New Knife - Yggdrasil Forge Muninn XL

We continue the Old Norse theme and in that presentation, I almost feel like uttering the winged words "Tungur Knivur" from the Icelandic/Swedish action-movie from 1984 Hrafninn flýgur. Look, now it's done! This time it is the second of Odin's ravens that have landed in the deep forests of Småland in Sweden. This knife from Yggdrasil Forge has been named Muninn. Then they have been given the suffix "XL" for reasons I will come back to.

Yggdrasil Forge Muninn XL

Actually, the two knives are not exactly alike despite the names. Those of you who read everything I write (and there are quite a few of you, which I'm extremely happy about) know that Yggdrasil Forge is a small one-man company from Great Britain. More precisely, Joe Bardsley, as the man behind Yggdrasil is called, can be found in Manchester. He is both a blacksmith and knife maker and specializes in outdoor/"bushcraft" knives and not least throwing knives. In addition to that, he offers a wide range of other products on his website.

This XL version of the Muninn measures 250mm in length

That's where this knife comes into play. Huginn is marked as a "best seller" on the website and I can quickly understand why. The model for that knife is very famous and popular. Namely, it falls under the category of "Arrow"-inspired no-spin knives.* But even though it is clear where the inspiration came from, the Huginn XL is by no means a copy. That knife is wider and also has more marked edges, for example. There is not a lot of variety available to make a functional throwing knife of this type.

Our other raven, Muninn, has a more angular expression with considerably shorter edges as seen in the picture. It also disqualifies it from participating in competitions organized by Eurothrowers. Something I wrote about earlier. This knife is also in XL design and which means 25 cm in length, 3.1 cm in width, and a material thickness of 6 mm. With those measurements, the weight ends up at 255 g. A heavier knife than the others in the same series, in other words. Of course, it also affects the balance. In this case, I suspect they do well as all-around knives for that reason. But I'll get back to that.

The steel in both of these knives and as far as I know all throwing knives from Yggdrasil is 1080, carbon steel which with the right hardening should be impact resistant enough. Joe states on his website that the knives are hardened to a full 65HRC before being trimmed down to 55 on the Rockwell scale via heat treatment before they are finished.

It remains to be seen how durable the tips of these knives are in particular. Reviews will follow as soon as there is empirical evidence, which the snow puts an end to right now.

/ J - the heathen


* The origins can be traced to German knife thrower "Tom Tom", Thomas Hampich who designed the original. It has since spread and is now available in many versions from several manufacturers. 

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