GSO 4.1 and 5.1 - Camp chores, wood, etc

[Rasco]

I'm gonna head out on a little overnighter next week and between me and my brothers, we're gonna be bringing almost a dozen fixed blades and putting them to work.

Included are my GSO 4.1 and 5.1.
And, no pressure, but I'm expecting these two to perform superbly. I'll be doing anything and everything I can think of (within the bounds of realistic knife use) while I'm out there to beat on these things, and pics and vids will be up as soon as I get home.

Here's most of what will be coming out with us:
(unpictured: Mora Bushcrafter, a few others)

Just the big dogs
(ScrapYard Dogfather, Kershaw Outcast, Kershaw Camp 10, CRKT Chance-In-Hell Machete, Cold Steel ridiculously long bowie machete)

Just the smaller ones
(Bark River Bravo Necker II, Blind Horse Bushcrafter scandi, GSO 4.1, GSO 5.1)

Any requests? Anything you'd particularly like to see me do with any of these while I'm in the woods?
Specifically, the Cold Steel machete...? (I'm probably going to be hurling it at trees all weekend)

Also, other than here, what's the best place to post something like this? I'm not going to be taking scientific measurements, so not sure if the "testing and review" forums would be best, or the "great outdoors" forum. Any ideas?

 

[chiral.grolim]

Any requests? Anything you'd particularly like to see me do with any of these while I'm in the woods?
Specifically, the Cold Steel machete...? (I'm probably going to be hurling it at trees all weekend)

Also, other than here, what's the best place to post something like this? I'm not going to be taking scientific measurements, so not sure if the "testing and review" forums would be best, or the "great outdoors" forum. Any ideas?

By "hurling" do you really mean actual throwing? If so, then you read my mind, my FIRST request would be to see that machete flip through the air into a target! Scary....

Maybe whittle a spoon with the Outcast I've been tempted by that one since GravityRoller's re-grind vids, but the skeletonized tang worries me and I've seen at least one broken.

I am curious which knives you'll reach for most depending on the task at hand (whatever those end up being), what combination you think ended up best suiting your venture. Have fun out there!

And I think the "testing and reviews" subforum would be a perfect place for such a thread :thumbup:

 

[Rasco]

Ha! I'll have to watch a few of your YouTube videos for inspiration / knife throwing technique
I bought that Cold Steel machete probably 8 years ago when I was just getting into knives and serious outdoor activity. I quickly realized it was not the best suited for what I was trying to do. I just sharpened it up on the WSKO, so it's reasonably sharp, but still has a pretty good half-moon chunk taken out halfway up the blade, and from the looks of it, one of my brothers had been poking a campfire with it, cuz it's all charred and dirty.

I'll try to get a video of it sticking into a tree

The Outcast was the second large fixed blade I bought years ago, and while it's an improvement / step in the right direction over the Cold Steel machete, it's still not what I would consider a "beast" or a great chopper for it's price (around $80, if I'm not mistaken).
The D2 was a BITCH to sharpen on the WSKO, even using the grittiest belt. Had to do about 50 passes on each side on the highest grit!

Based on blade shape alone, I'd expect the Camp 10 to outperform the Outcast for wood processing, but maybe the superior steel on the Outcast will be a factor, who knows?

 

[Silver Needle]

Cool idea, thanks for taking requests.

I know you're taking real choppers, but it would be nice to see the 5.1 chopping and batoning. Anything with the 4.1 would be great.

You're taking along a lot if nice toys on your trip. Have fun!

 

[Rasco]

I'll be putting the GSOs to the test for sure.
Both will be batoning like crazy. I'll try to get some light chopping in on the 5.1

Both the 5.1 and 4.1 have been touched up on my strops so I'm expecting some epic feather stick pics

 

[SURVIVE!]

I'll be putting the GSOs to the test for sure.
Both will be batoning like crazy. I'll try to get some light chopping in on the 5.1

Both the 5.1 and 4.1 have been touched up on my strops so I'm expecting some epic feather stick pics

And so it begins... Have a great trip!

 

[Rasco]

Well, I'll start by saying I had a bit of bad luck.
Out here in CA, we're experiencing a serious lack of water. Should mean that everything is nice and dry right? As it happens, the night before I rolled up to the woods, Sunday night, it rained in Northern CA. This is exceptionally unlucky because in the last year, you can count the number of rainy days on one hand.
So maybe I should make camping plans every weekend and solve CA's drought problems...

Anyway, the wood was still nice and wet from being rained on just 12 hours or so before we started trying to work with it.
I did what I could given the circumstances, but the feathersticks pretty much sucked. The wet pine shavings were like paper, and wouldn't really form good "curly q's".
It was also a nightmare to split and I got pretty frustrated after a while.

The big choppers all performed up to expectation. Not much to report as far as chopping goes. The Kershaw Outcast, Camp 10 and CRKT Chance-In-Hell machete all had a nice convex edge on them courtesy of the WSKO, and all of them took massive chunks out. Went pretty fast, I didn't have time to get pics, but you all know what a large knife chopping wood looks like.

Back at camp, the trees got stripped of limbs and sawed into logs. Again, all the big dogs performed fine de-limbing the trees. I'd say the Dogfather, with all it's weight, was probably one of the best at this task. The logs were sawed using the old "Sawvivor" from TrailBlazer. It has yet to fail me and just tears through wood and it weighs almost nothing, so I always bring it.

Given the wet nature of the wood, I figured the Dogfather would be best for splitting, but I also tried the Camp 10. The Dogfather's thickness made it an easy choice, but I think the coating may have held it up a bit as it tried to power through those logs. In the end, it was really only effective on some of the medium sized logs. And the smaller ones, the GSO 4.1 and 5.1 were more than capable of splitting. But again, the wood was terrible and sticky and just a mess to work with.

The Camp 10 did just about as well, but some logs were just too ridiculously knotty to get through.

This one tweaked the Camp 10 pretty good, but it went back straight once I got it out.

We ended up just saying "F*¢k it" on the splitting and burned the big logs whole.

I didn't get any good pics of me splitting the smaller logs with the GSO 4.1 or the 5.1, but the 4.1 produced all the small wood I used for my EmberLit camp stove.
Between the 4.1 and the BHK Bushcrafter, I'd give the advantage to the 4.1. They both split pretty much equally, but the 4.1 seemed to do better making shavings from uneven wood, and the 3V kept it's edge much better than the O1 in my opinion.

I see why the GSO line from Survive! Knives has such a loyal following. These knives perform.
I regret I didn't find a task for the Bark River Bravo Necker II, but next time for sure. I had more knives than I could handle on this trip

The GSO 4.1 has a permanent spot on my chest rig. It's such a great all-arounder.

Next outing I'll be taking less blades and focusing more on testing 3 or 4 knives rather than a dozen or so.
Also, next outing I'll be putting the GSO 5.1 head to head against the "Ambush Alpha", so that should be interesting...

 

[Rasco]

By "hurling" do you really mean actual throwing? If so, then you read my mind, my FIRST request would be to see that machete flip through the air into a target! Scary....

[video]http://vid9.photobucket.com/albums/a65/Rasc0/Snapchat-3220378629014264184_zpsusn4pxlc.mp4[/video]

[video]http://vid9.photobucket.com/albums/a65/Rasc0/Snapchat--6587614421940463914_zpsfxbxu3va.mp4[/video]

 

[chiral.grolim]

AWESOME Just awesome. Nice throw :thumbup:

 

[Rasco]

That was my cousin and brother having a little fun