Dave Markowitz
Member
Sometime in the past year or two I picked up an Ontario SP48 Gen 2 knife. It has an 8" blade that's 0.1875" thick, flat ground, andmade from 5160 steel. The blade has a textured black finish to help protect against rust. The handle is made from Kraton rubber and grooved for a sure grip. A dual guard is molded into the handle.
I've done a couple mods to my SP48. First, although I liked the look of the textured finish, I found that it causes drag when you're trying to chop through wood. When I first tried chopping with it, I found that bits of wood were actually getting embedded in the finish and sticking to the blade. So, I took some 000 or 0000 steel wool and carefully removed some of the finish, so that it's now smooth to the touch. Today I tried it out on a piece of dogwood and nothing stuck to the blade.
The other thing I didn't care for was the upper guard. This prevents you from putting your thumb on the back of the blade when doing fine work. Since I won't be fencing with the SP48 I removed the upper guard today using a rasp, file, and sandpaper.
As you can see in the picture, the knife comes with a nylon sheath. It has a hard plastic liner and is MOLLE-compatible. The pouch on the sheath is big enough for a multitool. In mine I have a Swedish Fire Steel and a 35mm film canister containing cotton balls with petroleum jelly on them, for starting fires.
The Ontario SP48 would make a good knife for someone needing a chopper at a reasonable cost.
I've done a couple mods to my SP48. First, although I liked the look of the textured finish, I found that it causes drag when you're trying to chop through wood. When I first tried chopping with it, I found that bits of wood were actually getting embedded in the finish and sticking to the blade. So, I took some 000 or 0000 steel wool and carefully removed some of the finish, so that it's now smooth to the touch. Today I tried it out on a piece of dogwood and nothing stuck to the blade.
The other thing I didn't care for was the upper guard. This prevents you from putting your thumb on the back of the blade when doing fine work. Since I won't be fencing with the SP48 I removed the upper guard today using a rasp, file, and sandpaper.
As you can see in the picture, the knife comes with a nylon sheath. It has a hard plastic liner and is MOLLE-compatible. The pouch on the sheath is big enough for a multitool. In mine I have a Swedish Fire Steel and a 35mm film canister containing cotton balls with petroleum jelly on them, for starting fires.
The Ontario SP48 would make a good knife for someone needing a chopper at a reasonable cost.
