Field Note 013 — Camillus Machete
Over twelve years with the blade that replaced my hatchet.
I have a Camillus machete that’s been riding around with me for over twelve years.
It’s chopped firewood, felled small trees, helped me make walking sticks, and once turned a fallen log into something resembling a La-Z-Boy from Gilligan’s Island. It’s been strapped to the side of my backpack for longer than I can remember, and a few months ago, I took it back out to Lower Manzana and put it to work again.
It still does its job. Damn well, actually.
The model is technically called the Camillus Carnivore X, which is a name I’ve never particularly liked. Sounds like something you’d find on the side of a dinosaur-themed energy drink. I usually just call it the Camillus.
I didn’t buy it because I had some carefully researched gap in my gear that needed filling. I already owned several machetes in different styles, including a Ka-Bar kukri machete. I saw this one at Bass Pro Shops, thought the price was reasonable, liked the way it looked, and decided to give it a try.
I honestly couldn’t tell you what finally convinced me to buy it. Something about it caught my eye.
I’m glad it did.
Not quite a machete. Not quite a hatchet.
What caught my attention was the blade.
It wasn’t one of those long, thin brush machetes. It had a thick profile, a shape that reminded me somewhat of a tanto, a full tang, and saw teeth running along the back. The whole thing looked like it wanted to do a little more than slap weeds around.
I was less enthusiastic about the handle. Hard plastic, nothing particularly impressive to look at. I remember wondering how well it would hold up or how comfortable it would be once I started swinging it.
As it turns out, the handle hasn’t really given me a reason to complain.
The blade, though? That took a little figuring out.
When I started swinging it at larger branches and pieces of wood, I noticed that its thickness and shape allowed it to dig in much deeper than I expected. Once I learned where to connect with the blade, it started behaving less like a conventional machete and more like a compact chopping tool.
It isn’t as top-heavy as an axe. You don’t have all that weight concentrated at the end of the handle, so you don’t get quite the same heavy swing.
What you get instead, at least in my experience, is a little more balance. I can bring it around faster and keep swinging without fighting the weight of an axe head.
Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.
And I can accelerate that thing pretty damned fast.
Once I figured out how to work my way through larger pieces with a series of angled cuts, the Camillus became a wood-processing monster. Over time, it completely replaced the need for a hatchet in my camping kit.
For the kind of work I was doing, I preferred the machete’s straight profile, its balance, and the fact that I could slide it into a sheath and strap it to the side of my pack.
That last part matters more than it might sound. A tool can be excellent at its job and still be a pain in the ass to carry. The Camillus earned a permanent place on my backpack because it did the work and fit into the way I packed.
A Ranger, a future SEAL, and a questionable machete
For my 28th birthday, I went backpacking in Manzana Narrows with two buddies. One was a former Army Ranger. The other was getting ready to leave for BUD/S in a few weeks.
These were guys who knew good gear and owned plenty of it.
So when I pulled out my funny-looking Camillus, I got a raised eyebrow and a scoff.
One of them produced a fancy SOG hatchet.
I don’t remember which one had the SOG, and it doesn’t particularly matter. What I remember is the two of us heading out to collect and process wood for camp, each with our respective tool.
The Camillus worked. I don’t think the hatchet owner was ready to concede that it worked as efficiently as his SOG, but he was willing to acknowledge that it could do the job.
Fair enough.
We got our firewood together, and that probably should have been the end of the demonstration.
But there was a downed log beside our campfire.
And we had time.
So I pulled the Camillus back out and started chopping away, like Newton if he was a beaver.
Over the next hour or two—I honestly couldn’t tell you how long it took at this point—I hacked a substantial portion out of the middle of that log until I had something resembling a reasonably comfortable seat.
Think a La-Z-Boy from Gilligan’s Island.
It was more brute force than finesse, but I could sit in the damned thing, and I’d made it with the machete.
By the time I was finished, both of my compatriots were thoroughly impressed with the knife.
I want to say the Camillus cost me somewhere in the $20s when I bought it, and I believe that SOG hatchet was somewhere around $80 at the time. I could be wrong about either price. If anybody feels compelled to research the exact historical pricing, please send your findings to noonecares.com.
The point is that this comparatively inexpensive, oddball machete had held its own alongside a much pricier hatchet while we processed our camp wood.
Then it built me a chair.
Sadly, I don’t have a photograph of the chair. I do have photos from the trip, including one of the walking sticks I made with the Camillus.
The chair will have to live on in legend.
What it does well—and what it doesn’t
I’ve put this blade through a fair amount of work over the years.
I’ve felled small trees with it. I’ve probably processed a few cords of wood with it at this point. I’ve made walking sticks that were far fancier than they had any need to be, some crude bush furniture, and a club that I carved for use as a hammer.
And when I say club, I mean Flintstones.
That thing is still sitting on a rock at the desert property.
The Camillus also has saw teeth along the back, and they’re not just there to make the blade look aggressive. They actually do work. I tend to use the main edge for chopping and light felling, while the saw is handy when I want to make a more deliberate cut or do a little field woodworking.
But I wouldn’t buy this thing expecting it to be the answer to every outdoor cutting task.
It is not my choice for clearing thick brush. It’ll knock off twigs and lighter growth, sure, but the blade is thick. Unless you keep it exceptionally sharp, it isn’t going to slice through vegetation the way a longer, thinner, curved machete can. If I were heading out specifically to bushwhack, that’s the style I’d grab.
I’m not going to use the Camillus to whittle a spoon, fillet a fish, process a carcass, or carefully chop potatoes for dinner.
Maybe a coconut, if I were Travis.
And I certainly wouldn’t buy it to impress the Joneses.
No knife does everything well. This one sits somewhere between a standard machete and a hatchet. For camp wood processing, where those two tools overlap, I’d personally take the Camillus over a hatchet any day.
That’s the job it earned in my system.
An important exception: the watermelon knife
Okay. I said I wouldn’t use the Camillus to carefully prepare dinner.
But the big blade came with a little companion knife, and that changes things.
The little guy still lives in its pocket on the main sheath. I haven’t found a hundred different uses for it. I could probably whittle with it, but I haven’t.
What it is excellent at is processing fruit.
Specifically, watermelon.
First, you use the big blade to chop the watermelon into halves or quarters. Then you pull out the little knife and do the detail work.
Oohhh, yeah.
That blade didn’t earn the name watermelon knife for nothing.
Used, abused, and brought back to life
Years of chopping wood leave their mark on a blade.
And swinging a machete at things lying on the ground doesn’t come with a 100 percent accuracy guarantee.
The edge on mine eventually became pretty marred. Not badly chipped—the steel has proved plenty tough in my experience—but it had taken its share of knocks. The blade was caked with dirt, bits of wood, and probably a few other unnamed fluids.
It had reached the point where a quick wipe with some water wasn’t going to make it clean again.
The machete had done so much good work for me that I wanted to bring her back to life.
So I gave it a proper restoration. I cleaned the blade thoroughly, reworked the grind and edge, sharpened it, and oiled it.
The result was almost comical.
My dad used to camp with me regularly—at least every other month, usually more. He knew that machete very well. He’d seen me using it for years.
After I restored it, he asked me why I’d bought a new one.
That’s how good it looked.
I haven’t needed to do another major regrind since. These days, I just keep it reasonably clean and sharpened.
It was back out with me at Lower Manzana a few months ago, still doing exactly what I ask of it.
A couple of things worth knowing
I don’t have any major complaints about the Camillus, but there are a few practical quirks worth mentioning.
First, sharpening it isn’t quite the same as touching up a thin kitchen knife. The thick blade has a broad edge angle. I prefer working on it with a stone or a file—or a series of files, depending on what it needs.
If you’re planning to maintain one of these with a standard V-style pull-through sharpener, that may not be your best friend.
I can hear the knife snobs screaming at their screens as I type that.
Second, pay attention when you put it back in the sheath. Mine is internally lined, which gives the blade and sawback a little more protection than a simple fabric sheath would. Even so, those saw teeth can still grab at softer material if you get careless putting it away.
Otherwise, the straight shape and sheathed design have suited my pack wonderfully. I’ve been carrying it that way for years.
It’s not a complicated tool. Learn what it does, keep an edge on it, and look after the thing.
My happy place
A while back, I was camping at Lytle Creek with Leonard.
I grabbed the Camillus and wandered off to gather some wood for the weekend’s fires. I started chopping, dragging pieces back toward camp, and processing what I’d collected.
Then I just kept going.
I got lost in the sauce.
By the time I made it back to camp, an hour or two had gone by. I hadn’t really noticed. Leonard had a look on his face, so I asked what was up. When I realized how long I’d been gone, I asked why he hadn’t said anything.
I don’t remember his exact words, but I remember the sentiment.
Leonard knew that when I grabbed that machete and wandered off to chop wood, I was in my happy place. He didn’t need to interrupt me. I’d be fine out there for a while, and I’d come back feeling better.
He was right.
I’ve owned plenty of blades. Some were more specialized, some looked more impressive, and some cost a hell of a lot more.
But twelve-plus years later, the Camillus is still with me. It still gets strapped to my pack. It still processes my firewood. It still has the little watermelon knife tucked into its sheath.
And every so often, I grab it, wander off into the woods, and lose track of time.
— Dane Justus
Founder, Weekend Route