Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Knife

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dialex said:
Thank you for the review and for the pics.
I also wanted to offer a couple such knives as gifts to some friends who appreciate Bear Grylls' show. After reading this thread, I am a bit reluctant, although the ones for whom the gifts are intended are merely backyard barbecue outdoorsmen.
Maybe the folder will be better than the fixed blade? :confused:
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Nowadays, at my age, all I am is a backyard outdoorsman mostly. But I have a pretty wild backyard. Yeah, get them the folder. They won't be hammering acorns or chopping wood with those, and Gerber folders seem to do fine for everyday use. They should be available around February. They are Chinese-made as well. Probably ok for checking if the steaks are done. Personally, my next folder is the HEST. It costs more, but I'd trust it more.
 
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I still shudder when I see thin hollow plastic on anything, nevermind an "Ultimate Knife".:barf:

bear-knife-broke2.jpg


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I am really shocked! I thought Gerber Bear knife is just an orange Prodigy, not some kind of Chinese piece of crap(in opposition to other Chinese well made knife).

Total failure.
And to the LMF and pommel - pommel is not affixed to tang as well, but that was part of design to make this knife have isolation from cutting electric cables and so on.
 
With all of the good knives out there that cost as much or less hopefully this bites Gerber in the butt big time and they learn thier lesson. Off the top of our heads we could probably name 100 knives that cost less that would hold up better then this thing. I hope Bear trusts his life to his own ultimate knife cause the kharma will be a bitch.
 
its a shame that Bear didn't (as far as I know) take a more active part in the design of this knife, like what HD said. I would have thought that if he and gerber made a well thought out knife with good materials and quality workmanship, which can still come from china, it may have gerber back on people's knife buying radars?

If it was only 40 bucks more, to make it 100 bucks total, I'm sure they could improve it, or would the price have to be raised significantly for it to become a better knife?
 
greeting
I'm not a fan of BG's products in general and even promoted it leaves me cold
Initially I read with some joy to this view, because int a way confirming my personal feelings
however, after a more careful re-reading, I noticed something that raised questions
Please note that picture camera end of the handle is broken, the bottom part only appears on a hole.
apparently made with a drill hole, and trying to penetrate through the 2nd wall looks like it crashed.
If so, end of the handle could not stay in place, no longer caught the handle completely.
I hope not to be deceived by an optical illusion, or if it is, I apologize now, but expressed doubt that free must be denied or confirmed as appropriate.
however, overall experience not think anyone would want to rely on this type of knife in special situations.
a great day and excuse poor English
 
glad I never bothered getting one.

On another note, it looks like Bear endorsed it all right :p

[youtube]ivOvUThMcnM[/youtube]
 
Bear would have been better off contracting the British MOD knife with an Orange handle and sheath :)

CBK_Knife1.jpg


You would have a hard time breaking this thing. As to previous R&D and field use, Bear surely beat on a few trees with this knife.
 
Hi Horn Dog-

Very illuminating information.

On youtube there are a few promotional vids and the kids are lining up to buy these.

For 50-60 dollars I would have hoped for something more rugged.

Interestingly, the salesman that shows the knife at the Gerber booth a a knife show (on youtube) touts the knife as a full tang design.

The hole on the end of your knife where the "stainless steel hammer" used to be appears to be empty - so the tang does not seem to go all the way to the end.

Thank you very much for your review of the knife. I would not have been in the market for one, but hopefully you have saved someone some hard-earned money.

best regards -

mqqn
 
Hey, at least it has some good looking packaging. The color scheme is also appealing to me.

That's too bad about the quality. Bear and Gerber has a really good opportunity here to use both of their names to produce a quality unit that might help people get excited about the outdoors. It looks like we are just going to have more people disappointed and thinking that bushcraft and associated products are garbage.
 
Great info Horn Dog!
This is not the first failure reported on this knife.
A review was done on one of the survival forums recently. No issues with the pommel but the handle material at the guard cracked after some battoning.

Gerber obviously has a different idea as to what "full-tang" means. Almost everthing I've seen in ads for this knife refer to it as such.

I have no issues in general with Gerber or Bear but this is a huge blunder in my opinion. We all know there are better choices at that price range and lower but some folks will buy this piece thinking it is heavy duty because of the marketing. I'm afraid there are some hard lessons coming to some on this one!
 
Tenbeers said:
Great info Horn Dog!
This is not the first failure reported on this knife.
A review was done on one of the survival forums recently. No issues with the pommel but the handle material at the guard cracked after some battoning.

Gerber obviously has a different idea as to what "full-tang" means. Almost everthing I've seen in ads for this knife refer to it as such.

I have no issues in general with Gerber or Bear but this is a huge blunder in my opinion. We all know there are better choices at that price range and lower but some folks will buy this piece thinking it is heavy duty because of the marketing. I'm afraid there are some hard lessons coming to some on this one!
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Same here. I just expected better. Whatever some may say about Bear's stunts on TV, the man does know how to use a survival knife. One reviewer at amazon broke the pommel on hickory nuts. And I have used Gerbers for years. All I can say to those who may be thinking of buying one of these for a gift is DON'T! Money is tight now. Spend it on a quality knife. China, Bear, and Gerber will survive. This shoddy knife is an insult to all three.
 
and for the price you could get 2 profiles if ya had to have a gerber thats decent, my son has one and its a decent, tough knife, i havent abused it so dont know how well it would stand up to it but a heck of a knife for the $20 it cost us!:thumbup: i Also rather like their freeman line too
I will say this that bear/gerber is still better than my first survival knife with the big compass and the hollow handle, even had the camo handle:)
but in a weird way it helped foster my love of knives
so i guess it served it's purpose
thanks for the in depth review
regards
gene
 
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It has some cool features and it really does suck that the quality is isn't there. IVANKERLEY has a point that those cheesie knives wind up being the reason you get into knives. Once there, you see the truth and start buying better/good quality knives.
 
I wonder if marketing like that will give rise to liability with the failure of the device, or perhaps it will merely constitute puffery. Time will inevitably tell when the lawsuits roll in.
 
Good review. I expected as much. I doubt that BG would ever ever use that knife in a real survival situation unless thats all he had.


Nice Al Mar SERE operator! I want one real bad
 
I have really mixed feelings about this knife, apart from how I feel about Bear Grylls.

As a knifeknut, I'm very disappointed that it's poor quality.

As a knifeknut that knows better, if I were buying something for survival but was limited to $50-60, I know of many knives that I could by for the same price (or cheaper) that were far better. For example, a Mora, plus enough left for a firesteel, and a pile of other assorted survival goodies.

As a knifeknut, I know that this knife will appeal to many people (fans of Bear Grylls shows) who might not have otherwise even thought about buying a survival knife. That's certainly a positive.

But the knife is poor quality. It'd be very unfortunate if somebody had to rely on this knife and it failed on them, especially when better could have been had. I wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit went Gerber's or Grylls' way because the knife failed to perform in the way they/he promised it would, and caused injury to the user.

My one hope: With the popularity of "survival" shows that Discovery is running, and particularly with this Gerber/Grylls collaboration, interest in knife ownership and use will rise. Naturally, some will be drawn to this knife (and the other ones not yet released). Especially if they're on the shelves at Walmart and Target (if they're not already). At that point, we can only hope that people who were interested in this knife do some research (and read reviews such as Horn Dog's) and look for something better, or if they do buy this knife, that they're able to recognize the low quality and look for something better.
 
Alright, so we've established that the knife is less than ultimate. If we were designing a knife to do the same job, what would we have done differently?

A given would be to use 154CM and an orange G10 handle. A true full-tang design. A solid steel pommel, although really more G10 would do that job fine as well and be lighter. I don't know much about all the other survival kit because I basically only carry EDCs.
 
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