Are Bark River and Tops going to crush everyone?

droddy386 said:
And then there is this dude who beat the Tops Tom Brown Tracker #1 to destruction. It held up well. [Even though the “test” is a little over the top.]
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If you use that dude as standard, then might as well use a sharpened pry bar as knife. Thick blade for strength is easy to achieve, not a sign of good quality for me.
 
droddy386 said:
Nice. Looks great for the price, but for me .156in is quite thick.(for the 5.5) My Gunny Scandi at .142in is too thick for me. I would think .19in (for the 6.5) in 3V is thick. How does it slice for skinning?

I forget how thick the Chris Reeve Yarborough is (says online .22) but that thing is like slinging a piece of leaf spring. Might as well go for the Hukari. (just measured - it's .20in) By comparison, an Estwing crowbar is .17in thick.

Maybe grind it down to .125in or Tops could make one in 3V that thin?
https://imgur.com/a/w8D0M
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I’ve only used it for chopping, does quite admirably for its size. I prefer my knives 3/16-1/4” thick.
 
Deino said:
If you use that dude as standard, then might as well use a sharpened pry bar as knife. Thick blade for strength is easy to achieve, not a sign of good quality for me.
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I use sharpened prybars as knives. They still cut, albeit not as efficiently. However, they do a lot of things that thin and fragile blades cannot.
 
Deino said:
As long as it is not lateral stress, thinner knives (3.5 to 4.5mm range) can do just fine.
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I mainly use my knives for chopping and splitting smaller pieces of wood. Tried 5/32 stock knives and they just don’t have the efficiency at those tasks given the same geometry as a thicker blade. I will say as an all around carry knife 5/32-3/16 stock works great for woods bumming. YMMV.
 
TOPS and Bark River are only crushing everyone else, if a rack of them falls over in a knife store. They're good knives in a market filled with good knifes. I want to like TOPS and appreciate a lot of their designs, but none of their knives fit comfortably in my hand, with the pointy handle bit is in the wrong spot for me and forces me into either an unnatural and/or uncomfortable grip. I feel confident that whoever's hand they were made for loves them, but it ain't me. If I have to take an angle grinder to the handle of a knife to fix the ergonomics, I'm more likely to give it away first, because I've got other things that need doing and a lot of other knives to choose from.

I bought a Bravo 1 from Bark River years ago, because I wanted a knife that represented their brand in my collection, and it's a nice knife. With all I've been hearing about issues of quality control in recent years, I'm glad I bought it years ago. At this point of time I'm much more likely to buy another White River knife than a Bark River. It's also pretty hard to go wrong with LT Wright and Battle Horse, as well as a bunch of other fixed blade makers out there, many of them members of this forum.

51993186472_7de6fff008_b.jpg
 
droddy386 said:
Tops El Pionero - new one - don't think it's a slicer. It is something, but if you try to cut and apple with it, it wobbles back and forth and you're likely to slice your giblets off.

I guess it is for the street ninja and not to be used as a utility knife. Kind of like a karambit, but you're not as likely to poke yourself in the forearm spinning it... I hate those things.. When I was a kid is was the butterfly knife - and nunchucks. Every generation has its ridiculous.

I'll report back if I find a use for it.
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Didn’t your mother ever teach you to use a cutting board when cutting apples and not your Giblets?
 
jeepin said:
Didn’t your mother ever teach you to use a cutting board when cutting apples and not your Giblets?
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You have to try cutting an apple on a cutting board with the El Pionero. (or don’t actually) Due to the false edge it fishes its way through on a pull stroke - wobbling side to side. Not for slicing.
 
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droddy386 said:
You have to try cutting an apple on a cutting board with the El Pionero. (or don’t actually) Due to the false edge it fishes its way through on a pull stroke - wobbling side to side. Worst slicer ever.
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Considering it was quite literally designed as a self defense knife based on one carried by a pretty renowned undercover agent, it wouldn’t be a model meant to cut apples- actually giblets are probably the intended target 😉
 
AdamFuzzyballs said:
Considering it was quite literally designed as a self defense knife based on one carried by a pretty renowned undercover agent, it wouldn’t be a model meant to cut apples- actually giblets are probably the intended target 😉
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Ah - yes, but considering most of the use of a knife in general is for utility, it should be good at cutting. I guess thinking about it, one could use it for poking tires or something. Like a karambit or nunchucks, one more thing to carry that will serve to get one in trouble without providing much utility.
 
Deino said:
If you use that dude as standard, then might as well use a sharpened pry bar as knife. Thick blade for strength is easy to achieve, not a sign of good quality for me.
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Its morons on youtube like this that are turning the knife world into a circus; and shooting the remaining scraps after destruction tells me nothing.As far as Bark River goes, they do look nice in pictures ill give them that.
 
goldie said:
Its morons on youtube like this that are turning the knife world into a circus; and shooting the remaining scraps after destruction tells me nothing.As far as Bark River goes, they do look nice in pictures ill give them that.
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Yeah - The only thing that I could think of on the shooting part is that it is good that it cracked when it failed, otherwise the knife might have been made too soft and that is why it didn't break on abuse. The abuse video doesn't tell you how well it holds and edge but it does tell you the blades that won't be like many of the old machetes where they clear light brush, but if the hit anything hard it takes a bite out of the blade(if it has differentially tempered spine) or the blade snaps entirely if the whole thing was tempered too hard.
The hammering into the wood and then trying to bend off the tip is useful somewhat to show if you can pry with it. (also shows that the tip holds up for throwing)

One could also say the same for the batoning wood thing which seems to be the youtube rage as well.
 
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AdamFuzzyballs said:
Considering it was quite literally designed as a self defense knife based on one carried by a pretty renowned undercover agent, it wouldn’t be a model meant to cut apples- actually giblets are probably the intended target 😉
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"Renowned undercover agent". Thank you for the definitive example of an oxymoron!:)
 
Sibyrnes said:
"Renowned undercover agent". Thank you for the definitive example of an oxymoron!:)
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In good fun I would say - delete the oxy... referring to the online guru and not the commenter on this forum. There is always a story in there somewhere, but some of the online gurus, or the faithful followers, come after people that question their story.
link to reddit removed by staff per forum guidelines
 
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droddy386 said:
In good fun I would say - delete the oxy... referring to the online guru and not the commenter on this forum. There is always a story in there somewhere, but some of the online gurus, or the faithful followers, come after people that question their story.
link to reddit removed by staff per forum guidelines
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Hmm. I guess we can't post a reddit link on here. Oh well. I won't repost the story, but it says the online guru in this case was a San Diego security guard. No idea if it is true.
 
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