SOG Northwest Ranger

S

Silverbullet951

Joined
May 16, 2009
Messages
94
Hello,

I've been wanting to try one of these little fixed blades for quite some time and finally pulled the trigger. It should arrive in the next few days and I hope to test it out and do a review on it. I'm going to use this as my rainforest hiking blade and leave the more expensive carbon knives at home. Looks to actually be a pretty nice little knife and while AUS-8 isn't exotic, it should be rather tough for a stainless steel.

Anyone else have experiences with this knife or push it to it's limits?

Josh
 
Have had one about a year for use as a budget pack knife while hiking and it's been very good for the $$. Resisted purchasing initially due to SOG's less than stellar rep on forums, however after seeing a number of great reviews I picked one up for the combo of...light weight/cheap/rugged for the genre. Gotta say...after using it very hard for the last year of battoning/lgt chopping, misc camp duties, food prep it has performed better than expected (except the kraton grip has some knicks but not too bad, might not last over time but meh...don't care). Sharpens back to razor sharp on any kind of stone and HT is better (read:hard) than expected since Ive always seen AUS 8 as rather soft. Also, remarkably, the blade is still straight after some really tough winter firewood processing...prob the most amazing aspect of this blade...all in all, very good value fixed blade where load-out weight is a concern.
 
My hunting buddy carries one as backup to his Bark River Fox River, and uses it for preference when we're doing bushcrafty type things and it goes OK. I'm not a huge fan of SOG particularly, but of the ones I've tried, I think the NW Ranger goes alright.
 
If you look on Youtube Crocket20 and Equip2Endure push this knife pretty hard and it does great. By the end of the test they are both kind of gushing about it. Check it out.
 
SOG gets much less respect and more criticism than they deserve. If you like the NW Ranger, get it. It was actually the very first SOG blade I purchased. No plain edge then, but I learned a lot about my preferences with that knife.
 
Just bought 2 NW Rangers and I Love them!!! Very sharp out of the box,AUS-8 steel blade is is fine by me,and I Love the Kraton handle!! Very good all around fixed blade knife,for all sorts of tasks. I think the NW Ranger is a fantastic knife, for any knife lover on a budget. So far....it's one of my favorites!
 
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