Great Gurkha Khukuri Cut through Bone Like Butter, Modern Blade Grind Wins! Tactical Kukri Design

This tactical khukuri of modern designs by Brother Nathaniel (The Levin Lance) and hand forged by Purna Darnal of Great Gurkha Khukuri. Being a khukuri-smith by trade, Purna is at home executing this design by Nate, which incorporates modern elements such as full width exposed tang, one-piece steel hilt with a D-guard and quillons, full-concave bevel grind from the spine to the edge to a timeless classic blade design that is the Nepalese Gurkha khukuri.

The blade takes full advantage of the signature forward curve and broadening profile of traditional khukuris, so that at the broadest part of the 14" long blade it's 60mm (2.4") wide and less than 3mm thick at the spine, with the concave grind and the deep bevel, a large portion of the blade above the edge remains as thin as a sheet of ice. Meanwhile the distal taper from 7.6mm at the base down to 1.8mm at the tip makes this khukuri very fast and nimble. It can accelerate like a short sword instead of an axe, but the forward curve make it hack deeply into the target, and when the user draws the blade out as the last natural motion of the slash, the backward curve near the tip causes more slicing to the target to further damage it. Overall the length is 20" (50 cm) while the weight is 700g (1.54 lbs).

I did extensive cutting on a pork shoulder under layers of cloth, and it sheared through the thick shoulder blade bone like butter, not to mention the deep and wide wound left on the flesh. Needless to say, it cuts bottles effortlessly. I also chopped some fallen trees in a rainforest. The top half on the blade sank entirely into the log, and the edge suffered no dulling whatsoever. However, it did suffered one minor deformation when I chopped through the shoulder blade in the pork, though that didn't prevent subsequent cuts to chop through the bone again. As far as I can tell, this small deformation does not impede the cutting capacity of the khukuri.

Overall, I would say that this experimental bevel grind on a khukuri pays off, though there's bit of a tradeoff between performance and durability. Obviously Purna offers hundreds of custom khukuri designs and most of which have durable convex grind or apple-seeding near the edge to enhance their durability.

The modern hilt design is also extremely ergonomic, and the contour makes it beautiful to behold. The added handguard make the khukuri safer to do thrusting with than traditional ones. Thrusting went quite well on soft targets given the false edge enhances the tip penetrative ability. The less pronounced curvature makes the blade align better with the direction of thrust by the user. The excellent mass distribution makes the thrusts rather quick and precise. Though the khukuri design is more of a chopper than a thruster.

As per usual, Purna's blade comes with a well made wood core scabbard, with some basic tooling on the leather wrapping. The retention is already excellent, while the unsheathing is smooth, but he added an extra buckle across the quillon to further secure the blade when sheathed.

If you value cutting performance above everything else, this khukuri is easily recommended. However, minor modifications such as the edge geometries and spine curvatures are also possible if you contact the maker or the designer.
Maker Great Gurkha Khukuri (‪@greatgurkhakhukuri-ggk3533‬) website and social media:
https://www.greatgurkhakhukuri.com/
  / purnadarnal2015  
   / @greatgurkhakhukuri-ggk3533  

The designer Brother Nathaniel (‪@thelevinlance6566‬) can be contacted at   / natesil  
   / @thelevinlance6566