I'm debating a GSO 2.7 or 3.5. I'm seeing a few 2.7's show up in the secondhand market but, I don't recall any 3.5's.
Is the GSO 2.7 just a passing fad that doesn't work out for people in real life? Maybe too little blade length with handle/guard height to get good use of the whole cutting edge? Something else?
Does the GSO 3.5 fit most people better in real-world use?
I should note that I'm in a rural setting so, I'm not overly concerned with short blades for legal reasons and Texas has revised its blade laws to be more lenient on carrying something much larger than a smallish fixed blade.
TIA,
Sid
Hi Sid,
Survive! Knives is still in business, they are still producing knives, still honoring refunds, still honoring warranty requests, and, from the look of it, despite all the dire predictions of their doom from very early on in the company's history (Guy Seiferd started it in 2012, iirc), it seems that they will continue producing an EXCELLENT product with a well-backed warranty for many years to come (hopefully longer than Fehrman Knives lasted, although they got out of knives for other reasons). They have never stopped producing. Last I heard (which was awhile ago, since the S!K forum got nixed), Survive! itself was only 3-4 people including Guy and Ellie, and Guy was the only one doing the sharpening, and we have no idea how may knives they have been putting out every year. Survive! Knives get their steel from Niagara, it receives HT from Peters, and manufacturing takes place at Millit Knives in Meridian, ID where S!K is now located.I am not sure what of the Millit operations wouldn't be considered "in house" since I am not sure how much of a facility S!K still has apart from Millit's facility, but they have been doing their own surface-finishing, laser-etching, and knife-building since early on. Their materials and manufacturing are top-notch. Like CPK, Survive! uses the Delta protocol for their 3V blade, but the GSO-2.7 doesn't come in that steel, iirc. And unless or until you see Dan Keffeler or Mr. Carothers come on here calling the Seiferd's "scumbags", you can assume that those doing so are talking about people they don't know and may have had no actual negative encounters with personally. Oh, and their sheaths are also awesome. They continue to maintain their website and
Instagram account and rarely but occasionally post to a private FB group. They can still be reached by phone and email.
But Survive! screwed-up big-time by taking too many orders while offering delivery times-lines they couldn't make, failing and then offering new timelines that they also couldn't make, and... and... yeah, they screwed up. And that's the problem, and while the product itself is usually EXCELLENT (especially for the price), well,
Quiet typed it best previously:
So there's that. I will be accused of being a "shill" for Survive! because I have always had nothing but positive interactions with the Seiferds and continue to hope for their success. Their knives have been WAY below price-point for the quality, which led to their popularity and also to their eventual denigration from failure to deliver. But, as stated previously, they are still making and shipping knives.
Now, onto the 2.7. Honestly, I don't recommend this knife, but my account is based on the previous iteration - the new design is just that, a design, and unlikely to be produced in the near future as S!K still has a number of models in the pipeline and Millit isn't making them all at once. I haven't owned a 3.5 because I didn't like the design of the original and am waiting on the updated version which may or may not start shipping before 2020.
Here is my lengthy review of the 2.7 from the passaround back in 2016:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/survive-gso-2-7-passaround-review.1433784/
In the review, you will find video of me using the knife for all manner of cutting tasks as well as bashing it through steel roofing/gutter material. In addition, I did a lot of throwing with the knife.
Here is my post summarizing my thoughts on the 2.7:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/survive-gso-2-7-passaround-review.1433784/#post-16521325
Here is my final sentence on it:
Would I buy this knife? Personally, no. For the size, I would carry a folder with an appropriate blade and a handle of suitable thickness to suit the task at hand. For a fixed-blade this size, my primary use would be cutting tasks that prefer a thinner blade geometry or at least don't require the stoutness presented in the GSO-2.7 YMMV
I have other small blades not included in this comparison to the 2.7, but my first recommendation is that you check the Maker's - best place to find killer knives at an awesome price:
https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/for-sale-fixed-blades.754/
Here is a photo of the 2.7 with other knives of similar size from that review:
The only time when it's very hard to score is when he offers something very limited which he refers to as "Fun Friday's sale" or when a pattern is like really new, this is all.
