# Ordered a new Kabar.



## Fuzzee

*Ordered a new Kabar./Updated-came in/Pics added*

Had to do it. I've been wanting to pick a new one up that was kraton handled instead of leather washers and had a ambi polymer sheath. For as simple as it is and really not that expensive as far as knives go, the KaBar really is a damn good knife. I thought about buying the Big Brother, but thing is just too big even though this is for a weapons rig.









Updated,

Pics of the new 1211 with my great uncles MK2 on page 3.


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## AquaHull

Is it Made in the USA, or an import?


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## Rigged for Quiet

Hard to go wrong with Kabar.


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## AvengersAssembled

They've never done anything but impressed me with their quality.


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## Fuzzee

AquaHull said:


> Is it Made in the USA, or an import?


Should be made in the USA. It's one of the serrated 7 inch classics with a Kraton handle and kydex sheath. Those are USA made to my knowledge and it's some of the newer models that are not.

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> Hard to go wrong with Kabar.


Definitely hard to wrong with a Kabar. I've got lots of other knives, but a Kabar has a great blade and comfortable handle and even though they thin out the tang inside the handle there still a very tough knife in my experience. I've got one that was passed down to me from my father that my great uncle used in WWII and it's still going strong. I know I used it quite alot for bushcraft and camping.

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> They've never done anything but impressed me with their quality.


Me too. A great knife for the money. Still one of the most comfortable gripped and best fighting knife to me.


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## Fuzzee




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## AquaHull

I have an old small K-Bar sharpening stone. IDK where the knife was hid.


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## Rigged for Quiet

Fuzzee said:


> Definitely hard to wrong with a Kabar. I've got lots of other knives, but a Kabar has a great blade and comfortable handle and even though they thin out the tang inside the handle there still a very tough knife in my experience. I've got one that was passed down to me from my father that my great uncle used in WWII and it's still going strong. I know I used it quite alot for bushcraft and camping.


I'll be leaving mine to my son when I'm gone. He's tried to trade me any number of other edged weapons on the last few years for it, but he knows it's a futile effort, lol.


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## Old Man

I really enjoy my extreme 2. They made a great knive and still made in the good old USA.


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## Fuzzee

I was watching some Youtube videos of guys using them for chopping trees down and one kid complaining about his breaking at the tang edge where the blade and handle meet. Seriously, it's a knife. If you want to use for an axe's job, it's not an axe. If you want to use it as a prybar, it's not a prybar. Everthing has it's limits and this is a knife.


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## Catfish Prepper

My kabar bk9 could cut down that tree!!!!


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## rice paddy daddy

My Army outfit in Vietnam was attached to the Marines. This was my first exposure to the USMC Fighting Knife. I "aquired" one, made under contract by Cammilus. I left it behind with a buddy when I came home. 
Fast forward 30 years and I bought a gen-u-ine Ka-Bar USMC Fighting Knife brand new. And later picked up a WWII Ka-Bar complete with US Navy MkII scabbard.
Hopefully my heirs will appreciate how highly I value these knives after I'm gone.
As a WWII history buff, when I hold one in my hands I think about things like the 300 Marine Raiders defending Edson's Ridge on Guadalcanal against 1500 charging Japs, the fighting getting so close some Marines were defending their foxholes using Ka-Bars. History, Pride, and Freedom are what I feel when I pick up a Ka-Bar. 
I'm just a sentimental old soldier, I guess.


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## Seneca

AquaHull said:


> Is it Made in the USA, or an import?


As far as I know...The 7" USMC style knives are US made. Their line of hunting knives, their large bowie knife and a few others are made in Taiwan.

Fuzzee...nice knife.


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## Fuzzee

> Fuzzee...nice knife.


That's just someone's promo pic. Mine's still in the mail, but if I've got time when it gets here on a day off I'll try to post a nice pic. Maybe one with the old WWII in it also. My great uncle made a custom leather sheath for it and rewrapped the handle with additional leather. He also bent down the top of the guard. I could do without the top of the guard myself. It gets in the way for a reverse grip for fighting, but bending it down isn't going to work with the sheath. I hear people sometimes grind it off.


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## Verteidiger

If a fixed blade knife is going to break, it will break at the hilt, right between where the handle and the blade meet.

I have actually had a Kabar break there, right in half. So it happens....

I still buy and own them because they are good knives; but for very hard usage you really need a full tang knife....


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## Fuzzee

Verteidiger said:


> If a fixed blade knife is going to break, it will break at the hilt, right between where the handle and the blade meet.
> 
> I have actually had a Kabar break there, right in half. So it happens....
> 
> I still buy and own them because they are good knives; but for very hard usage you really need a full tang knife....


What were you using it for that it broke there or do you think it was just a faulty blade with an imperfection?


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## PrepConsultant

I love Kabar Knives!


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## Fuzzee

Looks like my neighbor has a grinding wheel I can use. I think I'll grind down the upper guard and than blue it afterward. I think I'd be happier loosing it. I not worried about warranty as I read people mention. It's a tool. It's for use. If I break it, I'll replace it myself. If someone in person sees my Kabar and cries about the damaging it from original, I'm sure thoughts of shoving it in their ribs will come into mind and me saying, "look, it works fine still". :mrgreen:

Like this guy did.

Modified kabar fighting knife


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## Verteidiger

Fuzzee said:


> What were you using it for that it broke there or do you think it was just a faulty blade with an imperfection?


I was up in a tree stand about 15 feet off the ground.

I had cut a length of paracord so I could lower items to the ground when I got ready to go.

I knocked my Kabar off my thigh and it fell directly onto a flat rock that was at the base of the tree. The knife landed flat on its side, and I heard "ting" and the blade went one way and the handle went the other. It broke right at the brass hand guard.

It was the standard Kabar, leather ring handled model, leather sheath. My Dad just bought another one when I got home.

At the time it didn't dawn on me to return it to Kabar - they might have replaced it. I just chalked it up as a lesson learned.


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## PrepperDogs

Verteidiger said:


> I still buy and own them because they are good knives; but for very hard usage you really need a full tang knife....


I own a Ka-Bar USMC knife and their 7" fighting knife. Both are full tang blades.


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## rickkyw1720pf

The Kabar military versions have been around long before the SHTF groups came along and drove the newer knives up to a ridiculesly high prices.


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## rice paddy daddy

rickkyw1720pf said:


> The Kabar military versions have been around long before the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BEGAN PRINTING MONEY LIKE IT WAS GOING OUT OF STYLE and drove the newer knives up to a ridiculesly high prices.


There, fixed it for ya.


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## Seneca

Verteidiger said:


> I was up in a tree stand about 15 feet off the ground.
> 
> I had cut a length of paracord so I could lower items to the ground when I got ready to go.
> 
> I knocked my Kabar off my thigh and it fell directly onto a flat rock that was at the base of the tree. The knife landed flat on its side, and I heard "ting" and the blade went one way and the handle went the other. It broke right at the brass hand guard.
> 
> It was the standard Kabar, leather ring handled model, leather sheath. My Dad just bought another one when I got home.
> 
> At the time it didn't dawn on me to return it to Kabar - they might have replaced it. I just chalked it up as a lesson learned.


I've heard of that happening.

I've also heard of them bending at the hilt. Never seen it first hand though.

I like the 7" KaBar USMC fighting knives with the stacked leather handles. Though I've never seen one with a brass hand guard. The ones I have are all steel hilts and pommels.

They're a good knife no question about that. Yet like anything else one can be defective. I prefer the full tang knives for no question reliability. Yet there is a time and place for the hidden tang knives as well.


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## rickkyw1720pf

Seneca
If the tang broke off my Kabar I would weld a full tang on it, and then wrap it in para cord and who knows that may become my prized knife.

Infact there are a lot of things that I would modify if there was a TEOTWAWKI (step above SHTF) event. Where function becomes way more important then looks.

But that could be another thread.


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## Seneca

rickkyw1720pf said:


> Seneca
> If the tang broke off my Kabar I would weld a full tang on it, and then wrap it in para cord and who knows that may become my prized knife.
> 
> Infact there are a lot of things that I would modify if there was a TEOTWAWKI (step above SHTF) event. Where function becomes way more important then looks.
> 
> But that could be another thread.


That's a very good idea....


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## Fuzzee

Well got it in. I took some pics of it next to the WWII issue USN MK2 from my great uncle. You can see some of the differences in the blade shape, cuts and lines. How thick the guard is on the MK2 compared to the newer KaBar. Side by side I think the newer ones not made with the same quality the MK2 is. For instance on the newer one, the buttcap is suppose to be a casting, powder steel as far as I know. The MK2's is likely a stamped or forged cap. You see in Kabar's video on page one of this thread the stamping cut out of the blades. You'd have to wonder about forging going into the old MK2 compared to the newer one. Not that the newer Kabar's are bad knives at all for the money. For the money, there a great knife, but things aren't made like they used to anymore. The MK2 has been around the block and back again. Beat on by my great uncle, my dad and me. We'll see if this new one lasts as long. The others I've had I gave away. I don't know what happened to them, but I'd bet there still going.


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## PalmettoTree

When one buy what he wants and can afford what he wants; he seldom goes wrong. Put your knife to good use. That is what it was made for.


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## Fuzzee

Thanks, I'm going to. I bought it for a fighting/hunting knife and Kabar's have always been one of my favorites for it with their weight and balance, shape and length of the blade and feel/fit of the grip.


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