Story - Aftershock is yet another Busse blade born on the bladeforums. And again, as with LMS the idea was Andy Prisco's :). Well, my sincere thanks for it. AfterShock project started in summer 2000. By that time there was no name for this knife. More or less project started becoming reality on 07/27/00 when Andy posted this message on Busse forum at www.bladeforums.com. Initially the delivery date was projected for Christmas, but due to the delays the first batch has been shipped in march. Amongst them my blade #3.
General
- IMHO it's a gorgeous blade :) Only 100 blades are produced, all numbered. Busse Combat logo etched, don't know if it's a laser or something else. Numbers from 1 to 3 have a circle, (well it's an oval to be more precise) around the logo, so those are kind of special, in this limited run. AfterShock is a large, Battle Mistress size, bolo style blade. Blade finish is somewhere between satin and mirror polish. Came in with no sheath, so I've ordered a standard sheath for it from Busse. Probably I'll get Kenny Rowe sheath for it too. Balance obviously is towards the tip, for that it's a bolo. That definitely increases chopping ability, trading of some cutting convenience. Anyways, usually you pick something smaller than a 9 inch long blade for fine cutting tasks, right? For emergencies and fun AfterShock will handle finer cutting as well :)
Blade
- 9 inch long, bolo style blade, featuring zero edge, that is full convex in other words, which gives a great improvement in terms of both, cutting ability and the edge strength, however somewhat awkward to sharpen. I haven't done that yet, but for those who is interested, here's a link to the Khukuri FAQ, it describes the sharpening techniques of convex bevel edge.Blade material - famous Busse proprietary INFI steel, once again, I won't bore you here with yet another INFI glorification. In short it's an excellent blade steel, and there's lots of material regarding it in my other Busse knives reviews and on the net.
Handle
- A special knife deserves a special handle :) AfterShock has a new, E type, dropped handle. The handle slabs material is different than the standard product line. It's made of paper micarta, instead of the usual micarta slabs found on standard Busse Combat Knives handles. Considering that the beauty in the eye of the beholder, your opinion may differ, but I like paper micarta handle looks better :) In terms of comfortability it wins too, for that it's definitely smoother, thus less abrasive than the conventional micarta, well don't get me wrong, Busse Combat main line handles are just fine, I don't have anything to complain about their abrasiveness :) And as usual, nothing comes for free in this life, and the trade off for the cool looking, smoother slabs is the lesser security of the grip. Smoother mean more slippery too in this case. There have been already some reports about AfterShock handle becoming insecure during some heavy duty works. Jerry Busse himself confirmed that paper micarta is definitely more slippery than the conventional one. Having several large Busse blades, it's less likely I'll use AfterShock a lot, so I am not really concerned about that problem, but anyways, if that's your primary concern, you can always contact Busse Combat, and have them replace the handle slabs with their standard micarta ones. Jerry says this is doable and possible :).Last updated - 06/20/08