ESEE 6 vs Bark RIver Fox River Magnum

[meanwhile]

I've pounded my A2 and 3V Bravo 1s through some pretty knotty wood and have never had any damage as a result.

A test of one knife means very little when there are thousands of that model being used with few complaints.

This is true, but not all the truth.

Firstly, BR does get more complaints than its rivals - far more than Bussekin brands for example.

Secondly, BR is an archetypal safe queen brand, so you'd expect fewer complaints per knife.

Thirdly, BR fan boys have behaved so badly in the past that people are relatively reluctant to complain online.

Fourthly, there's quite a lot of collaborating evidence of poor construction - eg a quarter of the knives in a good sized collection were missing epoxy on their scales, others had dirt and bugs in the epoxy.

Is this the same as absolute statistical evidence that BR's production is below par? No. But given the data available, it's about the closest thing to it you could expect.

I destroyed a Clipper using it in the woods, the fragile edge rolled while carving wood and the tip broke off drilling a hole in the hearthboard of a bow drill set. I threw it away, Moras are disposable knives.

Well, yes: a Mora costs $10 and a Bravo $200-$250. A Mora is optimized - or optimizeable - for carving, while a Bravo is supposed to be a knife for "realtime abuse". If the Bravo sold for the same price as the Mora (per inch) and was sold in the same way, without marketing implying extreme toughness, then I would consider that a decent bargain. (Assuming that BR got its act together and handles were consistently epoxied - preferably without the dirt and the bugs.) But if a maker wants a large premium because a knife is supposed to be a bad-ass, then I expect to bad-assery - as one does from the Gerber ASEK, the various ESEEs, and the Bussekin. If I see the opposite, then I believe the maker is a a compulsive bs artist and stay away.

But what bothers me even more than the above is the effective BR warranty: unless people have been lying, BR have shipped knives with edges blown through poor grinding (overheating in grinding can ruin HT on the edge) and their response when these knives have been returned is to remove the steel, returning a knife with a new geometry and a grind that are nothing like the one the knife was bought for. If I spend $200 on a thin ground knife, then I want a competently made thin ground knife! Or my money back to go find someone who can do the job properly. I do not think this is being unreasonable.

 

[Mikael W]

I have to say I look forward to the release of the Bark River Scandi in 3V!

If it's anything near the Liten Bror and the Lil' C, it will be a serious contender to my other Barkies, FK's and Mora's.

The Liten Bror is awesome as it is, but this will be a stick tang as Scandi's usually are.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Bmurray]

They are both good knives but superior materials???? I had both brands and sold the BRKT. Im not sure someone knows materials very well as stated above. As far as throwing a spark. if that's a big issue, in a "survival" situation you just scrape of some of the coating with a damn rock, it's called improvising. You also need to be able to sharpen a knife in the field without the need of special diamond stones like some "new" high alloy steels require.

Warranty with Esee is no questions ask, not at someone's discretion.

 

[meanwhile]

I have to say I look forward to the release of the Bark River Scandi in 3V!


If it's anything near the Liten Bror and the Lil' C, it will be a serious contender to my other Barkies, FK's and Mora's.

The Liten Bror is awesome as it is, but this will be a stick tang as Scandi's usually are.


Regards
Mikael

I look forwards to the release of this knife too - but then I'm a vicarious sadist with a strong sense of humour. Expensive low ground scandis are a silly affectation. The best puukos aren't low scandi ground; they're rhomboid, with angle closer to an FFG. The whole point of a low ground scandi is to get what toughness you can out of a thing piece of not-great steel, using such a grind on first rate steel is like making soup from fillet steak. A puukko in the price range that BR will go for should look like this:

..But getting this grind right requires quite a bit of skill - and patience not to overheat that fine edge.

 

[Mikael W]

I look forwards to the release of this knife too - but then I'm a vicarious sadist with a strong sense of humour.

That has become more and more obvious for every comment You make!

However, that Custom puukko is awesome, but far from any production knives from Esee or Bark River.

Back on topic.
I have had a forumite's Esee Izula in my workshop for sharpening.
I did what I could to improve the cutting performance by thinning the edge a tiny bit and give it a polished finish on the edge.
The thick layer of black epoxy didn't do anything good for the cutting performance and the soft steel made it necessary to keep a thick angle to the edge.

There's a huge step-up in cutting performance, when using a BR, FK or Mora.
Observe that these brands also needs a break-in procedure to perform.
A few initial sharpenings and honing will mostly be enough.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Brisket]

Firstly, BR does get more complaints than its rivals - far more than Bussekin brands for example.

Secondly, BR is an archetypal safe queen brand, so you'd expect fewer complaints per knife.

Care to cite your sources of this data and are you really claiming that a higher percentage of Bark River knives are safe queens than Busse's?

 

[Shotgun]

This is true, but not all the truth.

Fourthly, there's quite a lot of collaborating evidence of poor construction - eg a quarter of the knives in a good sized collection were missing epoxy on their scales, others had dirt and bugs in the epoxy.

This is how mine came and there was daylight under one of the scales. It was the worst fit and finish I've seen on a knife at that price.

I have to say I look forward to the release of the Bark River Scandi in 3V!

If it's anything near the Liten Bror and the Lil' C, it will be a serious contender to my other Barkies, FK's and Mora's.

The Liten Bror is awesome as it is, but this will be a stick tang as Scandi's usually are.


Regards
Mikael

Interesting. I thought Stewart claimed that scandis were inferior and would never produce one. He finally cave because he saw how lucrative the scandi market was?

 

[ridnovir]

Interesting. I thought Stewart claimed that scandis were inferior and would never produce one. He finally cave because he saw how lucrative the scandi market was?

Where did you hear that? BRKT has produced many scandi/bushcraft knives in the past ie Aurora, Liten Bror, Buschrafter. The edge on these will be "scandi/convex"

 

[Mikael W]

This is how mine came and there was daylight under one of the scales. It was the worst fit and finish I've seen on a knife at that price.


Interesting. I thought Stewart claimed that scandis were inferior and would never produce one. He finally cave because he saw how lucrative the scandi market was?

Sorry to hear of Your bad experience with the Mini-Northstar!
I never got one of those as I didn't like the specs.
I believe there where a lot of trouble for people using the knife as advertised and I remember reading about several knives returned under warranty.
Wasn't it made of 12c27?
I have several BR's in this steel and also Mora's.
They have less wear resistance than say VG-10, but takes a fine edge and are easy to resharpen.

I don't know how BR calculate their buisness profit, but I assume and hope the above Scandi will be within reach for many wallets.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Insipid Moniker]

To get back to the OP, why don't you split the difference and get a BlackJack Tac Ops 6 proto? You get the A2 steel and convex edge without nearly the price markup of the BRKT.

 

[angle iron]

I have an ESEE6 based on the reputations of the company owners, the lack of quality control complaints, and the way they stand behind their warranty on the rare chance it's needed. I have also met the owners and found them to be honorable folks.
based on similar criteria, I do not own any BRKT cutlery.

That is without a doubt the kindest way I have ever heard the truth about M.S. hinted at. I couldn't agree more on both counts.

 

[meanwhile]

That has become more and more obvious for every comment You make!

However, that Custom puukko is awesome, but far from any production knives from Esee or Bark River.

You can get a VK Tommi blade at Brisa - the main website for Scandi blades - for around 50 Eu. Hand forged in silver steel yet. Putting together a complete knife should cost you less than $100. I'm sure the BR puukko you linked to will cost far more, but it will have the blade geometry of a $10 Mora, and therefore the same limits on its cutting ability. I really don't see the point of this, even if BR remember to epoxy the scales and manage not to overheat the edge when they grind.

I have had a forumite's Esee Izula in my workshop for sharpening.
I did what I could to improve the cutting performance by thinning the edge a tiny bit and give it a polished finish on the edge.
The thick layer of black epoxy didn't do anything good for the cutting performance and the soft steel made it necessary to keep a thick angle to the edge.

So it's a moderately priced strong knife with mediocre performance; there's a place for that and ESEE's marketing isn't misleading, so I don't object the way I do with the Bravo.

Otoh, I'm not sure that you put the right edge angle: I'm fairly sure that Cliff Stamp runs his MTech 151 bowie with a 15 edge (actually a 15 with a 25 microbevel, I think) and that's 420 (more or less) hardened relatively low - which is one of the reasons 151s seem to be so tough. I hugely doubt that the ESEE is tempered lower than the MTech - if it is, then I suggest the answer is to buy neither knife and spend $25 on the MTech instead, plus a few dollars on a pair of micarta scales and a tube of glu.e (Because the MTech is prone to shedding its rubber handle, just like the Trailmaster it was cloned from.) I'd spend the $200 or so saved on a Scrapyard knife and a bottle of Pusser's Rum.

There's a huge step-up in cutting performance, when using a BR, FK or Mora.

If the ESEE hasn't had the right angle set in sharpening, yes. Call me weird, but I'd rather have to spend an extra half an hour setting the apex angle on a knife the first time I use it than spend $200 a knife, have the edge blow, and get back a distorted mutant re-grind knife months later. If the warranty stories I've heard about BR were different - if mis-made knives had been replaced with pristine ones with the promised geometry that then performed as advertised, which is what should have happened - then I would feel much more positively about the brand. Instead, I'm rather glad the UK supplier was sold out of Rogue Bowies with the handle I wanted when I tried to order one.

 

[Translash]

I've never seen the new scandi model for bark river, but I'm liking it alot!

 

[meanwhile]

This is how mine came and there was daylight under one of the scales. It was the worst fit and finish I've seen on a knife at that price.

What was the scale material? (I'm wondering if there was a semi-excuse like wood warping.)

Interesting. I thought Stewart claimed that scandis were inferior and would never produce one. He finally cave because he saw how lucrative the scandi market was?

When you see English makers selling Woodlore clones with micarta or yew handles and O1 blades for $500-$800, you can't blame him for succumbing. SUATMM is hard to resist:

 

[meanwhile]

I've never seen the new scandi model for bark river, but I'm liking it alot!

There you go:

You'd have to be a saint to resist.

 

[Translash]

probably, but Ive got too many knives, so being a saint doesn't apply here...

 

[meanwhile]

probably, but Ive got too many knives, so being a saint doesn't apply here...

No, I mean that Stewart would have to be a saint. My opinion of someone who can excited enough by a lowest-common-denominator geometry scandi to be sold at a silly price by a dubious maker - on the same page that there is a picture of a real high end Scandinavian knife with vastly better performance and exquisite aesthetics - can be expressed in one word too, but let's not go into that.

 

[Translash]

No, I mean that Stewart would have to be a saint. My opinion of someone who can excited enough by a lowest-common-denominator geometry scandi to be sold at a silly price by a dubious maker - on the same page that there is a picture of a real high end Scandinavian knife with vastly better performance and exquisite aesthetics - can be expressed in one word too, but let's not go into that.

Ah, I see. But I see nothing wrong with Stewart's knives, because I use them myself. So if I get excited for a new design, it's because I like the maker who makes these amazing knives, overpriced or what not.

 

[TTTis]

I've sent knives to BRKT a half dozen times or so. Each time they fixed what I wanted them to fix, and returned the knife promptly.

I've never had to send in an ESEE.... just sayin.

I have however had some BRKT's chip out very badly in 3v. ESEE's are my choice when I need a strong fixed blade. I'd take BRKT's for when I need a super sharp cutter, but not something durable.

 

[Mikael W]

Ah, I see. But I see nothing wrong with Stewart's knives, because I use them myself. So if I get excited for a new design, it's because I like the maker who makes these amazing knives, overpriced or what not.

+1

I buy them because it's fun to get a new knife and put it to use, not because I need a new knife.
I have also learnt a lot about knives from using BR's.


Regards
Mikael