in this knife is very very tough!

Just received the TUROK and the first impression is WOW!!! It looks better in person than any pics I have seen. The size is perfect for what a mid to large knife should be. Not a knife I would want to baton with but, if I had to I'm sure it would be fine. Not a knife I want to baby either, it just makes you want to use it, even if it's just to cut my sandwich in half ( not that I cut my sandwiches but, I will now ). I originally bought the Globetrotter, it is such a good knife when the TUROK came out I didn't even think about it, it was a done deal. I watched some of Jesses' vids on these two knives but, gave up because I kept looking at his puppy Roxy, what a gorgeous German Shepherd. Of course with Amazon Primes' free two day shipping I got the knife without any real wait. Great job Jesse and Kabar. And of course Roxy!!!Update: the knife is very sharp out of the box, it doesn't need any touch up sharpening. I really like the substantial flat grind on the blade, good for slicing and dicing. I like the swedge for stabbing / penetration purposes. Like I said not going to baton with this knife unless I had to, I have other tools for that. The balance point on the knife is just around the front screw on the handle so it is a little handle heavy, which is fine because it makes the knife want to stay in my hand. The handle is very ergonomic and comfortable in the hand with no hot spots with the squeeze test. I like the finger choil on the handle this makes for a better grip on the tool / weapon. This is a combat / utility knife that can be used for other purposes. This isn't my bushcraft knife, it's little brother the Globetrotter is my bushcraft knife, this is my general utility / defense / hunting / SHTF knife. This knife screams EXCELLENCE!!!!!