Puma IP La Cabra Review

Puma IP La Cabra Review

This is the Puma IP La Cabra. The IP stands for international production and I believe this is the tag for their mid range knives. Really its hard to call it mid range though as I've seen Puma knives that cost many thousands so it's still cheap by their standards. I certainly can't afford one of their higher end blades, though we can all dream. Most people are unaware of the Puma brand of knives despite them being one of the oldest knife manufacturers on the planet, but I think that's because people just look for combat style blades these days and Puma stick to more traditional styles. Most of their blades are hunting knives with wood and staghorn handles, and I dare say that if you said micarta or G10 to these guys you would be hung drawn and quartered and your bones would be used to carbonise their steel. It's nice to see a company stick to it's roots and craft a good ol' work knife.

It has a basic brown leather bushcraft style drop sheath with matching brown stitching. The stitching is very uniform across the sheath and there is and embossed Puma IP logo on the front. It holds the blade very well and, despite my erratic shaking, didn't budge at all. It also feels like a good quality piece of leather that's hard-wearing, so it should last many, many years. It's really easy to get at the blade too, providing your not my father, who upon removing the blade, proceeded to bleed extensively over my floor. It was quite funny given how he always mocks me when I injure myself.

 

The handle is made of olive wood which has a lovely colour and it feels good in your hand. It's very smooth and almost feels like a laminate wood it's that well finished and it blends perfectly with the tang.  It has two steel pins and in the centre of the one scale has a faux pin inlay with the Puma IP logo. The stainless steel bolster is a very nice addition to this blade. It looks great and holds your hand nicely when you use the jimping to choke up for finer work. The knife is handle heavy, but its not a heavy blade, so it just makes it feel more secure rather than cumbersome.

 

The blade is 3.5mm thick and 9.5cm in length so its not a small blade, but its not large either. Its a good knife for doing some fine wood work like whittling or feathering and the bolster just helps to keep it in your complete control . It is made of 440C stainless and has a full flat grind, which isn't my favourite for bushcraft, but it does allow for some paper thin wood shavings for getting your fire going. I've processed a reasonable amount of kindling with it and I think the overall shape with the flat grind actually performs very well. I think its probably not going to last doing much heavy work as the blade gets very thin, very fast. It's really close to having a Stanley knife profile, so it's great for processing game. I used it in the kitchen for a few weeks as well. Cutting steaks and vegetables with this was much easier than some of the high end chef knives I have. It would be great for gutting and cooking up some fish while you're out on the river, and can easily cut fishing line thanks to its razor like blade. It's probably the sharpest knife I've handled right out of the box.

 

It's pretty easy to keep clean and it feels good in the hand. It's a very good looking blade as well. I think Puma have made a good blade here and I look forward to getting my hands on some others now that I've seen what they can do. Overall it's a pretty good blade and performs excellently as an outdoor kitchen knife. If I still fished then it would definitely be in my tackle box.

Check out this and other Puma knives here.

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Puma La Cabra Review

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