BORELLI CONSULTING: Tactical Equipment Reviews

The K5 Tactical Tomahawk
Testing Tough Hawks made for Tough Folks
By: Al Garcia, 24 October 2005

While attending the 2005 TWO-counter terror conference in Virginia Beach this past August, I had the pleasure of meeting K5 Tactical owner Eddie Killian. Eddie was standing at his booth in one of the vendor areas. I walked up, introductions were made, and after that he told me a little about himself and his "Hawks". The first thing I liked about Eddie was his honesty about how and why his Tomahawks came to be. He simply told me that he really liked tactical tomahawks so he set out to build a "one off " super tough hawk for himself. What he came up with was in his opinion good enough to duplicate and sell to the general public, and after testing one of his tomahawks, I definitely concur.

It didn't take long after handling the K5 "Tac-Hawk" to figure out that in terms of pragmatic genius, Eddie is samurai caliber when it comes to tomahawk design and construction. His tomahawks are quite possibly the most rugged production tomahawks ever designed. These monsters are PURPOSELY made to use and abuse. There is obvious premeditation to Eddie's genius when he created these tools and that was to put an implement in an operators hands that could stand up to just about anything one could throw at it. I am super impressed with this piece of equipment.

The Tactical Hawk-Spike is made from 3/8" thick high carbon steel. In terms of thickness, The K5's are to the Hawk world what Strider knives are to the knife world. The edges are hardened, and tempered. The handle is left unhardened for its shock absorbing ability. The Hawk is powder-coated tan over its entire 16.5" length. The head is 7.5" long with a 3.5" Edge face. The beard also has 3 inches of sharpened edge for hooking moves. The spike is 3.5 inches long from the center of the hawk. The spike is an Americanized Tanto shape and is sharpened all the way around. The handle scales are 6061 T6 Aluminum that has been MIL Spec Type III Hard Anodized with a greenish tint. The scales are screwed / helicoiled into each other and are removable to allow for cord wrapping the handle if the owner desires. Eddie even factored in a slight standoff in the scales to avoid marring them should you contact the handle of the hawk with the surface you are striking. The aluminum scales, well, don't "feel" aluminum and instead give fantastic purchase when in your hand or hands. One of the nice things about this tool is the built in ability to swing the hawk with a two handed grip if necessary. It comes with a proprietary Kydex sheath made for K5 Tactical by The SheathMechanic (www.SheathMechanic.com). The sheath is jumpable, ambidextrous, and uses short Alice/MALICE clip attachments, making it MOLLE/Strike compatible. I am going to take off the handle scales and my Hawk is going to get a couple of coats of signature dulling flat black for tactical duties.

When it came to testing the hawk-spike, it is hard to put into words the approval I feel about touting this product as "best in show" caliber. One swing with the spike end of the hawk proved costly to a mounted steel belted radial proving this tool extremely useful if the need arose to disable a target vehicle in a hurry. An operator could flatten the four tires of a vehicle as fast as he could get around it swinging once at each sidewall. Cinderblocks were destroyed with one or two swings each time using either the hawk or spike sides. I was looking for an old cinderblock constructed building that was being demo'd to see of I could smash through one of the walls using the hawk exclusively to do it, but I couldn't locate one (the search continues…) However, there is little doubt in my mind after smashing numerous bricks, cinderblocks and 3" thick cement blocks, that if you needed an expedient firing port or a hasty vent or hole in the side of a brick or block construction, this tool could get it done. As far as defeating wooden doors or other interior construction, the K5 hawk-spike is a holy terror. After a while, it just got boring defeating interior construction materials. Ed did not make this tool to be of the fancy, "throwing tomahawk" breed, instead this thing is made to "kick ass and take names". During my testing, I rolled the edge of the hawk in two places about an inch apart from each other. I think it was from hitting embedded nails in old 4x4's I was chopping through while testing. Ed told me that if I experienced this type of "injury" to the hawk, that I was to simply file down the whole face of the edge a smidge and then resharpen. Well, I felt funny about doing away with the entire edge of the hawk as 85% of it was still plenty sharp, so I instead opted to just dress up the areas where I rolled it with a file. I am not a skilled craftsman when it comes to sharpening and working metal, but after a couple of minutes, I was able to regain a nice working edge on the face of the hawk and I went right back at it. I have quite a few trees in my backyard and set out to see what type of mayhem I could manufacture. While climbing up into one of them to take a few whacks at a hanging 3-inch limb, I found that the hawk worked splendidly as a field expedient ladder rung as I wedged it into a crook between two limbs. The hawk handled my 240 pounds with no trouble. I am brazen in my testing and hold back nothing, but for safety reasons, I must say I did not do any shear force testing with the hawk. I will comment on another unconfirmed test and evaluation that I read on the K5 hawk in which the tester attached a clevis to the rear of the tomahawk and was able to determine that as a field expedient grapnel, the hawk could hold better than 700 pounds. This is an incredible testament to these super rugged tools. My last test was to bring the Hawk-Spike to bear on an old Kevlar PASGT helmet I had. After two overhead strikes with the spike portion of the tool, I was able to penetrate right through the crown of the helmet. I think it would have plunged through on the first attempt but my first strike was slightly off and glanced a little. Needless to say, a solid contact with either the hawk or spike side of this tool would lead to calamitous bodily injury to an adversary.

I am beyond impressed with the K5 Tactical Hawk-Spike and it gets my highest recommendations as far as man portable hard target breach tools go. It goes without saying that as a self-defense weapon, the Hawk - Spike is devastating. I would very much suggest you take a look at all the great products including the different variations, including Hammer Poll and Fire/Rescue versions, of the K5 tomahawks at www.K5Tactical.com. This is an awesome tool that is "just what the doctor ordered" in many different facets of military and civilian emergency operations work.

Allan Garcia has been a police officer in Middletown, R.I. since 1988. Prior to that, he served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. He has been assigned to both his department and regionalized SWAT teams since 1991. Officer Garcia is a state and local level law enforcement firearms instructor, as well as a field training officer & C.P.R. /A.E.D. instructor. Officer Garcia has field experience in both patrol and tactical operations and is a graduate of numerous firearms and tactical schools to include offerings from Blackwater Training and Tony Blauer. He currently holds the rank of Detective with his agency. He is a member of the NTOA, IALEFI and RILETA. Officer Garcia enjoys reader's comments and can be reached via email at AJG3663@cox.net.

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