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scandi grind

Condor Swamp Romper Review

by Josh Wussow 4 Comments

Quick – What’s the first name that springs to mind when someone mentions “budget blades?” For me, the response is usually “Morakniv.” But there’s another answer out there in this Pictionary of the mind – Condor.

Condor Swamp Romper Review
Buy the Condor Swamp Romper at BladeHQ

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Though generally known for the Bushlore knives, this El Salvador-based manufacturer offers a wide line of outdoor blades, most of which clock in around $50. This puts them well above the plastic and partial-tanged Mora Companions, but in the same neighborhood as the Kansbol and Bushcraft Black. Add in their full tang construction and leather sheaths, and the Condors become quite the value proposition.

But that’s just the bird’s eye view. I recently got up close and personal with the Condor Swamp Romper, a scandi-ground model operating in the $50-$60 realm. Here’s how it held up in the kitchen and on the trail.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

When dealing with budget knives, my first question is always the same – “What’s the steel?” In the case of the Condor, we’re looking at 4.5-inches of 1075, which is a lower-carbon version of the 1095 found on ESEEs and other popular outdoor knives. It’s easier to sharpen (which is saying something, if you’ve ever breezed through a touch-up session with 1095) and less prone to chip. On the downside, it’s also more rust prone and doesn’t have the same edge retention.

Condor Swamp Romper

Speaking of edges, the Swamp Romper’s scandi grind runs the length of its drop point, satin blade. Width across the squared-off shoulders is 0.12-inches, a nice medium-size for both splitting and slicing. The overall length and weight come to 9.5-inches and 5.34-ounces, respectively. It’s a fairly lightweight tool, considering its full tang and the scope of its cutting edge. There’s even a sharpening choil at the back end, a welcome addition for do-it-yourselfers like me.

Here is a shot of it next to the Benchmade Bugout for reference:

Condor Swamp Romper vs. Benchmade Bugout

Let’s talk about performance. Though it may hail from the Swamp, I found this knife to be a Romper in the kitchen, as well. Tomatoes, onions, carrots – It handled foodstuffs with ease. The tallness of its scandi grind and the thinness of its blade made it a surprisingly excellent culinary tool – Better than most of the Moras I’ve used.

Condor Swamp Romper Blade

Field testing was a different affair. There aren’t a whole lot of wetlands where I live in New Mexico, but an hour’s drive north to Colorado yielded a snowy canyon trail and frozen river banks. After finding a dry spot, I gathered some small timber to make a fire. The Swamp Romper proved to be an admirable cutting companion, feather-sticking and batoning with no issues to speak of. The rough spine is capable of striking a fire steel, though perhaps not quite as well as I’d expected.

Condor Swamp Romper Ergonomics

Now, the downside. I knew the 1075 would be rust-prone, but I wasn’t prepared for just how rust prone it was. It discolored almost immediately, showing marked stains by the time I returned home. Now, this isn’t something I necessarily mind in a field-use tool. Patina tells a story, and I like it so long as there’s no structural weakness behind the pretty picture. But I am a little concerned, given that I don’t think the blade actually touched any snow during testing. Whatever moisture that came into contact with the blade was probably from some slightly damp wood. A quick cleaning, stopping, and application of mineral oil brought it mostly back, but it did take some of the bloom off this particular rose.

Handle and Ergonomics

Here’s where things get muddy. The Swamp Romper’s ergonomics are solid overall. Its 5-inch long and 0.85-inch thick handle resembles the broomstick-style found on some of my favorite outdoor knives, and the knife fits my medium/large hands very well. The scales themselves are made of contoured walnut. And what are walnuts famous for?

Condor Swamp Romper with Cracked Handle

That’s right – They crack. Somewhere along the line (I think when I was gently chopping at a dead branch), a piece of the handle sheered completely off. You can see the glue marks where it broke free, leaving me without a finger guard on one side of the knife.

Condor Swamp Romper Full Tang

For me, this was the turning point of the review. Up until this failure, I’d been generally pleased with the rugged, tool-first aesthetic the Condor was projecting. But when I say I was gently chopping, I mean it. Is the knife still usable? Sure, but who wants to carry a broken tool? It was a disappointment, akin to flushing a $50 bill down the toilet.

Sheath

You know what makes things worse? I really like the sheath. One of the main things that brought the Swamp Romper to my attention was the firesteel loop on its leather carrier – Something you don’t get on the more popular Bushlore. It’s not the best-finished leather I’ve ever owned (Steel Will’s Druid series beats it pretty handily), but it had that same rugged quality that I found in the knife itself.

Condor Swamp Romper Sheath

Retention was good, if a little tight at first. There was also a strange swipe of what looked like fresh paint on one side. Again, nothing I was concerned about at this price point. But once the handle broke, the knife began to move a bit more freely when stowed. What would you expect, right? Half of the widest point is now missing. The worst part about this, however, is that this altered ride geometry brings the blade into contact with the interior leather. Each time I draw it, the edge is now covered in tiny brown fragments. Not good.

Condor Swamp Romper Review – Final Thoughts

In the beginning, I was fairly pleased with this knife. It performed well in the kitchen and around the campfire, leaving me with positive vibes. But then it broke. Next, it rusted. And then, thanks to its newly misshapen nature, it started to eat its own sheath.

Condor Swamp Romper with some Pine Needles

So, is it worth $50? Man, I just don’t see it. It’s a roughly finished knife comprised of materials I’d call slightly below average. The nicest thing about the whole package is the firesteel loop. And even the sheath came with a strange stain. So, where exactly is the money going here?

In the end, the Condor Swamp Romper is a knife that inspires little to no confidence. The steel rusts quickly, the handle is fragile, and its rough-around-the-edges charm turned out to be, well, just rough. It’s good in the kitchen, sure, and it’ll strike fire. But none of this justifies the price point. This is one swamp I’d steer clear of.

Condor Tool & Knife Swamp Romper - Camping Fixed Blade Knife - 1075 High Carbon Steel - Walnut Handle - Hand Crafted Welted Leather Sheath - Bush Crafting Knives - 4.5in Blade | 5.6oz
Condor Tool & Knife Swamp Romper - Camping Fixed Blade Knife - 1075 High Carbon Steel - Walnut Handle - Hand Crafted Welted Leather Sheath - Bush Crafting Knives - 4.5in Blade | 5.6oz
  • FULL TANG CONSTRUCTION: The blade of this full tang knife with sheath extends through the handle, enhancing its strength, balance, and reliability for frequent use. Its full tang construction ensures durability, strength and minimizes breakage risk.
  • ELEGANT WALNUT HANDLE: The grained walnut handle is a blend of aesthetics and ergonomics providing a comfortable and secure grip, enhancing the pocket knife’s ease of use. This bushcraft knife's overall design makes it highly functional and a joy to wield.
  • HANDCRAFTED WELTED LEATHER SHEATH: Handcrafted with attention to detail and a traditional aesthetic in mind, this field knife facilitates safe and convenient carrying during activities, effectively protecting the sharp blade from accidental exposure.
  • POCKET SIZED: This bush knife is prized for its portability, ready to use for emergencies, and outdoor bushcraft activities. They are also cost-effective and can potentially be used for self-defense such as a military combat knife when necessary.
  • VERSATILITY: The flat grind with second bevel is a deliberate design choice of this bush knife that makes it excel at tasks such as hunting for skinning, hiking, camping for cutting rope and food preparation and is also essential for bushcraft activities.
$66.81 Amazon Prime
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Editor: I recommend buying the Condor Swamp Romper, or perhaps something else, at Condor Swamp Romper or BladeHQ. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Filed Under: Camp Knives, Fixed Blade Knives, Survival Knives Tagged With: 1075, Made in El Salvador, scandi grind, walnut

Mora Companion Review

by Benjamin Schwartz 3 Comments

I’ll always be a folding knife guy at heart, but recently I’ve been on a fixed blade kick. I never thought they would appeal to me, but I’ve come to appreciate fixed blades of all shapes and sizes. And in a nice little fluke of symmetry, just as my appreciation of folding knives began with an affordable, European everyman’s knife, the fixed blade that opened my eyes is similarly affordable, European, and populist: the Mora Companion.

Mora Companion Review

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The Mora Companion, and Mora in general, has a complicated reputation in the knife world. This complication stems from its intersection with the hardcore outdoorsman / survivalist / bushcrafter communities. Whether or not it was designed for the kind of applications these guys put it through is unclear (and Mora’s own literature on the subject is vague), but it has become a point of contention amongst enthusiasts, who tend to think it is an indispensable tool or a sham of a knife.

I approached this review with no significant outdoors experience, no previous Mora experiences, and no fixed blade preferences. The Companion thoroughly impressed me. I put this through an especially wide array of cutting chores and it never flagged, never failed to impress me. This is a beautifully simple tool. It was an impulse purchase for me, and the best one I have ever made.

(For the record, the model I reviewed is a standard Companion with the 12C27 stainless steel blade.)

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Companion has a 4” blade, a 4.5” handle, and an overall length of about 8.5”. It comes with a plastic friction fit sheath. Combined, the knife and sheath weigh just about 4 oz. Like all Mora knives, the Companion is made in Mora, Sweden. The Companion is exactly the right size for the sort of general outdoor tasks you would call on it to do.

Mora Companion vs. Spyderco Delica

Mora has a near-perfect rendition of the drop point here. One thing that is hard to notice in photographs is the balance between straight and curved edge. It may not look like it, but the blade is divided, length-wise into equal portions of curved and straight edge. Some blades favor one or the other but here, the balance is exact. Whether you’re slicing, roll cutting, push – or pull-cutting, you’re going to have enough length of the edge you need for the job. Brilliant.

Steel is 12C27 – a great blade steel, especially at the price. There are plenty of proponents of the carbon steel Moras out there. I’m sure that the carbon steel is great, but I abhor rust and I abhor having to worry about my knives so I went with the stainless. It’s kept a little soft at 57-58 Rockwell, which is probably good given that it might be pressed into more demanding tasks.

Mora Companion Blade

The Scandi grind is a traditional element of Scandinavian knife culture, present and accounted for on the Companion. It’s a little reductive, but the way I think of a Scandi grind is as a sabre grind with an extremely small edge bevel. Scandi grinds are renowned for their woodworking ability, and my experience with the Companion reinforces this. This knife took huge, even bites out of a block of basswood. Beyond this, the general geometry of the edge made the knife excel at just about everything. I cut woods, thick plastic ties, paper, cardboard, and produce. The Companion went through everything with ease, and I never fought to push it through media until it was almost totally dull.

The first time I sharpened my Companion I just went along the tiny edge bevel and had great results, although I understand now this isn’t the traditional method. If you watch videos on how to sharpen a Scandi-ground knife, they tell you that the primary bevel sets your sharpening angle. This means that you should never have to reprofile a Scandi-ground knife, even after years of use. It also means that if you’re using something like a Sharpmaker you may have to configure it for freehand sharpening.

Mora Companion Sheath Size Comparison

The second time I sharpened the Companion, I set it along the primary bevel as I was supposed to. It worked well, although I marred up the mirror finish on the knife a bit. I was using a dry diamond plate instead of a wet stone, so this may have had something to do with it.

Handle and Ergonomics

The Companion’s handle is made from plastic, with a TPE-like wrap around the center swell. It’s great, plain and simple. The palm swell is exactly my style, and there is just the slightest amount of Coke bottling to fill the hand. The downturn at the butt of the knife and the guard at the front are both gentle enough to preclude any issues of finger crowding. This is a great, task neutral handle.

Mora Companion Handle

Some designers overengineer their handles, with embellishments like finger grooves, parrot beaks, palm swells, different traction inserts for different parts of the handle, jimping, thumb ramps – eventually it just becomes too much. The Companion is wonderful in the hand without being overdesigned. I wouldn’t call it understated so much as simply stated: this is just a knife, plain and simple. The handle is here so you can use the thing, so go out and use it, however you want.

Mora Companion Ergonomics

Sheath

The sheath is your standard plastic friction fit Mora affair. Although it didn’t move me to my core, I like this sheath. The plastic, while not as handsome as leather, doesn’t look any worse to my eye than nylon and is very lightweight and durable. There’s a drainage hole at the bottom to let out accumulated moisture, and I like that the belt clip doesn’t require me to take my belt off and loop it through. You simply pry it open far enough to slide over your belt, and you’re golden. It almost works like an oversized pocket clip.

Mora Companion in Sheath

Another small feature that I found surprisingly handy was the thumb ramp on the corner of the sheath. You can push off it with your thumb to disengage the Companion from the sheath with ease, and it helps index when you’re putting the knife away.

Mora Companion Empty Sheath

Mora Companion – Final Thoughts

I’ve gone this long in the review without addressing the Companion’s price, so I’d like to do so now.

A lot of people say or think that the Companion is a good knife for the price. I don’t believe in good knives for the price. There are good knives, and there are good values. You can pay too much for a good knife, but you can never say a bad knife is a good value.

I think that reviewers need to address the cost of all the products they review, because value – what you get for what you pay – is an intrinsic part of good design. It contextualizes design decisions. This is why we’re okay with AUS-8 on a $25 knife but less thrilled when we get it for $80 – it doesn’t make a knife a worse knife, but it makes it less well-designed, and thus less attractive as a possible purchase.

If I paid $75 for the Companion, I’d still tell you that it was a good knife, but I would take issue with design choices relative to its price, and it wouldn’t get a recommendation.

Sale
Morakniv Companion Fixed Blade Outdoor Knife with Stainless Steel Blade, 4.1-Inch, Military Green
Morakniv Companion Fixed Blade Outdoor Knife with Stainless Steel Blade, 4.1-Inch, Military Green
  • BUSHCRAFT KNIFE: The perfect all-in-one knife for outdoor enthusiasts, this outdoor knife makes an ideal camping knife, backpacking knife, fishing knife, hiking knife, or survival knife
  • PREMIUM BLADE: 0.08-inch thick hardened Sandvik 12C27 stainless steel knife blade stays sharp longer than carbon steel and is less prone to rust; Ideal for carving, food prep, and cutting tinder
  • HIGH-FRICTION HANDLE: Made with an ergonomic polymer handle with a soft friction grip and finger guard, this knife is safe and efficient for use in all weather conditions
  • PROTECTIVE POLYMER SHEATH: Easy-to-clean plastic sheath comes equipped with a belt clip, so you can easily attach your knife to a belt or rucksack
  • SPECIFICATIONS: Blade thickness: 0.08 inch (2.0 mm), blade length: 4.1 inches (104 mm), total length: 8.5 inch (217 mm), net weight with sheath: 3.9 ounces (110 g)
$16.95 Amazon Prime
Buy on Amazon

I recommend purchasing the Mora Companion at Amazon. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Filed Under: Camp Knives, Fixed Blade Knives, Morakniv, Recommended Survival Knives, Survival Knives Tagged With: 12C27, drop point, Made in Sweden, scandi grind

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