kukris - rat tail vs full tang

Full tang blades are a relatively new development as far as khukuris go, having only been made in Nepal since between the late 1930's. However the handle technique has since been used on a number of standard military issue khukuris and they have a fair pedigree with the gurkhas.



Full tang handles feature a tang that is the full width of the handle, with two slabs of handle material glued and riveted on for maximum strength and durability. These handles are rose to popularity in the west as a response to the poor quality rat tail blades produced there during the 20th century, though the style has been in use internationally for centuries.



While full tang handles do provide a more bulletproof form of handle construction, they also add weight to a blade. Our full tang handles are tapered to disperse stresses and drilled out to save weight to minimise this downside, but they're still about 70-100g heavier than our rat tail handles on average and does offer a different feel in hand as a result. This makes them less suited to a martial arts blade or some user blades, but perfect for heavy outdoors blades and rough workhorses.



To put it bluntly, Rat Tail tangs have a bad reputation. In the west they've been associated with cost cutting methods and cheap blades during the 20th century. These handles had a habit of snapping under heavy use, however this had more today with the way these tangs were shaped, rather than an issue inherent to the construction method.



All our Rat Tail tangs are nice and wide where it first enters the handle, with rounded shoulders to avoid stress raisers. The tang is also annealed and tapers gradually down towards the rear of the blade to both disperse stresses more evenly while saving weight.



These handles have a big weight advantage over full tang handles, offering a very lively and unique feel in hand. They also insulate the hand from metal in cold weather as well as some of the shock from heavy chopping impacts.



But how strong are they? While definitely less hardy than a full tang handle, we're still yet to have had a customer break a single one of our rat tail blades. So while they make a lot of sense for traditional builds and martial blades keep in mind that we're confident that they're strong enough to hold their own as a workhorse blade, a role they've been dominating in Nepal for centuries.