Ok, so I wind up clearing brush pretty regularly. Usually its pine, vines, scrub oak and junk like that. Back in June 2014, I bought a Ken Onion designed Half-A-Chance machete (CRKT K920KKP) from CRKT that has served me well (click here for my review). On my last trip to clear brush this past fall, I accidentally left the Half-A-Chance at home and had to get a replacement machete. Thankfully SMKW was on the way so I stopped in and tried out a bunch of different ones in terms of heft and balance. When I got to the Gerber Golok, I was really surprised. It’s surprisingly thick and that mass makes a big difference when taking out saplings so I bought it and used it to clear the small stuff.
It seems like an opportune time to compare the two and share my thoughts. In the next photo, the top is the Half-A-Chance and the bottom is the Golok.
What really surprised me was that the thickness of the Golok’s blade. Why Gerber doesn’t make a big deal about this, I don’t know because there are fans of knives with big blades. The blade is 12″ long and made from MN65 steel, which is a spring steel that is roughly equivalent to 1065 steel, which is fairly common in machetes. The blade comes in at 0.2566″ when I mike it and weighs 1 pound 10.8oz (26.8 oz). That is a lot of steel! It’s like you are moving the design from being a classical machete more towards a chopper with that kind of width. When I was hitting some dried oak and ash, the Half-A-Chance bit deeper than the Golok and I think it reflects the relatively thin blade of the Ken Onion design that mikes at 0.1147″ which is less than half the Golok. The Half-A-Chance also weighs 20.3oz.
The blade on the left is Half-A-Chance and the right is the Golok on a piece of dried ash.
You can definitely see the the thicker Golok blade right away. It’s the top blade on the left photo and the bottom blade on the right photo:
Just a closer view of the Half-A-Chance on top vs. the Golok on the bottom. The Half-A-Chance’s handle is more ergonomic but the rubber coated Golok isn’t too bad.
The Half-A-Chance’s sheath is fancier while the Golok is simple and to the point.
Folks, in the end, the Golok is a chopper. It’s heavy but too thick for the traditional fast slices you are doing with a machete. I’d recommend the Half-a-Chance for thin stuff like vines and stuff under 3/8″ ballpark and the Golok for thicker vegetation where you need to chop but you are also starting to cross over into where a heavy khukuri or hatchet might serve you better.
While clearing the lot I did put a nick in the Golok and used my Work Sharp Ken Onion edition sharpener to take it right out when I got back to my shop. [Click here for my post on the KO sharpener.]
Bottom line, the Half-A-Chance machete is still my favorite and the first one I would grab to clear brush but the Golok is a keeper also because I like its mass and balance. It’s a lot of blade for the money and I do like big blades. You ought to take a look when you get some time or even pick one or both machetes up from Amazon.
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