This could be a looong report but I'll try to make it concise. About two months ago we were sent the new machete. I whacked a bunch of weeds, small trees and Hawthorn bushes and was duly amazed by the balance, cutting power and edge retention. While I was playing with it a friend from the Boise Hotshot crew came by (I conduct their wilderness survival seminars) and asked if he could borrow it. Three weeks later I had to beg to get it back. They almost had to call in a crisis management team to handle the sobbing. The guys had been using it in major brush clearing and path cutting jobs. It beat the hell out of everything they presently use. When I got it back it showed a lot of wear but no tear. The edge had been dressed but that's it. I planned to take it with us on the two week survival video filming. As luck (and payload) would have it I had to leave it behind in favor of a "to the death" test of the Becker Brute and Tac-tool.
To finish the machete story... when we returned I had a call waiting "Ron, can I puhlese borrow that machete again? (whine, wheedle)" I gave it to the crew two days ago.
On to the trip. The Weather was crap. We expected cold at night but at the very least clear weather. Since I had only a blanket and a tarp as shelter and no food or matches for the two weeks it was to be a filmed solo survival video with no support other than comforting words. Sadly the weather turned to winter and we had snow every night for over a week. Night time temps were in the 20's and it was cold... Now I KNOW you don't care about how I felt but ya gotta know that without those Becker blades things would have been different. The rain and snow had waterlogged all the "dry" wood so we began to call it "Rubber wood". Generally I break wood over a rock. This stuff wouldn't break and it wouldn't burn properly as the dry stuff was in the middle. That meant I had to CHOP all of the wood I used. That is a LOT of wood. The first thing I noticed was that the Becker handle is very comfortable for long stints at the chopping block. Sure I had a few blisters to show for it but I'd have had hamburger fists with most knives out there. The Brute kept an edge as good as any of the custom blades I own.
The Tac tool proved to be the most useful tool. I could chop, dig and slice with that baby. I levered hundreds of pounds of thistle out of the ground with that fat bastard. I never worried about busting it. The gut hook made a great cook can lifting hook and it even worked as a one handed hoist to help me jump higher for more wood (Just hook it on a piece of wood and pull as you jump). I'd guess that about 80% of my food gathering was done with the Tac tool. It has now gone on my permanent favorites list.
Over all the Becker tools proved to be the best production blades I've ever tested. The price/value of these blades is second to none. Changes? Unscrew the handle slabs and fill the cavities with silicone. That will stop the cavities from filling with water that will run down your sleeve or into the sheath. BTW, those sheaths are pure mean. I would put the blade in the sheath on the tac tool and then use it to bridge a "Y" branch on a downed tree. That gave me a nice toilet seat. I doubt that is a tip that will be used in any advertisements for the blade
Becker and Camillus have made a new fan. BTW Will, everything you said about that steel was true. I never expected that level of performance.
Ron
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They are tools you can (and we DID) rely on in deep wilderness.
