Celebrated by the father of modern bushcraft; Mors Kochanski in his book “Bushcraft”, this is a knife many bushcrafters know. But it is my impression that few here has actually handled, let alone owned, one: The Mora Classic; http://www.moraofsweden.se/index.php?cid=193&ssel=18
Still produced in Sweden, the Mora Classic, based on the classic Scandinavian puukko, has been produced for more than a century - and is one of the most successful knife designs ever!
Looking at photos of Mors Kochanski, both older as well as more recent ones, the Mora Classic is still the knife you most often see hanging from his neck. Cody Lundin (Dual Survival) is also rarely seen without a Mora Classic, carried in the same way. The Mora Classic is easily recognisable by their traditional ochre red birch handles.
Different sizes are available, mine is a No.2. Which, according to Mors Kochanski, who recommends a blade the same length as the width of your palm, is supposedly the ideal bushcraft knife for me.
These knives are very cheap. The No.2 costs around £17, but can be found even cheaper. This is slightly more than the highly popular Mora Clipper.
Originally these carbon steel knives had sheaths made from a pressed fibre material called “unica”, these are still available (with naturally coloured birch handles), but for quite some years, the most common has been moulded plastic sheaths. Looking at the aforementioned photos of Mors Kochanski, it is evident that he prefers the plastic sheath.
I have decided to carry this knife “Mors Kochanski style” around my neck in a simple paracord string. I am not fond of having thing hanging around my neck like that, but I will give it a try for this review.
I have added a LMF FireSteel Mini to the setup, in order to test the blade's ability as a striker. The "stripes" on the blade are from striking the firesteel, not tool marks.
First impressions:
Packaging:
Well, there is none really. This knife comes in a simple transparent plastic bag – and there is a sticker on the back of the sheath with a bar code and model number. Very basic, yet somewhat fitting for this knife.
Contents of package:
-Knife
-Plastic sheath
The knife:
Measurements (my own): Weight (knife); 73 g. Weight (knife + sheath); 89 g. Blade length; 10,5 cm. Blade width; 2 cm. Blade thickness; 2,5 mm, Overall length: 21,2 cm.
Appearance/aesthetics:
I would be hard pressed to call this knife visually appealing, especially with the plastic sheath. But still; it has a certain charm. There is nothing crude or simple about the Mora Classic It is very basic, yet very well made.
Blade:
A laminated carbon steel drop point blade with a scandi grind and a stick tang; an archetypical puukko blade. The blade is polished to a mirror finish, but with evident tool marks on the bevel. The spine is left rough, as a proof that the blade is laminated. The rough spine is excellent for striking a firesteel, this is the first time I find a knife, that throws sparks easily enough, for me to actually consider leaving the striker at home - though I do still consider striking a firesteel with the spine of your blade is an unnecessary risk to take and too cumbersome in most cases.
On the older Mora Classic's the tang goes all the way through the handle and is riveted in place with a washer at the end – on the newer models the tang ends somewhere inside the handle. From having seen blank blades of the same type, from Mora, I suspect that the tang goes almost all the way through the handle. Either way it feels very sturdy and I have no reason to suspect that the newer construction is weaker than the older.
The blade is stamped “Morakniv”, “Made in Sweden” and “Carbon steel”.
As with all Mora knives, the blade came razor sharp. It passed both the “paper cutting” and “shaving hairs of my forearm” tests with flying collars.
Handle:
Simple birch handle painted with matte ochre red paint and fitted with a steel bolster with no guard.
The handle is oval in cross section and tapers towards each end, more towards the blade. The handle is not thickest on the middle, like most handles are – the thickest point is slightly towards the end of the handle, this gives a more secure grip and to some extent makes up for the lack of a guard. This is a very classic puukko feature.
The handle is rather small, but comfortable to grip – the matte paint adds greatly to that.
The sheath:
Moulded one piece sheath in matte black plastic – in classic “long” Scandinavian style. The sheath is decorated to somewhat resemble the classic fibre sheaths and bears the text “Mora Sweden”.
The belt hanger is very simple and actually looks more like it is made for hanging the sheath from a cord than from a belt; the edges of the hanger are rather sharp, I suspect that they will be rather hard on any leather belt pulled through the hanger (they may even be able to cut through a cord used to suspend the sheath), though I guess it could be fixed with a light sanding of the edges. The sheath has two drain holes at the back, but none at the very end of the sheath, this is something I would had done differently.
The sheath came with a significant amount of flash/burr, which was easily shaved off though.
The knife sits snugly in the sheath – yet it doesn't lock into place and can be shaken out of the sheath. Retrieving/returning the knife from/to the sheath is easy, also when the knife is hanging from the neck.
Mors is sometimes seen carrying his Mora Classic in a simple custom leather sheath, I may attempt to copy that design at some point.
So far the initial impressions: This is a very basic knife. “Utility” is the first word that springs to mind. These knives are tools, every detail is purely practical, aside from the decorations on the sheath. Aesthetically this knife has little to offer, especially the sheath – but neither would it be fair to call this knife, nor it's sheath, ugly. It is simply form following function – something which imho. holds a certain beauty in itself.
I suspect this knife to be an excellent carver – yet I have little doubt it will handle rougher tasks like battoning as well.
I am not sure when I will find the time to do the field testing, maybe not before next year. Stay tuned though...
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Originally Posted by Martin
