Ninja Gear Review: Condor Tool and Knife Eco-Survival Golok Machete

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I've always liked a machete as a tool even in hardwoods environments. They are a good lightweight choppers and a good one could pull double duty as a fixed blade knife. I’m typically pretty rough with my machetes. They clear brush, process firewood, act as a fire poker, even dig holes. I’ve had a couple of cool short ones with wooden handles that have busted during use so I was in the market for one with a polymer handle. I also wanted my machete to be fairly short so I could use it for several different tasks and so it was portable and light. A front heavy model with a powerful chop was necessary if I wanted to keep the blade short.
After checking out several options I settled on the Condor Knife and Tool “Eco-Survival” Golok Machete. The specs met my needs and as an added bonus the handle came in “Safety Orange” so I won’t lose it! But knowing me I’ll probably camouflage it later so I can use it as part of my early season hunting load out to help me clear some shooting lanes.
My first impression was that the blade seemed very stout compared to some other machetes. The handle was nice and fit my hand well, and the ballistic nylon sheath was nothing to write home about but it gets the job done.
We host a few mountain based martial arts retreats each year and we had our fall event coming up. I typically try to get a few days in the mountains prior to our events to clean up any trail growth and prep our sites. This Tengu Training (   • Tengu Training To-Shin Do and Shugend...  ) event we decided to use a trail that I personally haven’t been down in about 10 years. I knew that we were going to need to spend a few nights working on the rhododendrons and and any trees that had fallen across the path. I figured that this would be a perfect opportunity to test out the Condor.
As a chopper the machete performed flawlessly. The relentless rhododendrons proved to be no problem. It even performed pretty well on reasonably sized deadfall.
We worked until we decided to camp, and I used the blade to clear our campsite (we chopped down a large still standing but long dead tree trunk because of some wind advisories for the weekend), dig our fire pit, baton a piece of hemlock, and make a functional but not pretty feather stick to start our fire. The size of the blade wasn’t ideal for the fine work of feathering, but it did the job reasonably well.
As the night went on and the fire demanded larger fuel to keep us warm we used the machete to split some big hunks of a dead hemlock by batonning it with the back of my buddies small camp hatchet.
The next day consisted of clearing a trail beside and through a mountain creek to connect to another set of trails. The machete and the small hatchet were to only trail clearing tools that we brought so that we could scramble safely over and around the rocks. Here I really appreciated how light and maneuverable the blade felt while still biting deeply with each cut.
My overall impression is that this machete is tough, comfortable to use (after two hard use days I had a hot spot on my hand but no blister yet), and easy to spot if you lay it down in the woods. Both of my buddies were impressed with the work it did, the beating that it took, and the edge that it kept. As a piece of Ninja Adventure gear I definitely give the Condor Knife and Tool “Eco-Survival” Golok Machete two thumbs up.
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Music Credit: Todd Norcross www.ToddNorcross.net