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Hi all!
Hard use testing of CRKT knife called "Ultima"
This knife
Was sent to me by CRKT themselves
This is 5 inch blade model
Blade thickness is about 5mm here
And it is made out of 4116 steel'
Knife is positioned as tactical
so it is natural that it'll be on this test
Knife is absolutely new, check the out of the box sharpness
Pretty sharp. Push cuts paracord.
Serrations are also pretty sharp
Let's see how it is doing in basic tasks
peel off apple. This job falls of serrated part
Pretty uncomfortable to do it by serrations
it bites deep too much and plain part is tries to slip out
Nevertheless is it enough to roughly whittle down an apple
Cuts pretty thin slices
But enters heavily
OK, moving to a serious tests
Chopping
This hitch, this metal hook
it just destroys the last two fingers
Doesn't matter if you hold it like this or like this
it crushes your fingers
Absolutely failed solution
No damage on a cutting edge yet but a handle is highly uncomfortable for such job
Next chopping of aluminum
Handle discomfort has its effect but the blade is fine
Moving to tip strength testing
This knife has pretty controversial geometry for such test
it's dagger type blade but a tip is pretty thick
It did excellent in this job
I can even say that I am surprised
Tip is intact, nothing bent
Well, moving further
More tough tests for a tip
Starting from punching 1mm stainless steel
Five punches
You can see that a very tip is bent a little
but not bad till now
Next step is 1.2mm stainless steel
After 5 punches you can notice that a tip is bent more
But overall it isn't broken. Blade itself isn't bent, only the very tip.
Well, last stage will be punching of 1.5mm galvanized metal
Let's go
Well, I can say that I'm surprised
Tip has a bit of damage but I was expecting much more
Next we test a cutting edge by batoning of aluminum tube
One
Two
Three
And a last time
Done
Cutting edge is OK
Next moving to chop a 3mm metal cable
After testing of Knife Research Enki knife, some changes has been made
to a testing process and one of the changes it that I changed
number of punches and steel thicknesses in tip testing
Previously we have done stainless steel in 1.2mm, 1.5mm and 2.0mm
Now we moved to stainless steel 1.0mm, 1.2mm and galvanized metal 1.5mm
which is significantly weaker than a stainless steel
And one more change that I made is in metal cable chopping
It was a complaint that came from a Knife Research when they saw how I chop this cable
and how's the knife was blunted. And they told that a knife wasn't blunted by a cable
but because of a stainless steel base that I used
Thus I took this aluminum base now
it shouldn't dull the knife
Let's chop cable five times
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
There is a damage on a cutting edge
Some kind of crumpling
But nothing very serious
Next move to batoning
Wood batoning
2kg hammer, let's go
Blade spine got some serious dents
But still holds on
Very strong recoil to the handle
Spine is already bruised very much
Spine is slowly turning into a mess
Well, batoning isn't going easy with this knife
But I'll try to baton through this block
Spine received pretty serious damage but along with that
a cutting edge and serrations damaged very little if at all
Continue with cutting edge tests
Couple of strikes
We can see that cutting edge bends straight away after such strikes
But not bad overall
Next chopping with the spine
Some weight is missing for a good hit
One of the two here
Or this knife is too light
Or a block is too strong
I get bored actually
I think we did enough of spine chopping
and can move to tip tests
Here is how the blade looks like after such abuse
You can see chipping on a cutting edge
A knife is still straight and in one piece
During all jobs a serrations were relatively safe
and I don't see any sense to abuse a serrations intentionally
Because when a knife is working serrations aren't receive too much load
And one more test which I decided to add after first two Hard Use tests
Oh, we have 2 more tests, I apologize, how could I forget
The test that we did last time is a flat strikes
which imitate falling, impact or throwing of a knife
Let's go
Excellent
The knife is pretty light so it receives such strike easy
And now a test that I started to talk about
I thought about this test but doubted
And when 1BYRRER asked me about it I decided to do this test
if we are talking about real tough tactical knives
This test is called "footboard"
My weight is 110kg and we'll see how this knife holds me
It flexing a little
Turn it over
I am now jumping on it, I just put my weight on it
And I think that if such dagger knife made of pretty simple steel
withstood it, then all the rest must withstand it as well
Knife is absolutely straight
It has sprung under my foot
and went back to straight which is pleased me very much
Well, and now we can summarize
First of all let's check the remain sharpness of plain edge
Almost does not cut the paracord
Serrations cut without problems
although there are teeth that became dull and there are sharp ones
Yea, serrations that are closer to tip are dulled more
and here near the handle it is the most sharp edge
Overall I can say that strengths of this knife is everything that blade geometry provides
enormous penetrating ability. When I picked on wood in entered very good
The weakness is its ergonomics, although initially it is advertised as an advantage
But during chopping tasks this handle will destroy your hand
also because of the geometry, a spine is pretty weak
and it'll be damaged upon strong batoning
Blade coating has pleased me very much
I don't know what they are using but it's almost not abraded down to metal
There are some scratches but overall it is stayed
It pleased me very much
And a tip
I don't even know why is that
blade geometry, steel, heat treatment, maybe all of the above but tip left unbroken
Small re-sharpening and it'll be back in line
In the end I can say that this knife has exceeded my expectations from it
And I am very happy for it
That's all, I hope it was interesting
Thanks for watching, see you, bye bye
Little addition
After we started to inspect the knife closer
there is one thing
Screws which holding a handle, there was 4 of them
now there is only 3. One has fell off
And because of that, handle scales are dangle a bit
There is a gap between scales and a blade
It is a downside
It can be that this screw has loosen because it juts out
but maybe it just because the handle in thinner here
But one has been lost
That's all, bye bye
Knife was re-sharpened, washed, and I want to show it's present condition
after all that it has been through
Knife was re-sharpened by hand
Stone progression was 80->150->320->800 grit
and stropping after that
i.e. I didn't sought for an ultimate sharpness here
Main goal was to restore a cutting edge
Serrations were restored by a diamond sharpener
there were no big damage on it
That's how the spine is looks like
Blade is straight
a deformations on a spine may distort but nevertheless a knife is straight
The only thing is this screw that lost but we have already saw it
I evaluate the condition of coating as very good
there are scratches but overall it stayed on
this blade shining is due to a coating
i don't know what is it but it performed very good
And overall I must confess that I absolutely didn't expected
to see this knife in such condition after all testing
And it is huge pleasant surprise for me
That's all
That's how CRKT Ultima turned out to be a great knife in terms of toughness
Hope it was interesting to you
Thanks for watching, see you, bye bye