A long time ago I saved up and bought an original Buckmaster - it was designed for use by the Navy Seals. It was advertised as the ultimate survival knife and as a youngster I thought I should own one at some stage of my life.
I think it cost me about 80 pounds in Hong Kong and was matt black. It looked like a beast - today might even be classed as a zombie knife. I thought it would be good for Brunei's jungles and after I had arrived there I took it for a trial run.
The round handle was much heavier than the blade, completely unbalanced, and had a very rough grip like extreme sand paper on it. After chopping a pole for my hammock bed, my right arm was numb from the shock-wave going up to my armpit and my grip weakened completely. After cutting just one tree! I didn't think of batoning back in those early days.
Then the knife kept spinning in the palm of my hand thereafter and all the skin came off. I managed to finish setting up the pole-bed but the damage was done. Even with gloves my hand just couldn't grip the knife properly anymore and it ended up being put in a box, never to be used again.
Looking back on those times, my hands were soft and I didn't think to add rubber inner tubing or paracord to the handle. The knife was impressive to look at though but that's not what I bought it for. Maybe it was better for slashing through tangled fishing nets underwater but I reverted to using my Wilky Type D knife from then on as well as the issued Martindale golok, with an improved edge.
I gave the Buckmaster to a good friend. No regrets there, but I recently had a minor stuttering moment when I saw a second hand one sold online for around USD$700..
Am glad to have owned one and got that out of my system. Sad though not to have considered ways to try and improve it. I had much to learn about practical jungle knives back then.