Swamp Rat Knives Chopweiler Knife in Green/Black Micarta

I have blogged in previous posts on the Busse Family of Knives. The Scrapper 6 was covered in a previous post, and this week I will talk a bit on the Scrap Yard offering called the Chopweiler. I don't really know where to start on this knife other than to say it's a handful. Made of Swamp Rat's SR101 Steel, Chopweilers  feature a differential heat treat. Differential Heat Treating is an interesting feature not often found in commercially made blades because of the extra time and expense required. In a nutshell the the bottom half of the blade is quenched to a different hardness than the top half of the blade allowing for good edge retention at the bottom with a tougher spine on the top. Blade Width on the knife is 1-3/4" and around 7.5" long with a massive 1" choil included, leaving the usable blade length at 6.5". Overall Blade length is 13.25" with a spine thickness of a quarter inch! I would put the weight of this chopper at over a pound! The Carved  Micarta Handles are curved to fit the hand perfectly for chopping and are right around 5.5" long. I did not have any trouble with hot spots on my hands that I typically get with carved micarta. The handles are striking in appearance, and really add a bunch to the character of the knife. I put the blade through it's paces on pin oak and holly a couple weekends back and was very impressed. The knife really performs more like a hatchet than a blade when chopping heavy brush and limbs. The heat treat on the steel was exceptional and it needed little touch up after several hours of chopping. The over sized choil allowed for me to choke way up on the blade safely for smaller work around the camp when I needed to. This blade could no doubt fill the role of a "1 Blade Only" type camping, hunting or survival scenario. I intend to take it Hog Hunting this fall and will be interested to see how it does on skinning and boning out an entire boar without sharpening. I continue to be impressed by all the Busse Kin Knife Offerings and look forward to doing more short reviews on them in the future.