Hiking with the 1250

[Lawrence Helm]

When I started out going over my hiking gear and got around to knives, the first ones that seemed ideal were the 1250 and variations thereof. Of course once I got to buying knives I couldn't find it in me to quit and some that I bought recently probably won't see too many hikes, but I took my little 1250 on a hike this morning. We got to the (dry) San Jacinto River at about dawn, but since the river is in the lee of the mountains the sun doesn't get up above it, where we hike) until about an hour and a half later.

I was urged to do this over on the Becker forum: take a few photos of the Becker knife I was hiking with; so since I hike with a 1250 this morning I'll post a couple here -- don't know if you Ka-Bar people cotton to that sort of thing, but:











In this one I'm apparently voiding the warranty (no digging)



This one was hard to get because Ben kept taking the bone.

Lawrence

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Nice hiking location. Maybe if we keep doing stuff like this here, the Kabar forum will get a little steam up and have more activity.

What type of snake was that that you found?

 

[Lawrence Helm]

Nice hiking location. Maybe if we keep doing stuff like this here, the Kabar forum will get a little steam up and have more activity.

What type of snake was that that you found?

I took one other photo of the snake but didn't upload it to Smugmug. It had no rattle, that's usually the only thing I care about. I looked for cause of death and found a substantial wound about half way down the snake, maybe three inches in length. It looked as though it had been run over, perhaps by a mountain biker. I haven't seen a biker down there in ages but I do occasionally see their tracks.

After sticking my 1250 in several things without seeing any effect on the blade coating, and having last week seem the blade coating on a BK2 just about destroyed from doing equivalent things, I'm even more inclined to see the 1250 as my number one hiking knife, although I may like the 1256 just as well. We'll see. I don't like the serration on my 1252. I'll be trying out my 1217, the one I just purchased that doesn't have a sharpened clip, in the near future as well.

Lawrence

 

[zzyzzogeton]

I'm not really a big fan of serrations either, although I do find them handy when cutting string/rope/box bands if I've already dulled the blade cutting/opening a "bunch of stuff" - like the other day, with my 1255 (tanto, part-serrated shorty), I had opened 20+ packages, cut a bunch of cardboard strips, stripped the insulation off a dozen wires replacing outlets, sliced open several feed and fertilizer bags, etc. Then I needed to cut a few sections off a coil of small stuff (1/4 inch sisal line). The cutting part of the blade was kinda dull, but the serrations cut it like butter.