I've got a "Russian Special Forces Survival Machete" (yep, the same one that's the object of Kavanaugh's apparent contempt here) that I aquired in a gear swap and that I have really come to appreciate. I've used it to chop, saw, hack, scrape, dig, poke and pry on just about every substance I've encountered in nature - wood, dirt, bone, rocks, snow, ice and metal. It's proven itself to be a tough s.o.b. & I tend to be pretty rough on gear so that's a huge compliment. I don't keep anything in the storage space in the handle other than some PJ cotton balls and a BSA HotSpark and I wrapped the handle with about 8-10 feet of paracord to improve the grip and make it fit my gorilla sized hand a little better.

It's not as long as a standard machete and I wouldn't consider it for a trek in a jungle/swampy environment but it works just great here in the Rocky Mountains & high desert areas.