Review; Extrema Ratio Scout 1

This months review is of the Extrema Ratio Scout 1. 

I had always wanted an Extrema Ratio knife but most of their products are on the expensive side, are clearly designed for tactical applications or were too large for what I was looking for in a bushcraft knife. When the Scout came out in 2017 though I saw something a little more affordable, the right size for bushcraft tasks and it was marketed by some sellers as a knife suitable for bushcraft;

"The Extrema Ratio Scout 1 knife is their version of a bushcraft, camp, scouting knife but what separates it from all others is the exceptional build quality and pure, functional design." Heinnie Haynes

If you look at Extrema Ratios website though they describe the knife as a 'back up knife' and don't mention bushcraft at all. 

So what is a backup knife?

In the everyday sense it might just mean a knife that you have 'just in case' for opening boxes, cutting tape or string but really that's an edc knife. From a tactical point of view a backup knife might be carried in addition to a concealed firearm for situations when it's impossible to reach a primary weapon perhaps because a fight has become so close quarters that the firearm can't be bought to bear or because it's been lost or has malfunctioned. They might just be used to wound or scare an aggressor into backing off far enough to allow you to draw a gun or retreat yourself. 

It is described as a backup knife but Extrema Ratio also produce a more aggressive version of the scout called the Defender with a pronounced guard and deep blood groove. 

So whatever it's design rationale and intended function my intended use for the scout was as a bushcraft knife. I got one back in early 2017 so mine has been used over the last two years and I'm confident in the opinion that I have formed of it. It honestly hasn't seen much use in that time compared to a lot of my other knives and that is telling; there are reasons that it hasn't been used all that much. 

Probably because it was never designed to be in the hand for all that long the handle is not comfortable for extended use. The distinctive Extrema Ratio handle with the rectangular indent might be the product of work between Extrema Ratio and the Motor Sciences Department of the University of Perugia in Italy and the result is a knife handle design perfectly suited to the human anatomy. It’s a much skinnier handle than most survival knives but sits in the hand beautifully, however bushcraft knives were never designed to sit in the hand and when you start to work hard with this knife it does become quite uncomfortable. Because it is so skinny it starts to twist in the hand during extended use and cause hot spots on the pinky and ring finger and palm of the hand. 

The blade is perfect for feather stick making and other buschraft tasks but if you've got to make more than two or three you will start to feel the discomfort.

The handle is made from foreprene, a material common to most of Extrema Ratio's knives and is extremely hard wearing, the handle does also feature a small divot, I think it's really a divot to allow you to easily find the handle and grip it securely in the dark or under stressful conditions but it could also be pressed to use as a divot for a bow drill. I'm not really a fan of using a knife as the bearing block for a bow drill as the risk of using an unsheathed knife very close to your leg while you work your bow seems unnecessary to me. Additionally the heat of the friction between the drill and handle seems to have damaged my handle a bit and the divot is quite shallow and flat which causes the upper point of the drill to flatten quite quickly causing unnecessary friction.  

Unfortunately the handle lets down the other great features of the knife, the blade shape is reminiscent of Horace Kepharts knife and is perfect for woodcrafting and basic backwoods tasks. I did replace the sheath on mine though for a more 'rustic' option; while the MOLLE compatible sheath which can be reversed for left or right hand carry and which retains the knife with a retaining strap closed with two buttons would be great for tactical use attached to a plate carrier or webbing the belt loop is quite low down on the sheath so the handle protrudes quite a long way above the belt line and due to the angular exposed tang is very uncomfortable to carry. I replaced the sheath with a sharpshooter leather pouch sheath.

 

The scout is available with a black blade but the version I have has a stonewashed blade made from N690 stainless steel, the N690 steel is a great choice but can be had in other knives for significantly cheaper. The full length narrow tang is very strong and would be great to use in cold weather as it leaves no tang exposed and in constant contact with the hand. The texture on the first inch or so of the spine is not uncomfortable and does provide some extra grip but the swedge and 'false edge' along the spine from where the texture ends to the tip does make supporting cuts for whittling and wood craft very uncomfortable and leaves no sharp edge for striking a fire steel with. 

An excellent feature of the scout is the fact that with the removal of a single bolt the whole handle can be slipped off for cleaning or perhaps with a bit of ingenuity the fitting of a replacement handle which would be more comfortable.

Extrema Ratio Scout with handle removed. 

So while certain features of the scout make it a great choice for bushcrafting others unfortunately let it down badly and I can't really recommend it in the form that is comes from the factory. A few modifications would make it a very strong contender for bushcrafting but as it is there are much better choices. 

TODAY'S LESSON

I promised a lesson attached to every review; today's is a lesson on how I go about reviewing knives. To make sure I don't just ramble about a knifes performance I have specific criteria that I judge every knife on so that the reviews are consistent and relevant. All the reviews I do are based on basic bushcraft criteria although I don't limit the testing to 'bushcraft knives' at the end of the day whether a manufacturer chooses to use the word 'bushcraft' to market a knife or not doesn't make it more of a bushcraft knife than any other so some of the knives I test might be combat knives or hunting knives but the idea of a dedicated bushcraft knife is relatively new and knives obviously are not.

To show you what I do to test each knife that features in the monthly reviews here on the blog I've included to hand written notes I made about the Extrema Ratio Scout 1 as I used it over the last two years or so.

I will include these notes for each knife in future reviews. 

Adapt and improvise; knife mods

The Eickhorn Nordic Bushcraft (left) has been one of my favourite production bushcraft knives for about three years now. It's no longer in production but has really impressed me over the years and is still a knife I enjoy using. 

It does have drawbacks though, the aluminium handle scales make it very cold and uncomfortable to use in cold weather and as I visit Scandinavia fairly frequently and the cold never stops me from getting out and doing some bushcraft so I needed to do something about the handle. 

The original aluminium handle scales weren't uncomfortable other than in cold weather. 

I'm not a great craftsman and there is a very good reason that most of my knives are either production made or made for me by someone else but I particularly like this knife and didn't want a relatively minor issue like the handle material put me off using it. 

The handle scales were easy enough to remove with a torx bit, before my modifications the Eickhorn squirrel logo and designers name were visible on the ricasso but my new handle would cover them up allowing me to move my fingers closer to cutting edge, I also ground off the pronounced finger guard. I don't really like finger guards unless there is a very good reason for them, fighting knives or heavy duty chopping tools for example, they just get in the way for fine carving and most backwoods tasks. 

I chose a piece of burgundy micarta with white and red liners for the new handle.

I secured the handle with epoxy between the various layers and then pinned it all in place with dowels made out of box wood. 

The new handle does make the knife more comfortable to us in the cold but it doesn't make the knife itself any better. I prefer the way it looked before my modifications, the removal of the finger guard makes the handle look out of proportion to the rest of the knife but I do really like the layered handle and the way the liners turned out. 

I don't have the time, skill or patience to get the finish I would expect on a production knife on the micarta handles of my project but I did achieve what I wanted. 

I do like the way the handle liners look

The finger guard is gone and the ricasso is now partially covered by the new handle to allow me to grip it closer to the cutting edge. 

 While I can't boast the skill to make knives and knife handles to a particularly high standard I do enjoy tinkering with knife handles from time to time and personalising kit to meet your specific requirements is just a part of bushcraft.

 


I used to make a lot of knife handles, when I had more time on my hands and, and while my results were similarly mediocre to this project it was a lot of fun.

Some of the knife handles I made, over ten years ago now in my late teens and early 20's that I am most pleased with; this one is a small Bowie knife I made for my Dad with a handle of Puriri wood I brought back from New Zealand, brass and buffalo horn bolster and a home made mosaic pin.  

 A little whittling knife that I gave to my brother for his eighth birthday made of mahogany and rose. 

Mr Blade S-Hardy Knife Review

Produced by Lion Steel in Italy for Mr. Blade the S-Hardy is designed as a robust cutting and chopping tool, that will easily take on the toughest of jobs. The blade is of  D2 tool steel and is described by the manufacturer as a modified tanto-recurve shape. It's not truly a re-curve blade though as the point in the blade where the grind angle changes forms a sort of 'tooth' and isn't a completely smooth curve. It's a little reminiscent of the blade shape of the Tom Brown Tracker knife although the 'tooth' isn't as pronounced or aggressive. 

It's similarity with the Tracker is one of the reasons for this review, I am very critical of the design of the Tracker and really can't understand the rationale for the design or why an outdoorsman as celebrated as Tom Brown Jr. would advocate it's use when all my considerable outdoors experience indicates that it would be a poor choice for a backwoods tool. In my posts about the design process of my own bushcraft knife I wrote a little about the Tracker and other iconic bushcraft knives;

"As well as his [Tom Brown Jr's] incredible, unbelievable, claims about his experiences I just can't take anyone seriously who puts their name on a knife like this and claims that it is anything other than a heavy duty chopping tool. It's massively heavy and features a weird dog tooth which seems to have been adopted in a few other knife patterns since it first appeared on the tracker. This feature interrupts the edge of the knife meaning the section closest to the handle can really only be used for push cuts, a knife with a continuous curve or even a strait section which seamlessly curves up at the point doesn't snag on the material you are cutting and is easy to sharpen, unlike the tracker. The saw on the back is a gimmick and doesn't cut properly although this is explained away by the designers, manufacturers and fans saying that it was only ever designed to produce clean square edged notches for trap making. My questions to them are first; show me what use those perfectly square notches are? Second; if you are skilled with a knife aren't those notches just as easy to make with the blade of a knife? Third; why add a feature that detracts from the overall utility of the knife by making it uncomfortable to apply pressure to the back of the blade?

So you can see that I'm not a fan of the Tracker, nor of the feature that the S-Hardy shares with it, but I wanted to see how this particular knife performs and to try a new knife company that I hadn't heard of before. 

First of all it  came in a box with a very cool logo

It comes with a very well made leather sheath which honestly is a little fancy for my taste, I like plain sheaths and the white stitching and two tone leather is a little decadent for me, also the retention strap for the handle is eventually going to be cut through where the swell at the front of the blade catches it every time the knife is drawn and sheathed. With the slightly unusual blade shape it's not a knife that will fit in an aftermarket pouch sheath which is often what happens to my knives like the Extrema Ratio Scout 1 which I re-sheathed in a Sharpshooter pouch sheath rather than the nylon MOLLE sheath it arrived with. 

You can see that the 'dog tooth' section of the blade runs across the retention strap every time the knife is drawn it wont take long for it to be cut through entirely. 

It is an attractive package though and I can't complain about it's performance, it feather sticks well and it's 5.27 inch blade is great for battoning and light chopping. 

The weight forward blade makes light chopping duties a breeze, much easier than it would be with similar sized knives with a more standard blade shape. However where it excels at chopping, and I need to reiterate that it excels at LIGHT CHOPPING, if you want to really chop get an axe. By light chopping I mean chopping things between a few mm's to an inch or two across or possibly using a baton to drive the blade through some larger wood but it is NOT as people claim of knives like the Tom Brown Tracker a substitute for an axe or even comparable with the cutting power of a small hatchet.

While the S-Hardy is good for the heavier tasks required of a bushcraft or survival knife it does become uncomfortable after extended use, not so uncomfortable that it's a major problem but the handle cut out toward the back of the handle irritates and fatigues my pinky finger and the palm of my hand. I get the same issue during extended fine carving tasks and it falls down in that area as the false top edge makes it difficult and uncomfortable to apply pressure to the top of the blade during fine carving. Also the longer blade makes it difficult to span the knife with your hand and use you thumb on top of the blade to support cuts. 

While the 'modified tanto' shape does bring the knife to a sharp point, something I look for in every knife I use, the blade quickly broadens out and it quickly goes from a fine point to over an inch thick so it really can't do the fine carving that I consider an acid test of bushcraft knives. 

One of these 'acid test' tasks I do with all the knives you'll see tested here is to carve a netting needle and unfortunately the S-Hardy did not perform well in this regard, mainly because of that fairly broad blade which levers apart the wood fibres as you try to make small cuts on the inside edges of the needle;

 It was almost impossible to put a smooth finish on the inside angles and edges of the needle and the more I tried, especially down at the base of the needle the wood just split ruining my efforts. The needle was functional but not tidy and would have been a pain to use as the rough edges would have caught and snagged on the fibres you use to make a net.

I can't fault the quality or the choice of materials for this knife, although I'm less impressed with the sheath for reasons I've already stated. I like D2 steel in general and can't fault it even though I'm fully aware that there are more impressive steels out there. The handle can be uncomfortable as I've mentioned and it will cause you some discomfort if you use it for extended periods and it really isn't a fine carving tool where it excels is light chopping, battoning and much to my surprise feather sticking. I was concerned that the dog tooth edge would get in the way when feather sticking but there is just enough blade length between the choil and tooth to get decent feathers but you won't get the use of the full length of the blade when feathering or carving due to that tooth which in a more general purpose knife is a bit of a waste of a blade. 

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Because we've dwelt on the S-Hardys ability to make feather sticks todays lesson linked with this review will be on feather sticks;

Feather sticks are simply aids to lighting a fire, without small tinder such as dry grass, matchstick thin dry twigs, dry nettle and hogweed stems etc... you need to make fine tinder. This is particularly important in winter when dry material is often sodden or buried in snow. Select some dead dry wood, this will often be found on dead limbs or hung up in trees, if you have a saw cut it to ten to twelve inch lengths, if not you can use a batton to nibble through it with your knife or as it's dry break it against a tree or rock.

 Now split it with your axe or hatchet or batton through it lengthwise with your knife, for perfect feather sticks aim to split your wood down into pieces roughly an inch square. Now you can feather each of these pieces and you will need a pile of them to get a decent fire going, half a dozen or so would be ideal. You should be aiming to get the remaining wood so thin that the fat end of the feather stick will light from the feathers, you don't want to just burn off the feathers you want the whole lot to catch light and form the basis of your fire. 

One of those 'model' feather sticks that you can find online or in some poorly written and researched survival guides, these curls would all burn off before the rest of the wood catches and looking at how curly they aren't this is probably made of wet wood. Wet wood doesn't curl nicely like dry wood does. 

Image b R HORNE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Char1.jpg, Public Domain, Link

To achieve good feather sticks I carve feathers on three side of the wood, some say you should only do it one but ultimately it doesn't matter. You have two choices when doing the actual carving, you can brace the wood and move the knife along it's length and you do want to carve along the whole length of the wood, just because all the feathers curl up at one end doesn't mean you start carving at that end you need a dense mass of curls and to get that you start carving at the tip and let the curls form at the bottom. Alternatively you can fix your knife in one place and draw the wood against it. I prefer the first method as I can employ the whole length of the blade which allows me to form curls more easily and use the full curve of the knife blade.

Lighting a fire with feather sticks, most of the curls have already burned away but the fire is still burning because the sticks were whittled thin enough

Feather sticks on the banks of a frozen lake in Sweden

For the full fire lighting process including feather stick making have a look at this video of mine from a few years ago;

                                    

So that's it for this months review, the Mr. Blade S-Hardy and feather sticks, I hope you enjoyed it and you can look forward to a more detailed lesson about feather sticks as we build on the Bushcraft Basics pages. 

EMERGENCY POST; The Offensive Weapons Bill

This is an urgent plea for people to sign the petition to remove article 15 from the proposed Offensive Weapons Bill in this post I will also address the element of the Bill that proposes the banning of knives on FE college campuses. As a practitioner and teacher of bushcraft, a professional deer manager and a lecturer at FE colleges where I train game, wildlife and countryside management students knives and bladed tools are an essential part of my every day life and as the oldest metal tool known to man why should their legitimate and essential uses be criminalised?

Before bronze, copper and  steel our ancestors used flint and bone tools. 

 I put a letter in the post today to my MP and want to share the questions I asked in that letter here, I think they are relevant questions to the issue and it's a shame that a knee jerk reaction to knife crime is going to penalise law abiding users and makers of knives and tools without really affecting knife crime.

So here are my questions;

Does the government have evidence that knives ordered online and shipped to residential addresses are being used in criminal activity and does that evidence, if any, support this aspect of the Bill?

I find it hard to believe that this will in any way affect knife crime. Stabbings are most likely committed with kitchen knives taken from kitchens or bought very cheaply in person by people who are, or appear to be, over eighteen. Additionally screw drivers and other pointed implements are as ‘offensive’ in terms of their ability to wound or be wielded as a weapon and are far more accessible to someone intending to cause harm than a knife is. I feel that this approach will not affect knife crime and is just an attempt to be seen to do something about knife crime. It will unfortunately have a crippling effect on small businesses and craftsmen who specialise in making and selling knives and other bladed tools or sporting equipment online where local demand does not justify a permanent retail presence.

I received all these knives in the post the top one is a custom made knife by a Texas based custom knife maker by the name of William Collins and I certainly can't travel to Texas to pick one up. The centre knife is only available from one Finland based retailer and is not stocked by any brick and mortar shop in the UK, neither is the bottom knife. None of these can be obtained without postal delivery. Do I now have to complicate my purchase of these TOOLS by having to travel a long way, incurring significant inconvenience and additional cost to pick them up from a 'collection centre'? Also what if I wanted to send equipment for a bushcraft course ahead to a venue by courier  will this also be prevented? 

As a freelance bushcraft and survival skills instructor will this new legislation now mean that I can’t order knives and tools, that I provide for my students to use on my bushcraft courses, online and have them delivered to my home which is the same address that I conduct business from?

As well as knives I use other wood working tools in my teaching and practice of bushcraft, these particular tools were made in The Ukraine and I could only have received them in the post, why should I or other people practising traditional skills professionally or recreationally  be penalised, who is going to buy one of these for the purpose of committing pre-meditated crime? 

If, as I suspect it will, this new Bill does prohibit people who work from home from having knives and other bladed tools delivered to home addresses how does the government reconcile the loss of earnings and inconvenience I, and many others, will suffer with the forecast benefits of this Bill?

How will the system of receiving mail ordered knives now work? Presumably picking up these items from post offices or approved collection centres will incur an additional cost somewhere? Is it fair to pass on this cost to law abiding people ordering, making or selling specialist tools online? Especially if there is no data to suggest that mail order knives are being used in crimes.

Additionally I imagine there will be some sort of data collection and record of who has purchased and collected knives or other bladed tools including a record of their contact details and address carried out when people collect their mail order knives, why should this be?

Surely that is an invasion of privacy for individuals and effectively licences knives and provides police and government with precise information on the personal details of people who have purchased knives for legitimate and lawful purposes. I personally would feel that my privacy is being invaded to have all these details recorded and kept especially as it would not be by an official body such as the police force but by a ‘collection centre’, perhaps a post office, why should they have access to the information? Especially if I was purchasing very expensive handmade or collectable knives why should other people know that? Surely then my security and property is placed at risk? 

Also will we start to see cases here as have been seen in The States with the Starbucks debacle? I’m sure you are aware of that incident but just in case; the police were called because several black gentlemen were sitting in a Starbucks restaurant waiting for a friend and hadn’t ordered anything at the time. Are similar things going to occur now in the UK with knives, will ‘collection centre’ employees refuse to hand over the legal property of a person collecting a mail order knife because they don’t like the way they look, maybe I will pick up a package during a hard day’s work, my hair might be full of sawdust I might smell of camp fire or be wearing scruffy clothes will my knife be denied me or will the police be called because someone has profiled me a certain way just because I have been working hard out of doors? This all seems a bit like an Orwellian nightmare but I don’t think it is an unrealistic forecast of what may come as a result of this Bill.

How can the government justify this particular aspect of the Bill with the fact that it will effectively drive many craftsmen and artisan knife makers, who operate almost exclusively by mail order, out of business, or at least subject them to crippling additional costs?

These beautiful handmade tools from UK based craftsmen are essential tools in my work and I take great pleasure in having quality tools at my disposal. Because I use them every day I like to have tools that are comfortable to use and built to a high standard that I can trust. But craftsmen who operate on a small  scale will no longer be able to ship knives to their customers under the new Bill and will also not be able to order bladed tools to be delivered to their places of work because they often work from home. Does that also mean that  makers who do not heat treat their own blades will not be able to ship blades to be heat treated or receive them back from heat treatment in the post?

What benefits and reduction in crime are the government expecting to see as a direct result of the banning of the delivery of knives to residential properties?

With regard to the banning of knives on Further Education premises: FE colleges teach many specialist courses which include the use of knives and edged tools, additionally the college I teach at has a 360 acre farm where I train students in game and wildlife management and where I also fill the role of gamekeeper. I require a knife several times a day to do this work and we provide knives and edged tools such as billhooks to students during lessons as they are essential tools as students engage in vocational countryside management training particularly for topics such as woodland management and green woodwork.

Will this proposed bill ban the vocationally relevant use of knives on college campuses?

If so how are my students to complete their studies and take part in the full scope of vocational training?

Does a college’s farm and countryside estate count as part of the ‘campus’ for the purposes of a knife ban?

Are employees of a college’s farm therefore prohibited from carrying or using knives in line with their work?

I have taught land-based students for years at three different land based colleges and have observed them using knives, tools and guns and have NEVER seen a student under my tuition behave irresponsibly with these tools. I realise that the students I deal with are a very different group of people from those who are involved in violent gangs and urban knife crime but responsible people must not be penalised in cases like this, especially where this Bill does not address the root cause of knife crime.

So that's my rant and some hopefully thought provoking questions about this new proposed Bill that really needs to be thought out a bit more. 

Sign the petitions submit expert evidence if you are able to during the consultation period on this Bill and hopefully we can end up with a solution that really does address knife crime and doesn't penalise the legal use of knives and tools. 

CRKT Saker Review

About eighteen months ago Columbia River Knife and Tool kindly sent me their Saker bushcraft knife to feature in a series of articles I was writing for The Countrymans Weekly on bushcraft and outdoor knife skills. The Saker is currently their sole offering in the 'bushcraft genre' and on paper looks like it would be close to the perfect bushcraft knife. However in practice it proved to be a bit of a disappointment. 

The specs as cited by the CRKT website today describe the Saker as follows;

Blade Length 4.53" (115.06 mm)
Blade Edge Plain
Blade Steel 1075 Carbon Steel, 50-55 HRC
Blade Finish Brush
Blade Thickness 0.14" (3.56 mm)
Weight 5.3 oz
Handle Walnut
Style Fixed Blade Knife w/Sheath
Overall Length 9.19" (233.43 mm)

I wasn't fully aware of these specification when I received the knife, particularly the rockwell hardness of the blade steel and it is that which proved to be a disappointment, before I explain why it will be important for you to understand what rockwell hardness is, so that will be today's lesson;

Rockwell Hardness

The ‘hardness’ of a knifes blade is measured on the Rockwell Scale, which measures hardness by applying first a small load and then a larger load to the steel and measuring the difference between the indentations. When testing knife steel the Rockwell hardness is denoted by the letters ‘HRC’ and the indentations are made with a 120° spheroconical diamond indenter. 

A Rockwell hardness tester by; Three-quarter-ten - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Knives will generally have an HRC of between 55 and 65, the higher the number the harder the steel, but my requirement for a bushcraft knife is for something in the 58-60 range. Much harder than that and although the edge will be very hard and won’t dull quickly it will be more likely to chip under hard use. Much softer and rather than chipping it may roll and blunt very quickly. Knowing the Rockwell hardness of a knife is important so you can pick a knife that is in this ‘sweet spot’ to avoid picking a knife that blunts too fast and or is too hard to sharpen in the field or that is so hard it chips.

If we go back to the Sakers Specs you will see that the HRC of the knife is 50 and 55 which is very soft, even before I found this out though it was clear that the blade steel was very soft. Even after very light use, carving willow for example, there would be significant rolls on the edge and it would have become very blunt. While it is important to strike a balance in blade steel between it being brittle and too hard to sharpen and good edge retention the ease of sharpening this particular knife was not worth the inconvenience of it blunting so often and so severely.

The grind may exacerbate the rolling and blunting of the knife; It is marketed as a Scandinavian grind, a grind I highly recommend and which is perfect for working wood, you can read more about them in our 'knife' page which is part of our bushcraft basics series.

Scandinavian grinds are normally no more than a third of the height of the grind like on this Casstrom knife, the high grind of the Saker might make it even more fragile. 

However Scandinavian grinds normally start at a quarter or a third of the way up the blade from the edge, this one you can see strait away is at least half the height of the blade making the edge angle very fine and more susceptible to rolling and blunting. 

Even light work like making notches in relatively soft wood caused the Saker to blunt very quickly. 

This soft steel is a real shame, and the 1075 steel for it's retail price of over £100 seems very steep. If it wasn't for the soft steel the design would be near perfect. The sharply pointed blade is really useful for whittling and carving, the handle is incredibly comfortable and the overall shape and design is very pleasing to the eye.

The CRKT Saker on the left features a much more ergonomic handle than the slab sided micarta handles of the Camillus Bushcrafter and Tops C.U.B on the right but they are both superior knives purely because of the well heat treated and excellent quality blades. 

If it was available in a decent steel and with a proper heat treat and hardness I'm sure this knife would become one of my favourites but as it is I dropped it from the Countrymans weekly articles after attempting just a couple of tasks with it as I can't recommend this knife at all. 

I've tried to find it's redeeming features but the quality of a knifes blades is a make or break criteria, however ergonomic, aesthetically pleasing or attractive a knife is if the blade doesn't perform then it's not worth having and mine hasn't been used now since I discovered these issues, it's just not worth the hassle of using because it will need sharpening in a matter of minutes. 

There are some other features of this knife which the designer seems to make a big deal of, infact the little 'tool' that comes with it gets more air time in the video CRKT released about the designers 'vision' for the knife than the knife it'self;

I'm really not sure why the little 'tool' got so much screen time, it's a gimmick and serves no useful purpose, yes you can strike a firesteel with it but you can do that with the back of your knife, a key or a piece of broken glass. The serrations are pointless and it's just the kind of little add on that impresses people who are easily impressed or who have limited or no experience. The sheath also is a bit of a disappointment, the leather is heavy and seems to be good quality but it is roughly stitched and the retention of the knife in the sheath is poor. 

In short the Saker looks the part but fails to deliver, I don't know if that is because corners were cut in steel selection and heat treating to reduce manufacture costs or if the makers and designers sincerely thought that an HRC of less than 55 was justifiable and desirable. If the former is true then I can blame the failure of this particular knife on corporate greed, if it's the latter then it is unfortunately down to  a complete lack of understanding of the requirements of a hard working outdoors knife by the designer and maker. 

A great disappointment. 

Survival Knives with Built in Survival Kits

Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo is perhaps the most famous person to use one of these 'Survival Knives' but are they any good? 

By Yoni S.Hamenahem - Yoni S.Hamenahem, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Generally I would say NO! the kind of survival kit that can be crammed into the handle of a knife is likely to be so small as to be fairly ineffective. It might have just enough in it to improvise a bit of fishing kit or make a single snare, light a fire (which may well be a life saver), contain a scalpel blade for skinning (although you already have a knife so why bother with a scalpel blade), or a single plaster dress a tiny wound. So while none of those things are useless you would be far better off having those things on your person because in my opinion you are just as likely to loose your knife in a survival situation as anything else. Really I suppose the kit in one of these knives is meant to be a last resort, you wouldn't willingly head off with nothing but what was contained in the handle of your knife (unless you really wanted to test your skills) and would probably have (SHOULD DEFINITELY HAVE) proper, full size, kit as well as what's in your knife should you choose a knife of this type. 

These knives are generally weaker than I am comfortable with though, the handles of the knives you will often find on Amazon and Ebay will definitely break and realistically will probably be made of appalling steel that certainly won't arrive with a decent edge and probably won't ever take a decent edge either, these knives will DEFINITELY break even moderate use putting your main tool out of action and posing a significant risk of injury. 

There are some that seem robust enough to use;

The Cold Steel Survival Edge is a no frills affordable hollow handled survival knife that as well as coming with a good sharp blade contains a small survival kit and houses a fire steel in the sheath. It is remarkably robust, almost miraculously robust, I can't quite work out how it's so strong without a full tang. Other hollow handled survival knives are far too fragile unless you move well up the price range and go for something very expensive. Even then your options will be limited and I would suggest your money is better spent else where but for the £30 you'd spent on this cold steel offering you are basically getting a hollow handled Mora. It wont break the bank and it will perform just fine. The one complaint I have about it is the handle is bit too fat, it's down to the perfectly cylindrical shape perhaps but it just feels a bit uncomfortable. Maybe I have small hands but I can handle a British army 'survival' knife which has a notoriously large handle.   

Another option is this style of knife which does not have a hollow handle but comes with a survival kit in a waterproof container attached to the sheath. In this case a Marco Polo survival knife which isn't made of great steel and has a very oddly placed bottle opener instead of a choil (not that I'm a fan of finger choils on knives, I'll explain why in a later post) but the decision to add a bottle opener there seems very odd. This design does mean I'm not sacrificing strength for a hollow handle though and the specially designed sheath contains compass and a substantial survival kit as well as being engraved with morse code and a ruler. 

The survival kit comes in this waterproof clear plastic case and contains matches, sharpening stone, plasters, fishing kit, magnifying glass and a few other odds and ends. However once you have removed it from the sheath the knife wont go back in and be held securely. But again everything in this kit is so small that it is of very limited use. 

My take on the all in one knife/survival kit package is a little different, as I've said I think a lot of the items stashed in the smaller kits are a bit too small to be useful but this kit has everything of a useful size. Instead of two plasters in a little plastic bag the pouch on the front of this sheath contains a a CAT tourniquet. If your wound only needs a plaster to fix it it's not serious enough to worry about but this will take care of large wounds that really might be a 'survival' situation. 

There is also an extra large ferrocium rod contained in this sheath, instead of using your three matches from your survival kit that have been beat up in their container for goodness knows how long and have all fallen apart to hopefully light one fire, you can use this to light ten thousand fires.
The small knife is a TOPS mini eagle combining a strait edge and a small section of serrations for tasks that the large British Army survival knife is too big for; skinning, food prep, fine carving etc...

TODAY'S LESSON; Forming Kydex

Kydex is a popular choice for knife sheath, I particularly like it because it won't ever soak up blood, grease or other contaminant and become a hygiene risk, this is particularly important for me as I often use my knives to process deer carcasses which will then be sold into the human food chain. 

Chicago Screws

Making your own kydex sheath is relatively simple with a heat gun, or even with the heat from the oven or toaster if you are careful. It is a thermo setting plastic so as you apply heat it can be shaped to your requirements. It doesn't take long to soften though so be careful not to ruin it by heating it for too long or burning it. 

Once softened you have two basic options for a knife sheath, you can fold it and fasten it down one edge, this style of sheath is known as a pancake sheath. The other is to take two sheets of kydex and fasten them together, like the sheath I made for my British Army Survival Knife. The kydex can be fastened together with Chicago screws. 

To form the kydex to your knife so you get a secure 'snap' fit you can press it onto the knife as it cools and regains it rigidity. I always wrap some cardboard around a knife when I do this and fasten it with tape otherwise the kydex will form so snugly around the knife that you wont be able to draw it again. Trying to press it with something solid like a book of plank of wood wont work you will need something soft which hugs the form you are trying to create, I use an old foam camping mat folded triple which I have stapled to a piece of plywood.  

These sheaths can then be attached to belts or molle webbing. My British Army Survival Knife Sheath has two strips of Kydex along the back which I then attached to a Maxpedition drop leg panel with TacTies. Smaller sheath can be fitted with belt loops of clips to attach directly to a belt. 

ON WITH THE REVIEW

If I'm headed out into the wood by choice I'll take all the tools
I want or need, some people will tell you that's heavy but a
full kit with axe, whittling knife, folding saw and main
knife probably wont weigh more than five kilos, if you
can't manage that then you need to worry about more
than a survival kit

If you are in a real survival situation you are just as likely to have access to the bigger kit than the smaller and by that I mean almost zero chance of having either. Choosing to go into the wilderness an use your skills is another matter though so you may as well use the kit you really want to rather than trying to find a knife that does (or contains) everything. So my personal choice would be not to take any of these things pictured above take a bushcraft knife, an axe a folding saw, a ferrocium rod, a full size first aid kit, if you want to go fishing take a rod and spinners, if you want to catch food using traps take some snares or a rifle. 

My current first pick for a main bushcraft/woods knife.
The Eikhorn Nordik Bushcraft

If you're really in a survival situation innovation is likely to be your best and only ally.  

Take a look at what is in your pockets right now because if in the next ten second's you find yourselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that's all you're going to have.

A typical EDC; watch, butane lighter wrapped in duck tape, wallet (inside the wallet is a Readyman survival card), pocket knife (a griplock by Boker plus), case of plasters. 

Or think of the cliche crashed plane survival scenario what have you got in your pockets, now deduct from that any pocket knives because you wouldn't have those on the plane add a slight chance that you will locate your hold luggage which may or may not contain some survival aids and your best chance is again innovation. Making something out of nothing and the most of what you've got. 

So are 'survival' knives any good? if they are well made they may not be worse than any other knife but ultimately that's all they are; any other knife, the survival kits are fairly poor and need to be supplemented by primary gear. If you have one in a real survival situation then thats far better than nothing but if you are practising bushcraft recreationally they would be far from my first choice.