- Joined
- Oct 25, 2004
- Messages
- 3,178
Things are kind of hectic at work right now. The Camp is due to be decommed very shortly and the workload is shifting to the new facility. In the meantime, people are shooting at both ranges (sometimes at the same time), we're still woefully undermanned and underbudgeted, and we're trying to move our stuff out of the Camp. It's been a rare day in recent times where not much was going on.
Thursday was one of those days. I just happened to have the Salyan and GRS available. Neither had been sharpened. They were going to sink or swim based on the factory edge alone.
It's a bit late in the game to be worrying about trees being in the way of things but a young pine had to be moved regardless. Gunnerike utilized the GRS to drop the pine. I used the Salyan to limb it and buck about half of it.
Partway through:
Kind of hard to see on account of the sun's angle (it was early morning) but the Salyan was earning its keep.
The 22" GRS, doing what it does best:
Besides its weight, there were no problems in using it to buck this tree. (Green pine and all, there should not have been any problems.) The Salyan handled limbing just fine. Both jobs were almost too easy.
Both together:
Well, now we had a bunch of sections of green pine and a lot of branches. Given time, the pine would make decent firewood. What to do with some of those branches? Simple: camoflage NSF's HMMWV.
We should have used all the branches. The NSF folks must have remembered where they parked their HMMWV, as they had no problem finding it.
Afterwards, a bit of playing around with the GRS resulted in a section of gutter being inadvertantly removed from the rangehouse. As it was going to have to be thrown out (and the rangehouse itself would be bulldozed in less than two weeks) it was decided that cutting it up into sections would make things easier. The GRS had no problems in processing aluminum.
Someone had placed a bottle of water in the freezer to cool it down more quickly. Unfortunately, they'd done that several days ago. The quickest method for removing frozen water from a bottle is to cut it in half and I knew the perfect tool for the job. We didn't have a cutting stand available but the railing surrounding the rangehouse's porch would do. Unfortunately, in my efforts for a clean cut I used too much force and wound up getting a piece of the rangehouse itself; the green on the tip of the GRS is paint.
Neither edge suffered any damage from the day's activities. In the case of the Salyan I wasn't surprised as it had only been cutting green pine with no ground strikes. (There were some knots, but still, it's green pine.) The GRS caught some ground strikes, plenty of knots, a bottle of ice, a section of aluminum tubing, and a couple of other things besides. My picture of it isn't the best but you get the point.
Scuffing on the sides and plenty of sap - that is it.
Speaking of the sap, after processing the pine tree I was demonstrating a field expediant method for dealing with sap (rubbing dirt on it) and it got the tip of my left ring finger. I swear that it was not sharp enough to do that when I'd begun the day's work...but I have a history with the 22" GRS and I will be more careful in the future.
Both were made by Bura. Both showed an excellent heat treat. I dealt with the Salyan in another thread; the GRS had a neat, even hardened zone that extended past the sweet spot on either side by a good margin. I didn't hit it with a file but my jobs didn't do a damned thing to it so it's hard enough, I guess. Both sharpened up very well, with a burr so mild that it was more seen than felt and could easily be removed by a swipe of the finger. The Salyan in particular is, IMO, the sharpest khuk in my house. It took an edge that scares me. The GRS was not far behind.
Good stuff, all around. I wish that the karda and chakmak for the Salyan were larger. (They're plenty big with the GRS.) I'm convinced that the GRS is too large to really be usable in most circumstances; it drags your belt (and pants) down, the chape stabs your leg if you kneel, and it's heavy enough that swinging it for a bit forces the blood out of your arm, necessitating a break and some shaking to regain sensation. It's also very difficult to control (nearly impossible to control, really) and I have no doubt that it will hurt you badly if it gets away from you. (The one time one got away from me it didn't hurt me too badly but I was lucky. It should have.) I don't see this one going out camping or hunting with me. If you're not into power tools and the felling axe is missing, though, this will do the trick.
The Salyan? For a display piece, it does a damned fine job. I felt bad using it until I started swinging it. It's a user in disguise. Everything a 15" khuk should be, and more.
Thursday was one of those days. I just happened to have the Salyan and GRS available. Neither had been sharpened. They were going to sink or swim based on the factory edge alone.
It's a bit late in the game to be worrying about trees being in the way of things but a young pine had to be moved regardless. Gunnerike utilized the GRS to drop the pine. I used the Salyan to limb it and buck about half of it.
Partway through:
Kind of hard to see on account of the sun's angle (it was early morning) but the Salyan was earning its keep.
The 22" GRS, doing what it does best:
Besides its weight, there were no problems in using it to buck this tree. (Green pine and all, there should not have been any problems.) The Salyan handled limbing just fine. Both jobs were almost too easy.
Both together:
Well, now we had a bunch of sections of green pine and a lot of branches. Given time, the pine would make decent firewood. What to do with some of those branches? Simple: camoflage NSF's HMMWV.
We should have used all the branches. The NSF folks must have remembered where they parked their HMMWV, as they had no problem finding it.
Afterwards, a bit of playing around with the GRS resulted in a section of gutter being inadvertantly removed from the rangehouse. As it was going to have to be thrown out (and the rangehouse itself would be bulldozed in less than two weeks) it was decided that cutting it up into sections would make things easier. The GRS had no problems in processing aluminum.
Someone had placed a bottle of water in the freezer to cool it down more quickly. Unfortunately, they'd done that several days ago. The quickest method for removing frozen water from a bottle is to cut it in half and I knew the perfect tool for the job. We didn't have a cutting stand available but the railing surrounding the rangehouse's porch would do. Unfortunately, in my efforts for a clean cut I used too much force and wound up getting a piece of the rangehouse itself; the green on the tip of the GRS is paint.
Neither edge suffered any damage from the day's activities. In the case of the Salyan I wasn't surprised as it had only been cutting green pine with no ground strikes. (There were some knots, but still, it's green pine.) The GRS caught some ground strikes, plenty of knots, a bottle of ice, a section of aluminum tubing, and a couple of other things besides. My picture of it isn't the best but you get the point.
Scuffing on the sides and plenty of sap - that is it.
Speaking of the sap, after processing the pine tree I was demonstrating a field expediant method for dealing with sap (rubbing dirt on it) and it got the tip of my left ring finger. I swear that it was not sharp enough to do that when I'd begun the day's work...but I have a history with the 22" GRS and I will be more careful in the future.
Both were made by Bura. Both showed an excellent heat treat. I dealt with the Salyan in another thread; the GRS had a neat, even hardened zone that extended past the sweet spot on either side by a good margin. I didn't hit it with a file but my jobs didn't do a damned thing to it so it's hard enough, I guess. Both sharpened up very well, with a burr so mild that it was more seen than felt and could easily be removed by a swipe of the finger. The Salyan in particular is, IMO, the sharpest khuk in my house. It took an edge that scares me. The GRS was not far behind.
Good stuff, all around. I wish that the karda and chakmak for the Salyan were larger. (They're plenty big with the GRS.) I'm convinced that the GRS is too large to really be usable in most circumstances; it drags your belt (and pants) down, the chape stabs your leg if you kneel, and it's heavy enough that swinging it for a bit forces the blood out of your arm, necessitating a break and some shaking to regain sensation. It's also very difficult to control (nearly impossible to control, really) and I have no doubt that it will hurt you badly if it gets away from you. (The one time one got away from me it didn't hurt me too badly but I was lucky. It should have.) I don't see this one going out camping or hunting with me. If you're not into power tools and the felling axe is missing, though, this will do the trick.
The Salyan? For a display piece, it does a damned fine job. I felt bad using it until I started swinging it. It's a user in disguise. Everything a 15" khuk should be, and more.
.
