- Joined
- Aug 1, 2008
- Messages
- 491
Often times, there is a particular question that arises. "If I only needed one knife..." and I am sure you know how the rest of the story goes. I had the opportunity to put the Bark River Smoke Jumper to use and through a few paces this weekend. With the beautiful Wisconsin River and it's banks as my playground, it was time to see how well this knife would serve in the field.
Any image may be clicked for enlargement.
When I removed the Smoke Jumper from it's box and unwrapped it, the first thing that came to mind was how light and nimble it was. For a knife with a 6.2" blade and 11.2" overall, it handles and feels very small. The handles are nicely contoured and very sizable to accommodate the largest of hands, while still being very controllable in smaller hands. It wasn't until I actually started to use it that I finally broke down to call Mike Stewart and tell him just how impressively lightweight this knife was for it's size. Even more intriguing is the knife steel comes from .175" stock. This is no bunny poot knife by a long shot.
Putting the knife on my belt for the first time told me the knife was going to be easy and lightweight to carry. The dangler style sheath carries well and the knife is held in place securely with a retention strap.
The first thing I needed in order to start putting this knife to work was a heavy weight baton. I found a cluster of Ironwood (musclewood) and there was a small tree that looked like the perfect diameter to me to fashion a baton out of. Since I didn't yet have a baton, I had to whittle my way through the small tree and this proved to be a very easy task. The Smoke Jumper chewed and clicked it's way through the wood quite easily. While this came as no surprise to me, I found that I was more impressed with this knife than some others I have used for this task given the VERY heavy convex geometry. In the pictures to come, you will see that the grind only comes up about 60% of the height. Compound this with a very thick .175" stock, and you have a very heavy geometry on this knife. I guess, knowing this, I was pretty impressed.
Now that I had a very strong and fairly heavy baton, I wanted to see how well this knife chewed up some hard wood cross grain style. I found a 5" diameter long maple log, propped it up on a fallen Oak tree from a recent wind storm and started to throw some chips. If you look at the maple log, this is not green wood. It is tough, dry and apparently older given what the wood looks like under the bark. Now, keep in mind, this is a tremendous amount of work for a knife to do. Obviously, people will use a chainsaw or an ax for a task like this, but what this instills in my mind is the ability and confidence in the knife should I ever need to call on it for such a task. The Smoke Jumper took the hits with ease, it chewed deep and was easily controlled in hand.
Snap cutting a branch off of that Ironwood tree was almost a joke. It really was not fair. I was even more surprised at how I drove clean through with 2 hits from the baton. I figured it might have taken a few whacks given how steep the geometry was, but I really was pleasantly surprised.
I am a sucker for a good campfire, and given the "camp utility" built into this knife along with the ability to double in the tactical role, I decided a good fire was in order. Now I can split up some wood with it. I had several red and white oak logs sitting down by the fire pit next to the river, and proceeded to use this wood for my review.
What I enjoyed about the way this knife drove through the wood, was how it lengthened the split drastically, almost in ax-like fashion. Again, and I have said it several times, the heavy geometry really made exceptionally short work of splitting this wood. It took far less hits with the baton than a knife with thinner geometry.
I even purposely sought out a big knot in the wood. I have put light kinks into knives before by hitting a knot, but this wasn't the case for the Smoke Jumper. While I only have one picture showing this, there were many splits that I purposely sought out a knot on. I am quite positive the Smoke Jumper was getting a little bored with this task. It was effortless.
Any image may be clicked for enlargement.
When I removed the Smoke Jumper from it's box and unwrapped it, the first thing that came to mind was how light and nimble it was. For a knife with a 6.2" blade and 11.2" overall, it handles and feels very small. The handles are nicely contoured and very sizable to accommodate the largest of hands, while still being very controllable in smaller hands. It wasn't until I actually started to use it that I finally broke down to call Mike Stewart and tell him just how impressively lightweight this knife was for it's size. Even more intriguing is the knife steel comes from .175" stock. This is no bunny poot knife by a long shot.
Putting the knife on my belt for the first time told me the knife was going to be easy and lightweight to carry. The dangler style sheath carries well and the knife is held in place securely with a retention strap.
The first thing I needed in order to start putting this knife to work was a heavy weight baton. I found a cluster of Ironwood (musclewood) and there was a small tree that looked like the perfect diameter to me to fashion a baton out of. Since I didn't yet have a baton, I had to whittle my way through the small tree and this proved to be a very easy task. The Smoke Jumper chewed and clicked it's way through the wood quite easily. While this came as no surprise to me, I found that I was more impressed with this knife than some others I have used for this task given the VERY heavy convex geometry. In the pictures to come, you will see that the grind only comes up about 60% of the height. Compound this with a very thick .175" stock, and you have a very heavy geometry on this knife. I guess, knowing this, I was pretty impressed.
Now that I had a very strong and fairly heavy baton, I wanted to see how well this knife chewed up some hard wood cross grain style. I found a 5" diameter long maple log, propped it up on a fallen Oak tree from a recent wind storm and started to throw some chips. If you look at the maple log, this is not green wood. It is tough, dry and apparently older given what the wood looks like under the bark. Now, keep in mind, this is a tremendous amount of work for a knife to do. Obviously, people will use a chainsaw or an ax for a task like this, but what this instills in my mind is the ability and confidence in the knife should I ever need to call on it for such a task. The Smoke Jumper took the hits with ease, it chewed deep and was easily controlled in hand.
Snap cutting a branch off of that Ironwood tree was almost a joke. It really was not fair. I was even more surprised at how I drove clean through with 2 hits from the baton. I figured it might have taken a few whacks given how steep the geometry was, but I really was pleasantly surprised.
I am a sucker for a good campfire, and given the "camp utility" built into this knife along with the ability to double in the tactical role, I decided a good fire was in order. Now I can split up some wood with it. I had several red and white oak logs sitting down by the fire pit next to the river, and proceeded to use this wood for my review.
What I enjoyed about the way this knife drove through the wood, was how it lengthened the split drastically, almost in ax-like fashion. Again, and I have said it several times, the heavy geometry really made exceptionally short work of splitting this wood. It took far less hits with the baton than a knife with thinner geometry.
I even purposely sought out a big knot in the wood. I have put light kinks into knives before by hitting a knot, but this wasn't the case for the Smoke Jumper. While I only have one picture showing this, there were many splits that I purposely sought out a knot on. I am quite positive the Smoke Jumper was getting a little bored with this task. It was effortless.
:thumbup:
