Jul
The designer of the United Cutlery Hibben IV Machete, Gil Hibbon, was contacted by Sylvester Stallone in 2006. Stallone wanted a brutal looking blade that had to have a ‘hand forged’ look. In the film, Rambo had lost his iconic knife and needed to quickly make himself a new blade using a primitive forge and scavenged materials.
Apparently, there were at least 5 prototypes made before the final design was agreed upon. The result is a blade that has a hand forged look with a hammered blade and fabric wrapped handle. It needed to look primitive and brutally effective and the result fulfils those aims admirably!
You can read more about the development of this knife here.
When you open the box and get past the paperwork ( a care and storage info sheet, a mini Hibben catalogue and a certificate of authenticity) you see the sheath.
This is the first thing that makes you think this is going to be no normal machete – the sheath is a substantial slab of black leather embossed with ‘Hibbon IV’. It has a chunky belt loop and leg strap and you just know that whatever blade this is designed to house is going to be a beast.
The sheath is impressive in itself, but the blade is an absolute monster.
The first thing you notice is the weight – it is heavy. When compared to a standard machete, which weighs in at around 550g, you really notice the difference.
The United Cutlery Hibben IV Machete weighs in at an impressive 1150g which is pretty much twice the weight of a ‘standard’ machete.
It’s just shy of 47cm long and 7mm thick (twice the thickness of a pound coin – gulp) so the length to weight ratio puts this firmly in the ‘chonk’ category.
The handle is also designed with a ‘crude’ look. Wrapped in a black fabric, in the hand the Hibben IV feels more than just substantial, it feels like whatever you swung it at would capitulate without an argument.
This is the one issue I have with this blade – it’s so heavy and thick that you couldn’t use it for long without fatigue.
It would be ideal for a short job that requires brute strength – it’d excel at chopping down just about anything in short bursts. You definitely wouldn’t want to use it all day long to clear brush unless you had arms like Stallone!
Out of the box, the blade has a solid ‘utility’ edge. Personally, I’d give it a bit of a sharpen, but quite honestly I doubt there’s much that could withstand a solid thwack from this even with it’s box fresh edge. It’s made from 1090 carbon steel so should maintain an edge well with some care and maintenance.
As a camp tool it would have it’s uses – shelter building, batoning, fire prep, warding off hordes of Burmese soldiers – it’d handle all this and more. You wouldn’t be able to do any close up work though, it’s just too unwieldy for that, but that’s OK. The blade is as it was designed – a workhorse designed for tough jobs.
This isn’t a gentle blade for small jobs – like Rambo, it’s a unstoppable machine that will fulfil it’s mission, no matter what obstacles are in the way.
This is not a tool for soft hearted spoon carvers, it’s a beast designed to do the tough jobs no one else wants to do.
There isn’t much finesse with this blade and that is exactly how it should be – remember it’s a replica of an iconic hand forged blade made for a movie.
Sometimes a fine edged blade is what you need and sometimes you need a Rambo.
