This is the somewhat lengthily-named CRKT Black Woods Chogan T-Hawk Outdoor Survival Tomahawk, but for the sake of brevity we’ll just refer to it as the CRKT Survival Tomahawk from here on out.
Each one of these tomahawks has an axehead made from 1055 carbon steel paired with a Tennessee hickory wood handle and a full-grain leather sheath to keep that cutting edge safely tucked away when it’s not in use.
Each one of these tomahawks has an axe head made from 1055 carbon steel paired with a Tennessee hickory wood handle and a full-grain leather sheath to keep that cutting edge safely tucked away when it’s not in use.
History Speedrun: Columbia River Knife & Tool – CRKT
Columbia River Knife & Tool, better known simply as CRKT, was founded in April of 1994 by Rod Bremer and Paul Gillespie, two former Kershaw Knives employees who set up shop in Tualatin, Oregon with a desire to partner with the world’s best custom knifemakers and bring their designs to market at prices everyday buyers could actually afford. It was an early bet on what the industry now calls the custom-to-production model, and it would define the company’s modus operandi for the next three decades.
The first few years were modest, but everything changed at the 1997 SHOT Show. There, CRKT debuted the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple), a compact folding knife designed by Ed Halligan. The new knife was an immediate hit, with demand reportedly far outstripping initial production estimates and forcing a significant ramp-up in manufacturing capability. The K.I.S.S. went on to win the 1998 Imported Knife of the Year award and it proved that the custom-to-production concept had serious commercial legs.
CRKT’s next landmark design was the M16 series, a family of tactical folders designed by Harold “Kit” Carson, a former U.S. Army Sergeant Major. Introduced in the late-1990s and made in a number of variations, the M16 became one of the most widely carried knives among American servicemen and women during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Over the following decades, CRKT built one of the deepest designer rosters in the modern production knife world, collaborating with makers like Ken Onion, Allen Elishewitz, Flavio Ikoma, Lucas Burnley, Jesper Voxnaes, and James Williams.
The company also built up a portfolio of proprietary technologies, including the Outburst assisted-opening mechanism, the Deadbolt Lock, and Veff-Serrations, and expanded its materials range to include D2, 14C28N, and CPM MagnaCut steels alongside handle materials like G10, Micarta, and titanium.
CRKT remains independently and family-owned – founder Rod Bremer later moved into chairman and advisory roles, with Mark Schreiber serving as president. In 2024, the company celebrated its 30th anniversary with the release of the Soldotna, a U.S. made fixed blade designed by longtime collaborator Russ Kommer and manufactured in partnership with Vegas Forge and TOPS Knives.
This is the CRKT’s Woods Chogan T-Hawk is a tomahawk designed for general campsite duties, it has a hot-forged 1055 carbon steel head, a Tennessee hickory handle, and a rather affordable $65 USD price tag.
The CRKT Survival Tomahawk
This is the CRKT’s Woods Chogan T-Hawk is a tomahawk designed for general campsite duties, it has a hot-forged 1055 carbon steel head, a Tennessee hickory handle, and a rather affordable $65 USD price tag.
The tomahawk measures in at 19 inches overall with a 3.5 inch cutting edge, and the head runs 0.52 inches through its thickest section – the total overall weight is 1.99 lbs. The poll (the back of the axe head) is squared off into a hammer face, so it will drive tent stakes and splitting wedges as well as splitting kindling.
1055 is a plain-carbon steel containing roughly 0.5 to 0.6% carbon, and it has been the standard choice for axes and tomahawks for a long time. It takes an edge easily, tolerates impacts without chipping the way a harder tool steel might, and can be reground in the field with basic equipment.
The design of the Woods Chogan T-Hawk comes from Ryan Johnson, the bladesmith behind RMJ Tactical in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Johnson took up blacksmithing at age 12 and began hand-forging and selling tomahawks in his teens, after his father gave him a Boy Scout craftbook with a whole section on the subject.
His earnings paid his way through an engineering degree at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and by 2001 he was a mechanical engineer and bladesmith with a reputation for historically accurate reproductions. This was when a group of Special Forces personnel commissioned him to build a tactical axe capable of punching through a Kevlar helmet. Because reasons. The result was the Eagle Talon, the first all-steel integral tomahawk.
The tomahawk measures in at 19 inches overall with a 3.5 inch cutting edge, and the head runs 0.52 inches through its thickest section – the total overall weight is 1.99 lbs. The poll (the back of the axe head) is squared off into a hammer face, so it will drive tent stakes and splitting wedges as well as splitting kindling.
Johnson formally founded RMJ Tactical in 2005 with Richard Carmack to supply tools to troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. RMJ graduated from Chattanooga’s business INCubator program and moved into a larger facility in 2016. By then it had begun pushing tomahawk education – the case that a tomahawk is a general-purpose implement rather than strictly a weapon.
The CRKT Woods Chogan T-Hawk is now available to buy direct from the official CRKT Amazon store here with an MSRP of $59.99 USD – that’s a few dollars less than the $65 it normally retails for.
Images courtesy of CRKT
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