It was recommended by another member that I move this over here. Enjoy.
For all of you Survive!Knives fans AND all of you Chris Reeve fans, let me start by saying this. My review here is not an endorsement or criticism of either knife or maker. I own both the S!K GSO 3.5 (my all around knife and camp chore tool when in the woods, camp, or fishing) and the Chris Reeve Nyala (my dedicated hunting knife), among others by both makers. This thread is about my personal opinions of both knives
BOTH knives are well built and have a terrific fit and finish with an eye for details and use "super" steels. I have the utmost respect for both men and what they bring to the knife world with their talent and incredible blades.
The Survive GSO 3.5 at around $100.00 (factory second due only to light etching of the logos on the blade) is an incredible working tool as you will see here shortly.
The Chris Reeve Nyala, at $230.00, and to be honest (my opinion here), is simply beautiful along with also being a fantastic working tool.
Now onto the good stuff.
My wife shot a big boar hog around 200 lbs. Sunday night. Both knives were equally sharp when I started. Both would easily cut 20 lb. copy paper into slivers with no issues. Plenty sharp for my use in the woods and water with solid working edges.
The boar was covered in mud and our deer lease is highly concentrated with iron ore. Needless to say, his hide was thick, bristly, and loaded with iron ore mud and general dirt and small rocks. The shoulder plate and hide above the shoulders was almost 2" thick.
I skinned one side of the boar with the GSO 3.5 and the other with the Nyala. Almost immediately when cutting through the mud infested hide, I noticed that both knives lost the paper shaving edge almost immediately and seemed to have a tough time cutting through the tough hide. No doubt the mud (complete with small pebbles and assorted small stones and just 'dirt') acted as an abrasive on the fine edge.
I continued cutting the hide away from the body and noticed that on the exterior of the hide with the mud and dirt, the knives needed to be worked hard but in relieving the hide from the interior next to the body, they both performed extremely well. There were no noticeable hot spots on either knife (NOTE: my GSO 3.5 has my own custom scales on it) and honestly my hands were tired regardless when working that hide off of such a big tough old boar.
Both knives outperformed any previously owned big box store knives I've owned (there have been many before I learned about premium steels).
I skinned the entire hog down to the jowls with each knife on it's own side. I removed the head and began to quarter out the hog using the same side per knife method.
Both knives were never sharpened or touched up during the entire process. In the past with the big box brands, I'd have a knife AND sharpener on these hogs and deer and would need to stop multiple times and refresh the edge during skinning and field processing. No need with these premium steels.
Once I was down to just the quartering and butchering, both knives cut extremely well with minimal effort. In all honesty, the CPM-20CV seemed to have retained a little better edge at this point and easily sliced through meat and tendons, etc. with ease. The Nyala also worked well but there was slight noticeable difference in cutting. Also being honest here, my favorite steel for knives for this purpose is M390, which is why I ordered the GSO in 20CV (U.S. version of M390). Actually, S35VN is second on my list.
I wish I had a better camera to take some pics of the knives during and afterward but the lighting was bad and we were running out of battery power and needed to get the hog on ice and get home.
When finished, I have a 55 gallon drum with a gallon of bleach in it that we use to clean knives and hands and remove all the blood and stains from both. I thoroughly washed both knives in the bleach water, then dish soap and water, hand dried them, and put them away in their sheaths. Once home I washed them again in mild soapy water and applied a light coat of mineral oil to them.
At this point, both knives made short work of getting the boar butchered up and in the cooler. I was amazed but not surprised at how well each knife retained it's edge after the beating that each one took on the edge in cutting through the tough hide, dirt, mud, rocks, and bristly hair. The butchering portion rivaled my best kitchen knife at home. Even my wife commented on how well the knives were cutting through the meat after having witnessed the hard work in getting the hide off. I think the word "scalpel" was used.
Once home, I hit both edges with the Work sharp and only used the 6000 grit (and a worn belt to start with). 10 passes on each side. Then a plain leather strop (10 oz. Veg tanned) with no compound. 10 passes each side. Back to paper cutting sharp and no rolls or chips in either blade even after the hard workout.
So, both knives performed extremely well and you can't go wrong in choosing either one for hunting tasks. For the price, the GSO from Survive!Knives is a very nice blade, and incredible tool with a great fit and finish, and top notch materials. Well worth more than the retail price.
The Nyala from Chris Reeve works equally well with a slighter decrease in edge retention in the given example here but is arguably a more "refined" blade with the design and execution and the same quality of top notch materials. I'm extremely pleased with the performance of both.
As you can see, neither are any worse for wear other than some very small blood stains in the canvas micarta scales on the GSO 3.5. I imagine a good bleach water bath would remove them but there is no need. The stains are there because it's a tool and now part of my soul will be in that knife when it gets to one of my sons one day. But that is another story......
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