The Tatang is made by Black Hawk, The American Tactical gear manufacturers from Virginia. Its clearly designed for military use. Its styling, finish and sheath all point to its tactical function. However after it had been sitting on the desk for a few days, I had a thought, how would it perform in a survival or bushcraft setting.

So off to the woods I went with the Tatang. Reducing survival tasks down to the minimum I decided to try the Tatang as a machete. Selecting a sapling I took a swing. Instantly I realised It worked. By gripping the handle loosely nearer to the butt, you can get a good swing and within a few blows the sapling was down. After effortlessly stripping off all branches I proceeded to put a point onto the mini trunk. Again this took few blows. The Tatang clearly worked well in Machete mode.

The next task was "bark stripping and hole making"
By holding the Tatang nearer to the blade and putting your index finger through the choile the blade functions more as a wood working tool, enabling bark to be scraped off with a surprisingly large amount of control. With the bark off I flattened the end off the sapling and tried using the Tatang as a drill. The spear point blade is edged on both sides, so purely by twisting your wrist and pushing into the wood, a hole is quickly created. The shape of the blade dictates the diameter and shape of the hole. By working from both sides its possible to make a two inch deep hole which at its widest point is about an inch.

Although these simple chores did not really test the Tatang to any great depths I would feel confident taking it out into the wilds and using it as my main survival blade.It functions well as a small machete and compares well alongside my Type D survival knife.

Click here for blade spec and other technical data.