TOPS Bushcrafter Khukuri

This knife is the product of more than 30 years of experience in the outdoors by its designer Nicholas Fury. The design is of the Nepalese Khukuri style, which is well-known to all who view the shape of the blade and commonly called Kukri in the UK. Fury’s travels have taken him to some of the furthest reaches of the world, some so remote that there would be little chance of seeing another human being, and sometimes, alone. It is these conditions this knife was designed for.

Nicholas Fury commented: “The first words that came to mind when I designed this Khukuri were strength, reliability, resilience, and adaptability. This is not just another Khukuri design. You will notice that there is a deeper sweeping belly to this blade than a normal Khukuri. This allows you to use a shorter blade and still have tremendous chopping power. The belly also helps facilitate its use to skin animals, whether choking up on the blade with your hand up on the spine, or using a push or draw motion to cape. The curved nature of this Khukuri design is natural for slicing, using the blade as a draw knife in push, or pull direction, creating feather sticks with the inner curve of the blade, processing firewood – whether by chopping, or batoning, smashing nuts with the pommel, scraping bark with the back of the knife, etc. The handle has been designed to be used under harsh conditions, and not injure the hands from repeated use over extended periods of time. There is a bow drill divot on each side of the handle to facilitate this action should you need to make fire by friction in this manner, and a lanyard hole at the end of the pommel. Function and ergonomics were the key elements here.”

Build Quality

The Bushcrafter Kukuri is first and foremost a tool, designed to make up a knife that is useful for both bushcraft and survival, but it would be equally at home as the heavy cutting tool in any camping/outback situation. It has enough size and strength to accomplish any mission in a Survival situation, yet is light enough, short enough, and nimble enough to use for Bushcrafting chores.

With an overall length of 35.6cm and a weight of 0.861kg this is still a hefty knife, although more compact than some kukri designs. The blade is 19.7cm long and made of 0.65cm thick 1095 High Carbon Steel with a Black Traction Coating. There is a an extended single guard at the ricasso and directly above it on the spine there is jimping for applying thumb pressure or choking up on the grip for finer work. This is a full tang design so there is solid strength throughout the whole length of the knife. The handle scales are made of Black Linen Micarta and are well shaped for a good grip without excessive movement (rubbing on the hand) when doing prolonged chopping. The tang extends beyond the handle’s scales to form a strong pommel with a lanyard hole.

Sheath

The supplied sheath is constructed of MIL-SPEC Olive Drab Ballistic Nylon with a hard plastic scabbard to protect the blade. There is a three inch belt loop at the top and in addition there are no fewer than 12 lashing points Top, centre and bottom), a securing loop tab for a leg tie at the base of the sheath and a length of paracord is supplied. The knife is secured with two Velcro tabs around the handle.

There is a large accessory pouch (approx. 19cm long by 9cm wide) on the front of the sheath with a snap-clip closure attached to a Velcro tab. This pocket is large enough to carry a sharpener and/or a folding knife, multi-tool or other kit – TOPS even include a handy flat whistle!

Specialised

Kukri type tools are a bit of a Marmite subject; an awful lot of people just don’t get on with them at all. This is often because they don’t take the time to learn how to use them in the right way, while some may have difficulty with the size of a kukri and the blade shape, finding them difficult to use for finer tasks such as food preparation. The fact is that all good kukris are designed to be up to all manner of tasks – just watch one in the hand of a Ghurka – and those that use them regularly tend to love them. The TOPS Bushcrafter Khukuri is a well designed kukri and it shouldn’t disappoint those that are ‘at home’ with one of these extremely versatile tools.