Kukris - A General Thread

Looks amazing, so many choices to boil down.

Surely to only solution is to buy more than one kukri!?

The Levin Lance have/do you own/ed both and prefer GGK?

Interested in hearing comparisons.

I was also curious about the isolated cost of the engraving work, as far a I understand there were some other differences between yours and the base model so I am attempting to evaluate the cost of customizations.

I agree here - there is a lot of discussion about the kukri notch / cho and it seems like most scholarly sources agree it's probably traditional cultural or religious symbolism and not functional at all. The 'blood notch' is pretty often repeated, as is the 'can't draw the kukri without drawing blood' myth.

I don't think it's a dig at Mr. Purna, just some good information & context.




That is an interesting thing to hear - so you prefer the GGK for it's presence and weight.

What grind did you choose on your Kailash? Do you have any doubts about it's functionality or durability based on your experiences with it or is this just a preference for one handfeel over another with both assumed to be equal?

I'm pretty sure Purna didn't personally make his own website. He's probably not fluent enough for that.

If I remember clearly, he told me the notch was probably a cultural or religious thing in honor of a god (Shiva ?).


sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/63376/again-3-khukuris-kailash-blades
I chose the performance grind based on the experience of other forum members but I'm not sure how it would qualify against their other grinds.
Maybe I should have tested each one but the heavy duty grind isn't available for the models I chose.

It's probably thinner than the Limbuwan's from GGK but it does indeed accentuate the feeling of handling a razor.
It doesn't give me the incentive to use as anything other than a fighting blade (even though it might survive just fine).

If I had to compare just the blade, it would actually rather be with the one of the kindjal from VT Daggers that I own (awesome dagger by the way).

I don't think GGK's grinds are standard as the three options offered by Kailash.
I think they just choose the most adequate ones for each piece but that may be my experience.
Each are super sharp yet surprisingly durable.

The angles are different than others though (I don't have the words to explain, do excuse my French): a bit round first but the edges extremes are like mirror polished ?
(It's difficult to explain ?)

As for durability :

The Voidwalker from GGK (designed by Daniel Murray-Lake) is, in my opinion, a perfect multi-purpose model.
There is a video on YouTube about it that totally sums up what can be said beyond my "it's absolutely awesome !".
But I don't have any other similar khukuris to compare it to (my models from Kailash are all performance grind fighting blades...) so I don't know if this is standard or not.


The Limbuwan, let's say I've been an idiot and let it encounter a table...the blade has no damage and my wife took it as her favorite blade over the 14" Chitlange with creamy horn handle and copper hardware that I specifically ordered for her.
Take it as you want.

Other people that ordered customs from Purna Darnal know that everything he makes are made with durability in mind...which is not always a good thing in our cases actually.
(But that's his mindset. )

As the feeling in hand, it's definitely a subjective thing based on one's preference.

The Limbuwan feels definitely "right" for me as a fighting khukuri.
Strong, fast, agile, durable (and beautiful).

The 16" Chitlange with 5,25" handle feels like a flying razor.
Very fast and agile and too light as if I can't control it because I can't feel it ?

On the contrary, the 14" Chitlange with 4,75" handle (which IS the default size) feels "right".
It's faster than its bigger counterpart but I don't feel like it will fly away (d?).

The feeling "right" part is so difficult to explain. It's something akin to "purity of form" maybe ?

Me and a member decided we both should delete some of our posts, thats why some posts may seem to be missing. 

On mine I have always used performance grind. Have had several. Not had any troubles, crucial thing of course is, for what will you use it? If you know, contact Andrew for instance and he will guide you. He is very helpful. 

Don't worry about the lack of response, Andrew tends to look and answer e-mails on thursday.
However, do expect some additional delay as they just took a one week of (well deserved) vacation.

Actually that vacation helped seal the deal. I was checking out the instagram and the guys look happy in general.
Andrew got back to me in the wee hours of the morning today, so all is in progress now.



I picked High Polish / Performace Grind for the Mutiny and Satin / Standard Grind for the Ft William.
This means I will be able to compare those finishes and grinds side by side in the review

Good question. They do also float around in Nepal still. From what I have seen so far they dont seem to go either up or down in price, its to early to say I think.


This is however very much depending on what khukuri we are talking about. 


Benjamin Judkins (2012) have been writing this, on the contents of the cache, how many and what type of khukuris that were found. Everyting from very common, to highly unusual. 

kilatools.com/kukrihistory/nepalesemilitary/militarysirupate.html (several pages)