Beaver and Ray: Initial Impressions

[winz]

RosArms – Knives from Zlatoust Russia.

Beaver and Ray Initial Impressions

If you are here in this section of Bladeforums, you know about RosArms.

These knives have been getting some attention from places like Tactical Knives for being affordable, quality, hand-made knives. If you are having bitter flashbacks about the Cold War and feel the urge to fight Russkis, stop reading and hide in your corner.

If you just like knives for what they are….here goes…

The Russian ‘coldsteel’ is similar to BG42 but also contains titanium in its structure. Two particular designs caught my eye since they were pretty different from many other designs of which I already had. Both have micarta grip scales with brass hollow pins. Many of RosArms other offerings come with a variety of handle materials including birch nodule, leather washers, birch bark washers and so on.

The Beaver:
Total length: 4.7”
Blade length: ~2”
Blade thickness: 5mm (!)

The Beaver is marketed small skinning type knife that can also be easily carried EDC. Although the sheath is comes with it quite dressy, it’s also quite big so I’m not sure how easily it would be to carry it as such for the latter purpose. If you are going for the tacticool carry, you can always hit up one with Normark to make a smaller synthetic sheath. I suspect would be quite easy to fashion one to where it holds the blade and edge of the hole allowing the user to put the index finger in and firmly grasp the handle for deployment.

On first impression, the Beaver seems like it would be a decent skinner but because of the narrow radius, high curvature of the blade, it seems quite limited for slicing tasks. Similarly, due to the high sweep curve of the blade, the point of the blade isn’t really a piercing point. So for those likening it to a KaBar TDI, it’s not really comparable.

On first impressions, I feel that it makes for a very secure, tough and very comfortable knife for various tasks but not necessarily a precision point knife for minute cutting. Due to the thickness, I do find it in somewhat of the same category as Böker’s SubCom FB. Although the SubCom FB lacks handle scales from the factory, it makes up for it with some versatility and a point. For the Cold War fanatics who are still reading, the SubCom FB is made in the USA……. Game ON.

 

[winz]

The Ray:
Total length: 7.8”
Blade length: 3.7”
Blade thickness: 5mm

The Ray is a sort of all-purpose hunting knife. The blade has a huge belly and will surely be good for skinning and general tasks. No image was taken but it is very comfortable to hold in the typically skinning 3 finger grip.

The blade also features a huge re-curve, much more so than I’ve seen in previous pictures. Since the blade is just under 4” (and about the length of a RAT RC3), the re-curve will be an asset for small chopping tasks. Moreover, the balance is right about the beginning of the micarta so in the regular hammer grip, the knife feels quite like a traditional outdoorsman blade-heavy knife.

Like the RAT RC3, it also has a forward position for occasions when working the knife up close is more useful. One thing that could be done to improve the forward grip is the addition of ‘jimping’ or Strider-style grooves. The reason why I say this is because the metal is polished to a mirror smooth finish. When used where water, blood, mud, what have you are added factors to the environment, slipping may occur, particularly when the blade is so wide and the possibility of torquing the blade to a side is easier. Grooves on top of the spine help aid in control.

In the hammer grip, I would prefer the handle to be just a touch longer so that I could be a little more liberal gripping with my medium-sized hands. As current though, it is extremely comfortable but your hands are perhaps a bit confined to a particular position when at the rear.

The Ray as a whole is indeed a general all-purpose package in a medium-sized knife. Being also 5mm thick, it can even play the sharpened prybar role.

Sheaths:

Previously purchasers of RosArms knives will often talk about the leather being too thin and flimsy compared to heavy gauged leather used and common for North American markets. This has been changed and the leather is indeed thick and quality.

If I were picky, I could say that I’m not crazy about the single seam stitch and would prefer double. I would however wax the leather.

The Ray’s sheath has a spacer while the Beaver is made from two pieces sewn together. The loop on the Beaver's sheath is a simple piece of leather strap sewn on the back for horizontal carry. I'm inclined to say I probably would prefer a simple Concealex type top draw sheath. With the leather horizontal sheath, it's just a tad cumbersome to open and take out the knife without worrying about the knife falling down.

Overall Quality:

Some oddities I did find were that the tips of the blades were not really sharp. Neither blade has a real pointy tip but it’s not a huge deal that RosArms didn’t sharpen it as much as they could have. The smooth micarta feels really good but there are some funny dots in the canvas(or whatever material) that look like impurities in the Russian micarta.

However, the overall fit and finish of both knives are impeccable. There are no burrs, the micarta is always in line with the metal and even the blade edge is polished to a shine. The grinds are perfect and the mirror finish shows a lack of tooling marks.

I'll report back when I have a chance at putting these knives through some paces.

For any of you keeners....I wear my watch on the left and am right handed....which was occupied with holding the camera.