If you were suddenly castaway on a desert island or stranded in the wilderness or a jungle, what's the one tool you would want at your side? The answer is a good machete. You see the machete, over the last three centuries, has proven to be the ultimate outdoor and survival tool. It will cut, chop, slash, hack, split, scrape, scoop, hammer, dig, crush, carve, whittle, crack or smash just about anything you can put in front of it. The machete also makes a deadly improvised weapon. It can be used to kill both fish and game and will gut, scale, filet, skin, quarter, and butcher them for the table as well. And when you look at its meager cost, it's got to be one of the best bargains for hard earned cash in the world. In fact it's so cheap and useful that even the poorest peasant in South America or tribesman in Africa invariably owns one and counts on it as one of his most precious possessions. These blades are made out of 1055 Carbon Steel with a tough spring temper and are surfaced with a black, baked-on anti-rust finish. Each Cold Steel machete comes with a good utility edge which, with just a little work, can be made hair shaving sharp. The tough, Polypropylene handles of our machetes are designed to provide a comfortable secure grip, and they are rugged enough to resist chipping, cracking or breaking, so they last practically forever.