Gerber 22 41576 Gator Machete with Sheath

Gerber 22 41576 Gator Machete with Sheath

The Gator Machete wields a 15 inch fine edge blade on one side, a 15 inch high performance saw blade on the other, and our proprietary Gator rubber grip for ergonomic control while using either. The riveted, Nylon Sheath provides safe, durable transport.This item is pre-sale only. Refer to the Expected Date for an ETA of when this item will be available for shipment. The Expected Date is very subject to change on this item and may be pushed back if the manufacturer is delayed in producing and delivering this item.********Available January 2008

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star This is not a work Machete
This Machete is not a brush clearing achete. It is basically a 14-15 year olds dream knife that they can show off to their friends. Or could be very easily used as a close quarters defense weapon.

1 Star Broken Handle, Bent Blade, Dangerous Tool
I thought for the price, this Gerber Machete was either too good to be true, or a steal. It’s both, but now that the handle is starting to fall apart, and I’ve disassembled it to see why, I now say it’s a dangerous tool to use.

There is already a customer image showing it disassembled. Look carefully. The tang only goes into the handle a short distance. This has allowed the blade to flex enough to break the front part of my handle, and the handle now is bent up in a V pattern rather than straight inline with the blade.

I was entirely pleased the first few hours of using this tool, nice rubber grip, sharp enough, pretty Gerber emblem laser engraved on the blade. But then the handle cracked, I noticed the blade edge was dented, and the entire blade was bent about midway.

I’ve sharpened it on a grinding wheel, and wow, it’s a very soft metal, the lightest touch to the wheel takes off a lot of metal!!! It was then I took the handle off and to my dismay/horror, the tang is really really short. There is NO EXCUSE for not having a thin bit of metal running the entire length of the handle.

I still will use it for extremely light duty work, but it’s far too dangerous for serious brush clearing, as I’m quite certain the blade will one day fly off into the distance.

As for the soft metal, the bend in the blade, and the lack of edge holding ability, maybe it’s safer than a hard blade that will crack or break, I don’t know. The saw back is for decoration in my opinion, I’ve not used it, as I like to put a little weight on the back side of my hand saws, and, well, there’s a blade on the back of this one.

Straight out of the box, I’d have given this a 5-star for looks. Sadly, in use, it disappoints, and is a real hazard to the user and bystanders.

If only they’d make the tang full or 3/4 length….I can deal with having to sharpen it frequently.

1 Star Would not cut dead twigs
A decent sheath and a decent concept of design and features but not a good blade at all. Apparently there must be a lot of variance in the degree of heat treatment if any as some claim it cuts 1 inch trees. I could not get it to cut anything, sharpened it till it sliced paper and it still would not cut even a dead twig. The saw back did work so maybe they only tempered that edge on the batch I bought. It now has a nice divot about 2 inches back from the tip where I tried foolishly to chop a 1/8 twig against a dead, spongy, tree stump. Also had to glue the rubber grip back on the handle after one day of very light use.

5 Stars gerber machete
This is one very useful tool. Has a nice feel and one very sharp edge, while the saw toothed opposite edge willcut any size branch you care to try it on.

1 Star Nice Looking JUNK!
I will admit that this is a great looking machete. At first glance you would think from a company like Gerber, it would also be high quality as well. Guess again, there blade is less than a quarter tang. This means you have 2 inches of metal in the handle trying to keep the rest of the 18 inch blade from snapping off or coming loose when you swing it at the brush you are clearing. The handle feels great in your hand but it is only a handle, it doesn’t support the blade. To get an idea of how much tang you have, look at the picture of the machete on this site with the blue background and the ruler in it that I posted. In this picture you can clearly see why swinging this “machete” too hard may be hazardous to you and those around you. It is held in the handle by a single bolt with the bottom bolt only holding tension in a slot in the bottom of the tang of the blade. The entire tang, clearly shown in my picture, is only 2 1/2 inches long.

I sure expected a lot more from a company with the reputation Gerber has and this has made me rethink a lot of future purchases from them. Go to the hardware store and get one of their $8.00 surplus machetes. It will serve you a lot better than this piece of junk will. Glad I took it apart before I had to depend on it in the brush.

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