THE WILDEBEESTE SURVIVAL PARANG SET
Review from Gun-Mart (vol 24, August 2006)
A few month's ago custom knifemaker Mick Wardell sent us a new heavy bush or jungle knife and asked for our views on it. Apparently he has been requested to make this type of knife by several people that wanted a good heavy duty knife for tropical and bush use, yet wouldn't look out of place in the hunting/outdoor scene of Europe.
He therefore those a Malayan parang style blade where the relatively short yet curved and front heavy shape gives a strong chopping action - also seen in the British Army 'golok', the Ghurka 'khukri' or the 'bolo' from the Phillipines. The shape also gives good leverage for extracting the knife from a deep cut in 'live' wood.
Mick's parang style knife is called the 'wildebeeste'. It is 16" in length overall with an 11" blade made from 3/16" 1070 steel stock and it weighs 1lbs 7oz (578g). The blade is variable temper quenched giving a hard cutting edge of 57RC while the rest of the blade has a 47/48 spring temper. The handle scales are made of Tufnol ( a very strong laminated material ) affixed with stainless steel bolts.
Right from the start it was a good looking piece of kit, but would it work? Well after nearly a week of chopping at all things choppable... including hard branch lopping, wood splitting and 'soft' vegitation removal, the blade was still sharp enough to slice cheese and tomato for a sandwich - OK, maybe not a 'bush tucker trial', but there are no jungles in Essex, and I never had any rats, fish eyes or kangaroo testicles in the fridge...
While the blade had performed well, I discovered a slight problem that you'd only find with prolonged use. The weight forward blade is designed to take much of the effort out of heavy cutting, so you let the blade do the work. This means that you don't 'strangle' the handle. instead you just lightly grip it, which means the handle 'rocks' forward and backward as you cut. This makes prolonged use far less tiring, unfortunately the 'sharpish' centre part of the knife's Tufnol handle rubbed against my palm causing it to blister - how we suffer for our work... So after suggesting that Mick take the 'edge' off the grip we sent it back and awaited its return.
When the parang came back, not only had Mick rounded off the tufnol, but he'd added a leather carrying sheath complete with a 'companion' bird and trout knife and a magnesium based 'fire steel' - the full survival kit!
The one piece bird and trout knife is 6" in length and weighs 2.6" (74g). This knife is made of ATS34 stainless steel and has a 2.25" drop point blade. Holes are drilled at both ends of the handle for a lanyard, or to make it easier to add grip scales or whipping. It's an ideal companion to the parang, being capable of all the smaller cutting tasks around camp.
The whole kit, including the heavy duty black leather sheath - which holds all three items neatly and securely - weighs in at 2lbs 3oz (998g). The price of the complete Wildebeeste Survival Parang Set is approx. £350, depending on the customers specifications.
