Fox Knives Panga XL

Panga XL:

After a very long wait, I finally received my Fox Panga XL. I am not a patient man by any means, but it was worth the wait. Now if I had been shipping out to Borneo or Haiti and I had to wait over two months for a commercially made knife I would be less enthused. Hopefully they will be shipping on a more regular basis henceforth. First impressions are very important, or that’s what my mother said when I went on my first date. Well it wasn’t exactly a date, but anyway, first impressions are important. Out of the box the Panga seemed a bit too light. I had expected something more like my native-made Barong, which in today’s economy probably isn’t going to happen. Does a Panga need to have a blade as hefty as my 3/8 inch thick Barong? Maybe not, it depends on how much chopping you are going to do and how heavy the undergrowth is. Still the overall blade shape and size is very nice and could be easily packed on the side of a backpack.

Some extra meat in the blade would have been handy for splitting firewood or batoning it through if necessary. It’s all a trade-off. The lighter machete-weight blade will make it a formidable, fast handling, fighting blade. I was disappointed that the handle material is a hard plastic, not the nice material Fox Knives used on the Kukri. Also the screw holes in the handle slabs have sharp little burrs around them that will need sanded off to prevent raising blisters. Not a BIG deal, and I would suggest wearing gloves for any serious chopping anyway.

The sheath is similar to the one that came with the Kukri, made of Cordura and other miscellaneous synthetic materials. Not bad, but if I were going off to a third world country somewhere I’d have a kydex replacement made for it. Unfortunately since it took so long to get here I will most likely not be using this Panga XL for camping chores until next Spring. I am getting too soft for Winter camping.

Dimensions: OAL 17 inches
Blade length: 10.5 inches
Blade Width:2.25 inches widest part
Blade thickness: just over 1/8 inch