US NAVY MARK 1 UTILITY KNIFE
SURVIVAL, BUSHCRAFT AND COMBAT KNIVES The KA-BAR US Navy Mark 1 utility/combat knife continues to prove itself worthy after many years of military, hunting and general purpose service. At the beginning of World War II the US Navy issued a bid for a utility knife with a 5.125” blade, stacked leather handle and an aluminum pommel. As a result the Navy purchased more than one million Mark 1 knives of more than 30 variants, produced by at least nine major knife manufacturers of the time. These knives remained in the US Navy inventory well into the 1970s and were issued to Sailors and Marines through the war in Vietnam. Those Mark 1 knives were made by: KA-BAR (Union Cutlery Company); Western States Cutlery Company; Camillus Cutlery Company; Schrade-Walden Cutlery Company; Imperial Knife Company (Providence, R.I.); H. Boker and Company; Robeson (Shuredge) Cutlery Company (R.C.C.); Geneva Forge, Inc. (Ecko Products Company); and Colonial Cutlery Company. Nearly all of them were marked “USN” on the blade and “MK1”, with the manufacturer’s name on the other side. Some were unmarked, however, as you can still find WW2 era Colonial Mark 1s without any markings that are distinguishable only by the molded, hard rubber handles. There were numerous variations of sheaths as well. Some were leather, mostly brown or russet colored, some black, mostly marked with “USN” but not universally. Others were hard scabbards made similar to the M1 Garand bayonet scabbard, but shorter, with web hangers and hooks for the M1936 webbed belt. These knives were purchased as utility knives for everyday tasks onboard ship and ashore. Some of them doubtlessly saw combat with Seabees, aviators and Marines during WW2 and in Vietnam were common among the Sailors of the brown water Navy’s riverine patrol boats. During WW2 the Marine Corps adopted a larger knife for its force, the Mark 2, which became world famous as the Marine Corps KA-BAR, even though the Mark 2 was made by all of the manufacturers above and more. KA-BAR worked closely with the Marine Corps Quartermaster to design that knife and I will do another article on that famous blade. KA-BAR still produces the USN Mark 1 knife and produced the one I am reviewing. For my purposes, I find the Mark 1 damn near optimal in size. That said, let me explain my purposes. My knife is a utility knife first, a farm tool second, a hunting knife third, and in far remote last place, a combat knife. I believe that one should use the correct tool for the purpose at hand and that good tools are fully capable of more than one task. While a knife is essentially a cutting tool there are different cutting
tasks that we perform; slicing, chopping, and stabbing, primarily. The purpose for which we perform these tasks is also important. A hunter needs a knife that is capable of cleaning the game he is hunting so a good hunting knife will perform well on various sizes and kinds of game. Cleaning squirrels and rabbits is considerably different from cleaning a deer, elk or moose. A farmer or homesteader needs a knife that will clean game as well as livestock like chickens, goats and cattle. A combat knife needs to be large enough to inflict a killing wound on a strong man that may be wearing heavy gear, but not so big that it can more of a burden than it is worth. All of these purposes are combined with standard camp, farm and combat outpost utility functions like cutting cordage, canvas, and MRE bags. The Mark 1 can do all of these. It is big enough for any North American fish and game I can imagine, from squirrels to grizzly bears, bluegills to bull sharks. As a farmer I can kill and clean chickens, ducks and rabbits with my Mark 1 (and I have). It makes fast work of hemp and nylon rope. As for slicing, this knife came out of the box sharp enough to shave with. It shaved the hairs on my forearm clean. I sliced through flimsy newsprint from the Shotgun News amazingly cleanly. I feathered a fatwood stick for the fire very nicely. It slices vegetables for the pot without effort. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I do not believe in batoning wood with a knife if it can be avoided and I did not baton with this knife, although a couple of YouTube videos have proven it is capable of doing that. KA-BAR’s Limited Lifetime Warranty, however, expressly forbids batoning with your knife if you wish to maintain your warranty. I would rather carry a small hatchet than use my knife in this way. You can chop through small branches with difficulty using the Mark 1. The clip point and false top edge on the Mark 1 leave me confident that I could stab someone with it if I needed to, but three tours in Iraq have convinced me that most knives do combat with MRE bags and packages from home far more often than anything else. I told my troops that if they ever saw me stabbing someone with a knife we were having a bad day for damn sure. At the end of the day, however, that Mark 1 is fully capable of killing an enemy in combat if you are having a bad day. The size of the handle is almost perfect for my hand, if not a tiny bit smaller than I would prefer. The stacked leather handle is gorgeous and “grippy”. While processing chickens my Mark 1 and my hand have been covered in blood and I have never lost my grip. The palm swell helps the knife to fill my hand. The clip point blade is 1095 Cro-Van steel, flat ground at 20 degrees with a micro edge, 5.125” long, 0.165” thick, and powder coated in flat black for corrosion resistance and reduced glare. One side of the blade is marked “USN MK1”, and the other side is marked “KA-BAR Olean NY”. The brown leather sheath is marked “U.S.N.”, like most of the originals were.
What’s not to like? Actually, there are a couple of things I don’t like. They will sound a little pickey, but for the price point of $107.00 (MSRP), I expect a knife like the Mark 1 from a company like KA-BAR to be well executed in fit and finish. First is the pin that goes through the pommel and holds it to the tang. The pin is not flush on one side and it is unfinished, so it is an indented silver dot on the black pommel.
It is unsightly and would have been easy to rectify. It does not effect the excellent performance of the knife at all. It bugged me, so I blackened it with a Sharpie (after this picture). The other fit and finish issue is the black plastic spacer at the base of the handle by the finger guard. It is not flush with the steel finger guard and has sharp edges which gouge the leather sheath when placing the knife in it.
Again, does not impact the performance of the knife, but it does mark the leather sheath with a deep gouge, which will, over time, get worse. Also, the sheath is made in Mexico, not the USA. Come on, KA-BAR. It’s better than China, but not by much. My final issue is the spine of the blade. It is not sharp enough with the powder coating to scrape a ferrocerium rod for fire starting. It can be modified of course, and was never intended to perform this task when designed, so it is hard to complain about, but if considering the Mark 1 for a bushcraft knife, just know it will take work to make it useful as a fire starter. Either that or you better have your Zippo handy.
Overall I am happy with the knife. I carry it pretty regularly and use it often. Since I got it the knife has been used and cleaned with water and bleach to get the chicken blood/guts off, and wiped down with
CLP. The shininess of the leather handle has worn dull and I am fine with that. I am considering buying or making another sheath/scabbard for the knife because the gouges in the leather bug me. The black plastic three point retention scabbard that KA-BAR sells is a good piece of gear, but it is made in Taiwan. I’ll pass. I am probably going to put it in a WW2 hard scabbard or make a Kydex sheath for it.