Silky NATA Double Edge Hatchet 240mm (555-24)

This was an extremely sharp blade for a right out of the box hatchet of this type. It's well balanced weight and thickened steel adds to your swing when using its double edged hacking ability, with an edge that'll far outmatch your normal camp cutter. I tested this cutter against a new meat cleaver for laughs after a thorough cleaning, and again, not disappointed! Sliced through fresh bone and gristle without needing a second cut, chopped through frozen meat like butter, and endured through a long day of processing meat as if it were nothing but a walk in the park! Its factory edge was on par with high end cutlery, without any deviations in thickness or sharpness throughout the length of the cutting edge. Under magnification, the edge took nary a scratch, zero chips along the fine edge, and the rubberized grip showed no wear after the abuse of a chain mailed glove after multiple weeks 8 hour shifts. A previously gifted NATA while in Japan shared the same legendary durability, enduring many a trip in the wild wilderness of the world with my grandfather during his active duty tours, and handed down to me. It has been at my side in the heated torture of deserts, the frozen mountainous Swiss Alps, the tundras of Alaska and Canada, the wooded mountains of Appalachia, the salty oceans of the Atlantic, into the springs, swamps, and marshes of Florida during my tenure of active military, and finally given into the hands of my daughter... the history behind that NATA blade will live on in her hands. The purchase of this new NATA hatchet and its many future travels will be its proving ground in comparison to the elder craftsmanship of Japan's timeless creation of this axe, and her newest apprentices in hatchet making! I look forward to many years of use out of this tool!

This deal seemed too good to be true. Roughly one third the price of retail for the knife/hatchet/froe I've been eyeing greedily for five solid years. It's not too good though. At $50, it's a steal. This indeed appears to be the original double bevel Silky Nata. A beautifully designed and exectuted wood processing tool. That will also hopefully help me avoid further carpal tunnel damage. Or so my knife collecting demon assures me. It's just marketed and warrantied for sale in Japan Only. Which is still fine so far vs paying the retail price. I've rarely needed to use any warranty service for a tool like this. I fix them or use them up myself. So we'll see how long this one survives life as a user. It is indeed built like a competition style psuedo-kukri chopper. Very easy to balance and wield. Surprisingly easy to control and change direction without worrying about grip. Though I added paracord lanyard for safety's sake. The internal teeth used to dissipate shock have been roughly finished with a slight bevel and a wide bead. Usually caused by unevel machining or beburring. I thought about hand sanding it to correct it but I'm going to see what effect it has on the grip internally if any. Since it doesn't effect anything you can feel above and the grip is held on by friction. The shock dissipating quality is noticeable and effective. Simple kindling splitting backed by a rubber mallet as a baton was perfection. This has also proven to be well suited to the cold weather since the rubber seems to be staying supple and insulating in the subzero temps. Hope that much of a review so far helps.

Heavy and well made. Plus was fairly sharp and sharpened easily. I think it will serve my purpose well.

Update after 2 years: it’s a useful tool, great for coconuts, but no longer a regular item in my pack. If I needed a nimble, but deadly tough machete at the ready on my hip, this would be ideal, but on my typical California camping and fishing trips, it just didn’t get used much, and now it stays home in the garden. The biggest problem is, it’s not a good cutter, so any usefulness as a cooking knife, or fish processing tool, is really not realistic. It is a very good chopper... but it’s so long, that the tip often hits the ground when chopping small bits. Ive had to reprofile the leading corner of the blade so many times it’s not a corner any more, more of a fillet :). It’s just not made for chopping on the ground or using for cooking, not that it was designed to do so, but i want my camping tools to be versatile and this one just isn’t. If you have $75+ dollars to blow on a brush clearing tool, knock yourself out, but if you want an incredible all around camp tool, there is much better... The silky ONO hatchet is simply the finest small axe I’ve ever used, I don’t want to think about camping without it. it’s a great chopper, and surprisingly good for whittling and hewing wood too. It’s also a fine meat cleaver and vegetable chopper, and very precise when held by the head, way better than the NATA. Read my NATA review below with a grain of salt; knowing what I know now, for typical camp chores, the ONO is the smarter purchase. If you really just need to hack through heavy brush, chop herbaceous vegetation, or bust open coconuts, the NATA is a great choice. I thought it would be the ultimate camp tool though, and I was wrong. Update (about 1 month after purchase): If you're primarily shopping for a camping/bushcraft tool, look at the Silky ONO, it's even better than the Nata, even after I sharpened the Nata up a bit. I reviewed it here: Silky Saws 568-10 ONO Chopper, 120mm - for some reason the link doesn’t seem to be active any more, just look up silky Ono. Original review: This is a very well designed tool. It is incredible at its foremost intended task, chopping small brush and limbs. The steel is ultra strong, I hit a damn staple with it and sadly it did ding the blade to the side a little, but the edge was not chipped out. Tough stuff. I bought this as an interesting replacement for the terrible Mora outdoor hatchet, wanted something small and lightweight that would fit in the pack and have as many uses as possible for camping, and be useful around the house. As advertised, it is a brush clearing monster, just had to hack up a huge fallen palm frond and I don't know another tool that would have made shorter work, chopped through the thickest part in 4 strokes or so, and if you know palm fronds, they are extremely stringy and tough, and too big at the base for loppers, annoying to saw, so this tool was ideal. I don't even think it took 2 minutes to have it chopped into 5 or 6 pieces. Prune dead branches off an avocado tree? One or 2 strikes and its done. Great tool for around the house. As for camping, It ABSOLUTELY SMOKES the Mora for splitting kindling, my number one use for small hatchets. And for bigger pieces, I can't think of a better batoning tool, period. The steel spine is so thick you'll break your baton before this thing could ever possibly get damaged. Sure for full rounds a splitting axe is the right call, but for smallish stuff, and precision sizing wood cuts for my firebox stove, this thing excells. The biggest con: I was surprised that this is not a good wood hewing tool, or slicing tool period. The final edge seems to be a good 40 degrees, maybe even more, so it's good for chopping, but for slicing anything or shaving/ smoothing wood, making feather sticks, etc., it is not as good as I hoped. I understand that is not its intended purpose. I see other reviewers stating that it is razor-sharp, and while I will say it is sharp, it isn't hair popping sharp or anything. Also, the main grind bevels are asymmetrical. Is that part of the design? Or a bad day at the factory? Not really sure. At any rate, this does not work well as a knife. I may re-profile and will report back if I get better results (but with the hardness of the steel, I'm not excited at that prospect). It's not unusual to expect a hatchet to be able to help with wood shaping, etc., and this does fall a little short there. That said, due to the balanced design of it, it is quite easy to make small "precision chops", and baton all day long, so it is still useful. I'm not sure if the single bevel tool would be better for those tasks. I went with the double bevel, thinking survival-wise, that if I hurt my right arm this would still be as good. Maybe overthunk that, and should have gone single in the first place. Rather than try the single bevel though, I've ordered the Ono, which looks like quite the beast. I got this tool thinking it would be better for woodwork and it comes up slightly short, still a strong 4 stars.

I ordered this double edge Silky Nata and received it on time, first thing I noticed is it came in a gray as if it were a single edge, but this blade is indeed a double edge. I'm curious as to how that may have happened, I like the gray case better than the yellow so that part doesn't bother me. Secondly, after removing the protective cover from the blade, which shows zero imperfections, I noticed the edge is not as sharp as most reviews made it out to be. It definitely will not slice through paper, this on top of the wrong case has me wondering if I've gotten a dud, but I know Silky is very thorough on their quality control. The rest of the product is as I would expect, nice thick blade, good weight, well balanced, beautiful grinds, the grip is fantastic and absorbs most of the shock given while chopping. The performance is just slightly lacking to my expectations due to the sharpness of the blade. I will sharpen this on my wet stones to a 17 degree angle as silky recommends and possibly give this an updated review. Edit: Well I have gotten this blade a bit sharper, the hardness of this thing is no joke, it took nearly 100 passes on a course stone to profile the edge. This blade is nearly razor sharp, and with its weight, it will effortlessly make a clean chop through a live 1" tree branch. And as previously stated, it delivers nearly no shock to the user thanks to its robust rubber grip. I've used it for weeks clearing thick branches and I've also split a couple buckets of kindling. The edge is still as sharp as the day I sharpened it and I now know what all of the fuss is about. I'm so impressed with this thing that I'm updating my review to 5 stars.

Very high-quality material and workmanship. Sheath is a nice bonus. Knife itself is very well balanced and handle very good grip with soft rubber. Blade has substantial mass that helps chop through thick brush or garden stalks. I purchased it to help clean up garden in the fall to chop down okra stalks which are very woody. I have also tried chopping both green and dried chestnut tree branches about 2" diameter. It did that with no difficulty and the edge held up very well. Other than having to clean off tree resin you could not tell the difference before and after chopping. If a shorter version was available, I would have bought it instead since the 240 is longer than I really needed. Overall, very pleased.

As an experienced knife/machete user (U.S.Army Qualified Rating Jungle Expert Instructor) I can state that I only wish this blade had been available when I served. There are several things that are important in a tool of this type. Perhaps most important is the design of the blade itself. Note that it is thick, and the full width is carried to the front of the blade. This adds maximum strength and weight where it is needed most. The steel is superb Japanese quality, and chrome plated to resist rust. The blade easily retains it's sharpness. It has a full tang, meaning that the steel runs all the way through the handle to the end. The grip is rubber and easy to grip, as well as shock absorbing. There is a hole in the handle for a safety strap. It comes with an excellent sheath. IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: NEVER wrap your hand around ANY sheath when removing or inserting a blade into the sheath! Leather sheaths become soft and offer little or no protection when wet! An inexperienced individual in my unit sliced through a wet leather sheath and lost fingers because he grabbed a wet leather sheath by wrapping his hand around it, and pulled the blade out. DO NOT DO IT! I highly recommend this blade, and own more than one. (Always carry one in vehicle)

This is a sharp well designed hand tool to chop wood, brush, and shape wood. Use it like a hatchet or machete.

Excelente hacha y/o machete corto

Pretty nice tool, for camping or around the house. Has some nice weight to it as well. Sheath is good.

よく切れそうな刃です。こんなゴツイのに繊細な切れ味のような刃です。強盗とか熊とか、護身用なので使ってはいませんが破壊力はありそうです。

Wer damit umgehen kann findet hier ein Werkzeug welches Axt und Machete ersetzt. Typisch japanisches Werkzeug, die Qualität ist ganz hervorragend, das Ding ist jeden Cent wert.

Das Teil ist sowas von brutal genial, wiegt soviel wie ein Beil und hat eine Hack-leistung, die seines gleichen sucht. Die grifform ist super (Rutsch nicht und vermindert ein ermüden des handgelenks). Aber wie es silky geschafft hat einen 45°Rockwell Stahl so zu härten, dass er nicht Stumpf wird (hab öfter mal aus Versehen in Dreck gehackt) bleibt mir ein Rätsel. Fazit :Eine Mischung aus Machete und Axt, die ich nicht mehr missen möchte.