I needed a new knife to add to my survival kit so I bought this one. I wasn't ready for how heavy if feels in the hand, but no complaints, it has a really nice heft to it and the blade is long enough I can use it for cutting, for chopping, for skinning, dressing out deer, whatever. I've owned Schrade knives since I was a boy but this one really goes over the top! I'm quite pleased with the quality of craftsmanship, quality of the metal, and how sturdy the knife is and how well it performs. I highly recommend this knife to survivalists, hunters, and anyone else that just needs a sturdy knife to go into the mountain with or wherever your adventure leads you!

Wow, what a value! I purchased this knife for a backpacking trip, and it performed unbelievably well. Make no mistake, it is an absolute beast of a knife and a big, heavy chunk of steel. But, I decided that I was willing to take the hit on weight to gain it's capabilities. It basically rained for four days straight, so we were unable to find dry wood for fires. We quickly found that, even with fire starters, it just wasn't working with the wet stuff. I ended up batoning wood every night so that we had some dry stuff to work with. The knife held it's edge well enough that I was still be able to do some decent feather sticking on the fourth day. For this inexpensive of a knife, I was thoroughly impressed, to say the least.

Keep in mind when reading this next part that I've become pretty particular about blade sharpness over the years, and I know I'm MUCH pickier than most people when it comes to the edge on my knives. The knife came with a very usable edge, but the grinds were a little uneven here and there, so I decided that I wanted to do a some work on it before taking it on my backpacking trip. I just wanted to even out the edge as much as possible, and I knew that the 1095 steel had the capability to get scary sharp. So, I spent a little time on the sharpening stone (1095 sharpens really easily), and it cleaned up nicely, ending up with an edge that was plenty sharp to effortlessly shave the hair on my arm. When I got back, I spent a few minutes honing the edge on my diamond steel, and it came right back to as sharp as it was before pounding it through small logs for four days. It's pretty hard to argue with that.

As for the other included items, the sheath is okay, but I'm sure that with regular use it would eventually fall apart. I keep thinking about getting or making a Kydex sheath for it, and I still may at some point. The knife easily warrants that added expense. The sharpening stone is, again, just okay. It feels pretty darn coarse, so I don't think I'd ever use it unless I had no other choice. The stone is also not very thick, which makes it store in the sheath well, but I would think the small edge surface would be pretty tricky to hold onto while sharpening without risking loosing some meat off of your fingertips in the process. Yikes! The ferro rod works really well, throwing great sparks. It's soft and not very thick, so I don't think it'll last very long. But, it worked great on my trip, and there's plenty left for future trips. I would definitely recommend using the 90-degree spine of the blade to strike the ferro rod. The little attached striker works okay, but it's fairly small and hard to hold onto.

As a side note, I debated for quite a while about going with the SCHF51 or SCHF52. I'm glad I ended up deciding to go with the 52 for a few reasons. First, yes, the 51 is lighter. But honestly, if you've already chosen to carry around this big of a knife, I don't know that you're really going to notice the slight bit of extra weight. Second, I felt like the finger choil on the 51 just didn't work very well for a knife of that size. You give up quite a bit of sharpened blade length, and (IMO) I'm not sure it's overly necessary to choke up on a knife that size. I knew that I would be carrying a folding knife for more intricate tasks, so it simply didn't make sense for me. Lastly, the extra blade length of the 52 allowed me to baton quite a bit larger sticks, exposing more dry wood quicker than a smaller blade could.

I rarely review items, but I'm astounded by the value in this knife and felt like it deserved another good review. Also, a few of the things I mentioned were things that I wondered about when I was doing my research, but they didn't seem to be covered in the reviews that I read back in April and May. I hope this can help anyone else in same situation.

So, my over all thoughts? For a mid-$30 knife, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a better value. As long as the weight doesn't bother you, buy it. You won't be disappointed.

I cleared Chinese tallow saplings up to 2 inches, trimmed trees, actually I used it last night to cut a 3 inch limb into usable sizes for my grill and used the wood chip as well. It is heavy, but that heft makes it work all the better. The edge was razor sharp when I put it away.

I received this today and immediately went out to put it to the test. I cut down six roughly 2" diameter pine saplings with about 4 blows on average. (For the record, I'm 6'1", 205 pounds, and can bench press 175 pounds ten times in 20 seconds. That's not very impressive, but that's the best I can do.) The finger choil is excellent. I have a Becker BK-7 (which is similarly sized) and this one feature puts the Schrade SCHF52 ahead of the Becker. Choking up with the choil, I sharpened a branch into a spear easily. I peeled a potato very comfortably. I feathered a branch very comfortably. I can do the same things with the Becker, but it doesn't feel as natural. The BK-7 seems easier to sharpen, but that's a technicality. This knife is slightly heavier that the Becker BK-7 but it is not too heavy and I see no reason to buy the shorter SCHF51 unless you're looking for a knife for your wife or girlfriend. It was not sharp, but I did all these things with it as received. There was a small nick where the coating was missing. Thus 4 stars instead of five. I applied Rust-O-Leum. Very pleased with this inexpensive knife. I will probably order 3 or 4 more over time.

UPDATE 9-25-2018: Use the sharpener that comes with this. I was using a draw through sharpener and was finding it tough to sharpen this knife, while others not so much. Then I tried a sharpening stone with the oil and all. Not much better . Then I tried the sharpener this came with and I can sharpen all my knives so much more effectively. I wish I could find a benchtop version of this sharpener. This one requires that you be very careful so as not to cut your fingers while sharpening.

This is just incredible value. I wouldn't be able to buy materials to make one for this price.
There are imperfections: the bevels are uneven, including the secondary bevel angle and it's a lot of work to grind that off with a stone if you care about it, the handle is fine: It's strong and not uncomfortable, though I've got comfier handles on junk knives tbh, and there's a really large and unnecessary bolster between the edge and the finger choil. The sheath is... Fine, and for the price you can't sensibly expect better, it does the job. I'd prefer a flat grind, too, but at this price and size that'll never happen.
On the other hand, as long as you keep it rust free this thing is going to last because it's chunky AF and put together really well. It's not a chore to use for big knife tasks. Also it comes with a decent diamond field stone that's coarse enough to be fast but not so coarse that you really need something else. I got a falkniven cff stone too and that seems like a perfect compliment. Also comes with a bigger firesteel than I was expecting.
If you're into customising things, just taking some of that huge bolster out to make a sharpening choil, or grinding it off altogether and extending the edge tot he end would be a big improvement and make sharpening a lot easier.
Basically this is a good solid knife for an unbelievably good price for what it is. I'm very happy with my purchase.
Edit: I've used this pretty harshly now, and given it to a couple of absolute beginner bushcrafters to use for instruction purposes. It's held up really well. It keeps an edge really well for 1095 and cut better than expected (I did even up the secondary bevel a fair bit though). It batons like a beast and it super tough. It strikes firesteels well, specially on the bit of the back right by the point where it's part of the hollow crinding. it even feathersticks ok. Some of the coating came off with basically the first log I batoned, but that's really not a big deal and was expected at this price. Such amazing value: if you want a big chopper, you can certainly get better, but you'd have to spend so much more than I can't believe it'd be worth it.