Return to Ground Zero in VA (Plus, TOPS Tactical Steak Knife User Review and Pics!)

Brian Jones

Brian Jones

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Hey folks, had a chance to get over to ground zero for a night. Posting from the campfire in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley! Literally live via wirelss broadband from the mountaintop.

Steve (aka Ground Zero on the Hoodlums Forum) and I have been putting the TOPS Tactical Steak knives through their paces, and let me just say they absolutely ROCK as bushcraft blades. I'll post pics by tomorrow night when I get back to better wireless reception. It's too much fun NOT to bring the laptop and post from the wilderness! :thumbup:

I'm also playing with other knives. I'm staying solo on the mountaintop tonight. It's a perfect evening - crystal clear, and should be arouns 60 deg F tonight. Perfect for sleeping under the stars.

I needed time off from work and this small window of opportunity to get out here so I took it.

Steve, thanks for letting me camp here at Ground Zero!

Woot Woot!

~Brian.
 
Those steak knives are sweet blades. Good to know that they are holdin up to their use. Have fun brother, watch out for El Chupacabra!!!!:eek:
 
yep enjoy that solitude. No better way to ease out the dodrums of hyperwork schedules!
 
Sounds like a blast.

My sister-in-law just moved to Charlottesville so hopefully I can do some hiking/camping of my own here pretty soon.

Take some pics and have fun bro!
 
Here are some initial pics. Gotta upload more to Photobucket. Arrival at Ground Zero (where the center of the action was at the VA Gathering):
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My bed for the evening. I laid a cheap tapr under me (folded over once), my fleece sleeping bag liner, and a space blanket. I just used the fleece as additional ground vcloth at first, but in the middle of the night crawled in after the fire had died down and stopped warming me:
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Here's the fire in its glory:
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The night was perfectly still, no wind (there was some earlier when I was setting up), cool, not humid, and when I lay in my bedroll, I looked right up therough the tree canopy at incredibly bright starry and cloudless sky.
 
Sounds awesome. Nothing like a good solo to reboot yourself. Looks like an awesome place too......
 
Excellent Bian, I know that new business your in got you running like crazy, you needed some R&R
 
Tony,

My one little luxury was bringing the folding camp chair you left for me.:D Thanks Bro! :thumbup:

A shot of the TOPS knives:
IMG_0231.jpg
 
Wonder why they serrated the tip like that. Hows it work?, Ive never seen that done before.
 
j williams said:
Wonder why they serrated the tip like that. Hows it work?, Ive never seen that done before.
Click to expand...

When you think about it, the design leaves the best part of the knife for whitling wood. If I were going to have a serrated blade w/ me I would be glad its there.
 
I agree. seems pretty innovative! Do they extend all the way to the tip, or fall short?
 
They work, but they are obviously designed for cutting the gristle on meat. That's the spot you hit when you are really digging into a steak! They aren't as pronounced as other serrations. Steve and I agreed that, for bush purposes, if you WERE gonna have serrations, they should be just behind that spot and a little smaller in span. So, just before the belly of the blade. They don't go to the tip. Check for my past threads with other close-up pics of the serrations.

The tip of the blade is where you do the most skinning (Steve, a very experienced hunter, thinks this'll make a great skinning blade), and so serration anywhere there would be in the way and make things messy. We all know that serrations by the choil interfere with whittling, carving, and notching, so that's not the place either.
 
Very neat knives though. I think serrations have no place on a skinner as well. They do look very subtle on these.
 
The knives are only 5/32" thickness at the spine, and are flat ground down to an almost zero edge - there is almost no bevel. They whittle through hardwood very easily, and you can penetrate deeply or shallowly as you ewish with superb control. I whittled a quick stake (stake knife? :D) here in no time with just push cuts:
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It also handles abuse superbly well. I think it is differentially heat treated, because the edge holds amazingly, and the blade geometry makes for easy batoning, but it bends incredibly wothout damage, returning to true. We just did baby hits with the baton and this thing sunk right in:
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It also took lateral stress very well. Note the bend in the blade (crappy photo sorry), and it returned to true every time:
IMG_0260-1.jpg


We also dug up and ate some cucumber root. We found them in soft soil and harder rocky soil. The blade had no damage to the edge and still shaved. See photos in next post. Also. a link to the TOPS site:
http://www.topsknives.com/product_info.php?products_id=258
 
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Here are the diggin' pix:

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We also used it to take down a Witch Hazel Sapling that wasn;t going to make it anyway. More pics and info on that, fuzzstucks, eating with the knife as a spoon, and the handle characteristics!
 
Awesome pics, thanks for sharing em! It'll be neat when this deal comes around.

If we had rep points, Brian, you'd get some for 'stake knife'. :D
 
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