Neo - You are correct. The Stalker is my favorite of the mid sized hunting line from ROS Arms. I have one with a Birch Bark handle and one with a Leather handle - a great Woodsman's knife. The thing I noticed about mine is that though you can certainly tell they are the same model there are slight differences; - The handle on the Leather one is slightly longer - One blade is slightly fatter/wider than the other These varying characteristics show that these really are Hand Made knives - one at a time.
I've got two Messer2 in birch bark, they are very alike in dimensions. It's imho the perfect knife Mine have the exact dimension like stated on the website. But when I look to the picture of the messer-2 in leather, it seems it has indeed a bit longer and narrower blade. If this is really the case I might buy a leather one I do like the stalker also However the fry-2 also seems exceptional versatile. Is the blade thickness correct. I see the fry-2 being mentioned as 2.2mm and 3mm The fry reminds me of a mora/puukko, maybe I could put a scandi grind on it? In the first picture the blade of the Stalker looks very nice, it almost looks like it has a false edge.
The Messer 2 was one of the knives recently used in the Passaround, I liked the feel of that one and it had a thick blade steel. I just measured both my Stalkers - they have a thickness of 2.3mm and 2.5mm respectively with the Leather handled one being slightly thicker. They don't have a false edge but the way they are ground it definately can fool you. There is a model on the ROS Arms Russian website that I have emailed the owner about, it looks very similiar to the Stalker but it does have a false grind. If I hear back on what the Model is called I will let you know. The Fry is a great looking design, wish I had one that I could verify the blade thickness for you. It may be that it can be ordered in a 2.3 or 3mm blade steel - but I don't know. Got any pics of your Messer?
No pictures sorry, I have to buy a new camera. It looks kinda like this one (without the gold colour), but you probably know that. 2.3 or 2.5mm is more than thick enough for most knife use. The performance vastly improves with thinner stock. I'm waiting on some New Zeeland Svord knives I ordered. They have about the same thickness, it will be good users. I also love the birch bark. Besides the messer2 I have a Veikko Hakkarainen and a Jukka Hankala Lastu in birch bark. It has a nice warm feeling, grippy, extreme light and very strong.
I've always wanted a Hankala blade, hard to get over here unless you pay pretty high price. I'm jealous!
I just ordered one with him. I liked the blade shape of the lastu more than the tommi http://www.hankala.com/englanti/front_page.htm I believe in summer he works mostly on his farm and in winter he mostly makes his knives and blades. I ordered in autumn and got it in spring, it's very nice, have to get a camera
