The Condor Terrasaur
The Terrasaur is a bushcraft knife made by Condor Tool and Knives that has proven to be a very versatile and capable outdoor knife. It’s also a relatively inexpensive knife, so if you’re looking for budget bushcraft knife that easily competes with much more expensive knives, then you should at least take a look at the Condor Terrasaur.
In this articles, I’ll provide the basic specs for the Terrasaur, and then explore in further detail some of the design features of this knife. I’ll also draw on my own experiences with this knife and how these different features performed during actual use for bushcraft and wilderness living type tasks.
Condor Terrasaur Knife Specs
Overall Length: 8.8 inches
Blade Length: 4.2 inches
Blade Thickness: 3 mm
Steel: 1095 High Carbon Steel
Grind: Scandi Grind
Handle Material: High Impact Polypropylene
1095 High Carbon Steel
The 1095 high carbon steel featured with the Condor Terrasaur is one of the big things that adds value to this bushcraft knife. Many knives within the price range of the Terrasaur feature less expensive steel like 1075 high carbon steel. The Condor Bushlore, for example, is made from 1075 (you can see my review of the Bushlore here).
1095 high carbon steel features a higher percentage of carbon in the steel and that helps to increase the blades toughness as well as its edge retention. The softer steel of 1075 will still hold up well for bushcraft tasks, but if I had to pick between the two, I’d pick 1095 high carbon steel every time over 1075.
One of the big factors that might sway someone toward 1075 is the price. You can almost always get more knife for your money by going with 1075. Knives made from 1095 high carbon steel are almost always at least twice the cost of 1075 knives. The ESEE 4 and the ESEE PR4 are two excellent knives that I’ve worked with, both are made from 1095 steel, and both are over twice the price of knives like the Condor Bushlore and other 1075 steel blades (check out my ESEE 4 vs ESEE PR4 comparison video here). Somehow though, the Condor Terrasaur manages to fall well with half the cost of the those knives from ESEE Knives while still having the benefit of 1095 high carbon steel. There’s definitely some incredible value packed into the Terrasaur.
Scandi Grind
Chosing the Best Knife Grind for the Task
Personally, I don’t believe there is knife grind out there that is simply the best knife grind for bushcraft. There are, however, certain knife grinds that yield themselves best for certain uses. Choosing which grind is best for you comes down to a careful examination of the types of tasks you plan to use the knife for. Skinning animals and prepping food around camp, for example, are going to be a lot more effective with a flat grind than a Scandi grind. That doesn’t mean you can’t skin and animal or prep food with a Scandi, because you definitely can, it just means that each grind, by design, is going to perform well at certain tasks, and not as well at others. I illustrated this in a video by using the Scandi grind of the LT Wright
Genesis for food prep, and if you watch that video, you’ll see that it performed just fine even though it wasn’t the ideal tool for the job.
What’s Good About a Scandi Grind?
Where the Scandinavian grind really excels is with wood work. This type of grind bites into the wood and can remove large amounts of material very quickly and with less effort that with other grinds. It also yields itself well when making precise cuts like when creating the notch in bow drill base board, shaping hook portion of a tent stake or pot holder, and when crafting figure four trap sets. All of these tasks can be performed with other knife grinds, but it’s noticeably more effective when using a Scandi grind knife.
Disadvantages of the Scandi Grind
The only disadvantage I’ve noticed when using Scandi grind knives for working with wood is that care must be taken to not cut too deeply into the wood. Also, some people claim the Scandi grind is ideal for batoning wood, but I have not found that to be true. The idea behind this claim is that the wedge like shape of the Scandi grind will cause the wood to split apart easily. In some cases, that’s true, but if it doesn’t spit the wood within the short distance of the grind’s height, the full thickness of the blade is now rubbing against the wood creating extra friction. Compared to a full flat grind, the Scandi grind might win the batoning battle, but a saber grind (which is technically hybrid type version of a Scandi, but with obvious differences) will always outperform the Scandi when it comes to batoning tasks.
Overall, however, if you’re primarily working with wood, the Scandi grind of the Condor Terrasaur will serve you well. As for the batoning issues I mentioned, a knife of this style and blade length will only be used for relatively light batoning and so the increased friction will most likely not be a noticeable problem.
Blade Profile
Looking at the blade profile of the Terrasaur, you’ll notice it has a more narrow, slender shape similar to what is featured on popular bushcraft knives like the Mora Companion (from Morakniv). This narrow shape (referring to the distance between the blade’s spin and its edge) allows fine, detailed work to be done without feeling like the blade is getting in the way. For example, making finishing touches on the individual tips of a multiple point fish spear can be accomplished with this knife without constantly trying to work around the bulk of the knife blade. The narrow shape simply allows you to get into those tight places and do what you need to do.
Another thing to notice about this knife’s blade profile is that the spine of the knife drops only slightly to see the blade’s tip. This accomplishes two things: it gives it more straight edge to work with, and it makes the knife more effective at batoning.
Blade Profile Should Match Its Purpose
The straight edge of a knife is valuable blade space when it comes to basic woodworking tasks. But the curved belly of a knife blade has value as well, especially when it comes to cleaning game or skinning animals. This doesn’t mean you can’t do woodwork if your knife has a lot of belly to it, and it doesn’t mean you can’t skin an animal with a knife that prioritizes the straight edge. But each type of knife design is going to really shine in one area or the other—usually not both. For this reason, in 
order to determine which knife you should carry into the outdoors, it’s always helpful to take a good look at the types of tasks you plan on doing with your knife. If you’re primarily working with wood, a knife like the Condor Terrasaur might be perfect. If you’re doing a lot of hunting and need a knife to skin and clean game, you might be better of with a knife that has more belly in it (or possibly a second knife dedicated to hunting tasks).
Best Knife Grind for Batoning
The effectiveness of batoning is also improved by having only a slight drop from spine to tip of the knife’s blade. The Condor Terrasaur isn’t the kind of knife to be batoning though anything too crazy, but as long as you’re only splitting into smaller pieces of wood, it holds up just fine. The increased effectiveness is subtle, but it has to do with maximizing energy transfer between the baton you’re swinging and where it is impacting with the knife spine. For example, imagine a knife like the LT Wright Genesis or the ESEE PR4 (both Kephart-style knives) where the the spine drops to meet with the tip at or close to centerline. With those types of knives, the baton is hitting a portion of the blade that is sloping away instead of being closer to perpendicular to the direction of force. Again, this is a subtle detail, but depending on your intentions with the Condor Terrasaur, it might be something worth weighing in.
The Handle
The handle of the Condor Terrasaur is made from a High Impact Polypropylene. It is a very durable material that will hold very well for bushcraft and wilderness use. I did push it a little too far at one point attempting to use one side of the lanyard hole as a makeshift bow drill hand socket. The material melted away from the friction. I knew this was a possibility when I began, but my hope was that the bow drill spindle would reach the exposed tang within the lanyard hole and be able to spin free with the steel as the base. Instead, I ended up with a slightly larger lanyard hole on one of the handle—lesson learned, I guess. This is obviously not what the knife handle is designed for.
For all normal use, this handle material is simple but very rugged. Being a dense plastic material, it doesn’t require the same sort of delicate care as a wooden handle does. Dirt, rain, snow, blood, and sweat will not damage this knife handle. I cleaned two rabbits by the side of stream with this knife, and it was nice to not have to worry about the handle during the process and then to be able to simply dip the knife into running stream and have my knife handle restored as if it were new
Grip
The Terrasaur’s handle grips well enough to stay secure in the hand during normal use in dry weather, but when the hands are wet, the handle material becomes a little slick. I was still able to work with the knife and maintain my grip on the knife when testing this knife with wet and muddy hands, but I had to take extra care because my grip was noticeably less secure. What really saves this knife handle’s grip is the texturing on each side of the handle. The texture is not so coarse that it rubs harshly on your hands during use, but it does give the handle that little extra amount of grip that keeps the knife in hand when wet.
Handle Shape
The shape of the handle on the Condor Terrasaur is another feature that I really enjoyed about this knife design. The shape of the handle is very plain and simple and has only very subtle contouring. This is something I appreciate because too much contouring risks making the knife to oriented toward a single grip. In other words, while a knife might be extremely comfortable in a standard forward grip, other grips on the knife (choking up on the blade, reverse grip…) are difficult to achieve without some part of the handle’s shape getting in the way.
This handle is comfortable when held with a regular grip, thanks to the palm swell and the slight contours at the front and back of the handle. But these features are subtle enough that they didn’t get in my way when using other grips. I see this kind of handle as being an important feature for a knife designed for bushcraft, wilderness living, or even survival because the more versatile your knife can be the greater value it has as the tool it’s designed to be.
Full Tang Knife
It’s also important to mention that the Condor Terrasaur is a full tang knife. That isn’t a common feature to find on a knife in this price range and it really adds to the overall value of this bushcraft knife.
Is a Full Tang Necessary on a Bushcraft Knife?
Not everyone is going to require a full tang knife, and there are plenty of very capable partial tang knives out there. The Mora Companion and the Mora Bushcraft Black, for example have both seen plenty of bushcraft and wilderness use among knife users and very few people will every have a problem with the fact that they are only partial tang knives. That being said, I have a couple reason why I personally prefer a full tang knife.
Why I Prefer a Full Tang Knife
First, a full tang knife is simply more durable because the steel runs all the way through the handle. Of course, it can be argued that the level of durability achieved with a full tang isn’t necessary for most tasks. If I’m simply using the knife around camp while car camping at a local campground, I’d agree that a full tang might be overkill. If the knife breaks, I’m going to survive my car camping trip just fine. If I’m out in the middle of the wilderness, on the hand, my need for a dependable knife is increased. In these types of situations, I prefer to have what might be an overkill amount of durability in my knife.
My second reason for preferring a full tang knife is because I have a guaranteed handle no matter what happens. If my knife handle were to break for any reason, the steel of the full tang can still function as handle. I could use it as is, wrap it in paracord (nettle fibers, yucca cordage…or whatever) or I could fashion a new handle from wood.
The handle of the Condor Terrasaur is not going to break except by a force that would most likely damage the steel as well (a missile strike, perhaps), but it could melt away if careless left too close to the fire. To be clear, I do everything I can to prevent the sort of things that would destroy my handle, so this scenario if very unlikely, but by having a full tang knife with me in the wilderness, I ensure that even a scenario as unlikely as this one won’t leave me stranded without my knife.
Often, when if comes to deciding whether you need or don’t need a full tang knife, the cost is usually one of the deciding factors. Surprisingly though, the Condor Terrasaur is still low enough in cost to be considered a budget bushcraft knife. Unless you’re really pinching pennies, the only advantage I see in a partial tang knife over a full tang knife is weight. If pack weight is a high priority of you, the reduced amount of steel in a partial knife is going to shave off some ounces for you.
The Sheath
Knife sheaths, no matter how well designed the knife itself might be, can sometimes be a compete disappointment. Fortunately, the sheath provided with the Condor Terrasaur is functional, well-designed sheath. It’s made from the same durable material as the knife’s handle, High Impact Polypropylene. and is molded in a way that allows the knife to click securely into place without the use of a strap of any sort. If you’re familiar with the knives from Morakniv, you’ll notice that this sheath is very similar in many ways.
There’s a good amount of breathing room around the blade of the knife when the knife is secured in the sheath. I appreciate this especially with knives that feature high carbon steel like this one. Since extra care must be taken to keep high carbon steel knives from rusting in wet environments, this kind of sheath design is helpful. Storing a blade that’s wet is never a good idea for high carbon steel knives, but in real-life situations, we know that rain, humidity, damp vegetations, doesn’t just turn off when we want it to. Sometimes there’s simply no way to be anything but drenched. In situations like this, the sheath of the Condor Terrasaur becomes a real advantage. That extra space surrounding the blade of the knife gives the steel a better changes of drying, instead of being surround by water. There are also two drain holes in the bottom of the sheath which will rid the sheath’s interior of at least the bulk of the water.
Another advantage of this extra breathing room is noticed later on during the regular care and maintenance of the your high carbon steel blade. Once I’m back under cover, either at camp or back at home, I can pull the knife from the sheath and dry it more properly. I can also dry out the interior of the sheath. That extra space in the sheath allow me to either air dry to the sheath by setting it out to dry or by stuffing a dry cloth into the space to dry it out. This is much more difficult to do with a sheath molded tightly around the blade the way plastic and Kydex sheaths are made. Leather sheaths are also difficult dry out if they’ve managed to wet through.
Finally, the sheath of the Condor Terrasaur features a leather belt loop instead of the molded clips found on similar sheaths like those from Morakniv. The leather loop doesn’t allow the same convenience of simply clipping the sheath over your belt, but the solid loop does provide more secure retention of your sheath. This is also important because the sheath doesn’t feature any sort of thumb ramp to allow for the knife to be drawn single handedly. You need to either hold the sheath with one hand and draw the knife with the other or, if the knife is on your belt, you can single hand draw the knife by pulling at it and allow the belt look to keep the sheath in place while releasing the knife. Also of note here, the sheath of the Condor Terrasaur is ambidextrous, allow the knife to be secured and drawn in left or right handed positions.
Final Thoughts About the Condor Terrasaur
Overall, the Condor Terrasaur is a solid performing bushcraft knife with a surprising amount of value packed in for the price. The full tang 1095 high carbon steel blade, the narrow, almost Woodlore-style blade profile, and the durable and versatile handle design, I find myself reaching for this knife over much more expensive high end knives as I gear up to head out on various adventures.
My only concern I have with this knife, and it’s a mild issue, is the grip. If I was primarily working with wet or muddy hands, I might be concerned about the handle material when it comes to grip. As it is, however, I find that while it isn’t the grippiest of knives, it performed adequately enough to be dependable.
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Other knives from Condor Tool & Knife
MORE FROM ADVENTURE RYAN
- LT. Wright Genesis Review (mentioned in the video): LT Wright Genesis Knife Review
- ESEE PR4 Knife Review (mentioned in the video): ESEE PR4 Knife Review
- My books: https://www.amazon.com/author/ryan_saunders