John Markwell | Contributing Editor
We were at the May Ranch, south of the Dakota Badlands, for the annual Spring branding in mid-June.
We’d been up since 5:30 a.m. and had spent most of the day tending the cooker full of beef short ribs, pork butts and some turkey to feed the folks working the branding. Things were winding down; most of the neighbors, all good hands, had loaded up and headed home. Those of us staying on the ranch were still sitting around doing what folks do after a long day; shooting the breeze and drinking cold adult beverages.
Sitting behind our truck camper, amidst the horse trailers, with a group of hands, my buddies Don Duff, Chad Cunningham and I started talking knives. We all produced our current EDC fixed blades as the evening wore on and they passed from hand to hand around the group.
Small fixed blade knives are pretty commonly carried by rural folks in the West. Chad had to go to his horse trailer to fetch one of his small knives which, to make a long story short, ended up in our camper. Chad tossed the little knife in there when pressed for a price when we tried to buy it from him. With a smirk he said “that’s what it costs!”
Chad is first and foremost a cowboy; the real deal. He comes North from his spread in Cross Plains, Texas in the Spring to work some of the bigger brandings in the Dakotas and Wyoming. Chad is also a first-rate blacksmith and knife maker. He forges his own Damascus steel for spurs, bits and knives with a fifty-pound drop hammer and also makes knives by the stock removal method.
The little knife shown here is made from 5210 carbon steel; yep, it will rust some and stain, but it holds a wicked edge and touches up easily. The blade is cut from a .105-inch thick blank and is rough shaped by grinding, then heat treated and finally, finish ground. Over-all length of the knife is 6 3/8 inches and the cutting-edge measures 2 7/16 inches. The blade is a simple spear point flat grind and is nicely aligned with the handle along the centerline. Weight of the knife is just a feather over two ounces. Balancing at the rear of the finger groove, this little cutter is quite comfortable in the hand whether used upright or inverted. The OD green Micarta scales are attached to the full thickness tang with two rivets and a flared sleeve of tubing that lines the lanyard hole.
Chad has been forging and knife making for 15 years or so. His bits and spurs, made from his own Damascus steel, are in high demand by working cowboys who appreciate fine gear. A look at Chad’s Instagram page, CHAD-ADMIRALTX, is a very enjoyable experience for anyone even remotely familiar with horse gear or knives. Many of the featured bits and spurs are of museum quality and are truly one-of- a-kind masterpieces, and the same goes for many of Chad’s knives.
Attending the South Dakota branding was just a part of our 2021 road trip west. In fact, we were mainly on the road to shoot varmints and the little knife Chad gave us was a constant companion for the additional three weeks we were on the road and afield.
Chad’s knife sheaths tend to be of the horizontal carry style which is popular with horsemen. We initially thought the sheath was carbon fiber but it turned out to be basket textured Kydex in a subtle shade of OD green. We personally find the horizontal carry of a fixed blade, even a small one, pretty limiting of the real estate at our waist. We dismounted the pull-the-dot snaps holding the two belt loops to the sheath and reconfigured just one of them to allow for vertical, under-the-belt, carry on our left side just behind a magazine pouch at about the 8:30/9 o’clock position. This position allows comfortable carry and, if needed, concealment of the knife (and other EDC gear) under even a t-shirt should it be appropriate.
We used the dainty little blade for all kinds of camp chores on a daily basis while on the road shooting varmints; food prep being the most common. However, many, if not most, of Chad’s knives ride on the belts of working cowboys (and girls) much to the consternation of thousands of bull calves throughout the great plains each spring. At the post branding barbecue at the ranch, it seemed like many of the folks were wielding one of Chad’s knives as well as sporting his spurs.
We have many items in our outdoor inventory that we’ve had for quite some time and often refer to them by the mileage they’ve travelled rather than the number of years we’ve owned them. Since we first travelled the West in 1968 some of these items, not even counting the number of vehicles, have logged a lot of miles. For example, we have a 500K mile coffee mug and had (before it was stolen) a 350K mile favorite camp chair. We even had a quarter-million-mile Heeler dog (we now have a new one that’s gaining mileage every year).
Chad Cunningham’s little fixed blade EDC knife is going to be one of those items that we will hopefully be looking back at down the road as we tally up the mileage, stories and adventures associated with it. For those looking to get their hands on one of Chad’s knives, a bit, a set of spurs etc. go to: CHAD-ADMIRALTX on Instagram.
By the way, the little cutter reviewed here runs right at $200.
