Fällkniven H1 Hunting Knife

I was looking new knife for hunting and camping purposes to replace my "leuku" style knife, also known as sami-knife. Leuku is really big and bulky style knife from Lapland and it is like knife and an axe at the same time. I was not very keen on shape of the handle or the profile of  blade, like I said before very bulky. My leuku made by Martini has a problem to hold its sharpness in the end of the blade. Maybe something gone wrong with the hardening of the steel. I own also few Tommy puukko's but because they are handmade I do not want use them in camping, hiking or hunting. Yes, I'am a safety queen.

I wanted my new knife to equipped whit stainless steel blade and rubber handle. Personally I want the easiest maintain knife for long hiking trips(I have almost ruin a handmade tommy puukko by putting it a wet leather stealth without oil). There was a lot of positive feedback of Fällkniven products in the internet and the model H1 stands out rest of the selection that Finnish internet stores have. Also, some how Fällkniven knives are cheaper here than Cold Knife or other high quality brands in Finland. So I made my decision by few articles and YouTube reviews of the hunting knives.

First impressions

I bought it from TEK and price was a round 130€. When I got it in my hand the first time I was little amazed.  Even if I watched 2 hours of YouTube videos and tons of pictures, dimensions of the knife seems to be different that I thought. Handle is kind of small and the blade has the weirdest geometry that I have ever seen. Steep, thick and curvy, hard to explain better, but you know what I mean when you see it with your own eyes. Its seems to be very sharp and when you wash it water runs like its waxed.

Blade:

Fällkniven blades are made in Japan and this models has a laminated stainless steel called VG-10. Basically there is hard steel in the middle and softer steels in the sides to give blade its resistance for abuse. It is very sharp for factory out of the box product. Almost as sharp as my handmade high carbon steel Tommy puukko. I only have it short period of time, only time will tell how its going to hold its sharpnes. The internet tells us that it holds it well and VG-10 is easy to resharpen(some stainless steel materials are very difficult to sharpen). Only time will tell me if its true.

Geometry of the blade is like leuku's but only steeper, thicker  curvier and shorter. I think the thickness is because of the laminated design, otherwise it would be fragile. Its so thick that its almost blocking view when chopping a vegetables. Curve of the blade make it easier to use skinning purposes. Also the blade is wider than the handle, precision work like pealing an apple is easy. Generally I like the blade, even if its little different.

Handle:

At first I was disappointed because of the small handle. When you squeeze it very hard you don't get much off support of the handle and its feels like really thin in my hand(hand size 9,5). But when I have used the knife for while this does not bother me that much, but I like more Finnish style handles. This knife is marketed as a Scandinavian style knife and it feels a bit of Mora without finger guard. By the way, missing finger guard was one of the reasons I choose this knife.

Conclusion

I am happy with it and I will be using it a lot. But it would be better product with a Tommy style rubber handle, then I would have loved the knife.