- Joined
- Oct 13, 2011
- Messages
- 1,774
had the day off work so i took a few of my fixed blades out and played with them to compare and see what each one was better at, and during this i decided to beat on the bear grylles ultimate fixed blade to see if it's really as bad as everyone says. so, first off i did some fire prep and fuzz sticks, dug some notches for traps and as a basic knife, it works fine. it may not hold the best edge in the world but it spent the better part of an afternoon notching dirty wood and scraping a magnesium block and ferro rod and would still cut so i'm not gonna complain a whole lot for a knife i paid $45 for. the cut out on the spine threw a lot of sparks and within 3 scrapes we had a fire going so i'll call that servicable as well.
then after we had cooked up lunch and were satisfied it would make an acceptable knife it was time to ruin it in the name of science (caveat: i'm no scientist). First came a few prying/levering chores i'd call abuse and although the knife didn't break when stabbing it into a stump and levering it out, it did take a pretty good bend after my 200lb carcass used it as a stepping platform. *it was hammered into the tree about an inch and a half.
then i wanted to see if the handle would explode like half the internet would have you believe when you tried to use the hammer on the butt. I decided to use 20 full force hammer smashes straight onto the face of the hammer, and when that didn't damage the handle, i held the blade in my hand and did another 20 blows on the side of the hammer to see if it would break. I did this all without gloves to simulate swinging as hard as you would feel comfortable with, and no real issues there either. Since this didn't seem to cause any real damage either, i hit it off angle with a 2 1/2" hardwood stick i was using to baton and the hammer end snapped clean off. although it did break, it definitely held up longer than most of the gerber haters would have you believe and the remaining portion of the handle is about as long as a SOG seal pup and was still pretty usable.
All in all i'd say it would suffice if someone wanted to use it sensibly as a knife in light to medium chores or to get them out of a pinch if that's all they had... Ultimate knife? not by a long shot, and it wouldn't be my primary choice as a survival knife but it is a decent value for the price i paid at least and i wouldn't feel like i was going to die alone if it was all i had with me.
then after we had cooked up lunch and were satisfied it would make an acceptable knife it was time to ruin it in the name of science (caveat: i'm no scientist). First came a few prying/levering chores i'd call abuse and although the knife didn't break when stabbing it into a stump and levering it out, it did take a pretty good bend after my 200lb carcass used it as a stepping platform. *it was hammered into the tree about an inch and a half.
then i wanted to see if the handle would explode like half the internet would have you believe when you tried to use the hammer on the butt. I decided to use 20 full force hammer smashes straight onto the face of the hammer, and when that didn't damage the handle, i held the blade in my hand and did another 20 blows on the side of the hammer to see if it would break. I did this all without gloves to simulate swinging as hard as you would feel comfortable with, and no real issues there either. Since this didn't seem to cause any real damage either, i hit it off angle with a 2 1/2" hardwood stick i was using to baton and the hammer end snapped clean off. although it did break, it definitely held up longer than most of the gerber haters would have you believe and the remaining portion of the handle is about as long as a SOG seal pup and was still pretty usable.
All in all i'd say it would suffice if someone wanted to use it sensibly as a knife in light to medium chores or to get them out of a pinch if that's all they had... Ultimate knife? not by a long shot, and it wouldn't be my primary choice as a survival knife but it is a decent value for the price i paid at least and i wouldn't feel like i was going to die alone if it was all i had with me.
