The importance of testing out your gear

peripatew

peripatew

Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
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Well, I've been working on putting some gear together for different levels of my "survival" kits. My tin-PSK, a small BOB style bag, and then my larger backpack for camping.

I went out today to test out the gear in my BOB bag and some new knives. I'm trying to decided if I like a medium sized blade (7") and a saw, or a smaller 4"ish blade with a medium sized ax, or if I like using a machete.

Long story short, I forgot my ax, loved my saw, and enjoyed my new Krein Bushcraft knife to help me make a fire. I was crunched for time so I didn't take any pictures. But I took a quick picture of my new Krein's so you can drool over them. The bushcraft did an amazing job. I'm going to write a fuller review once I've tested it more. But after some tip digging, mini-chopping, slicing, carving, and batoning. It is still like brand new.

My largest frustration came when I wanted to make a small fire. I had about 30 minutes before I had to go. So I tried to scrounge up enough stuff to boil some water. It had been raining for about 3-4 days, so everything was soaking wet. After fiddling with my ferro rod, and my peanut lighter (which I dropped into puddle!), I got out some matches to try to start my fire. I ended up having to stop, and spend a considerable amount of time gathering tinder. I thought I could get a flame going well enough to light my second stage wood, but I was wrong. I ended up splitting open some fallen trees with my BK7, and making some shavings with my Krein Bushcraft, and used a firestraw to get the thing going (which worked very well). It was a very frustrating 30 minutes!

SO. I realized I need to practice with my ferro rod a lot more. And I don't need to be rushed! I had some fatwood that I tried to use, but I didn't spend enough time working with it before I gathered all my extra tinder.

This was my first time to get outside since late September, and I still didn't have much time. It really made me appreciate the importance of needing to test out everything in my kit. This has made me re-evaluate the gear that I take, and how much time I need to spend using it.

My new Kreins:
krein5.JPG


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I second that. The overly large image made the text virtually unreadable, since I kept having to scroll left to right to read it all.

Naked, if you're going to write more reviews, do please figure out how to resize your images to a reasonable size.
 
Gotta say I was doing some testing on the weekend, it had been raining all night and continued to drizzle all day. I thought it would be a good time to test some fire making skills using a Mag block and ferro rod and fire straws. To my amazement I came out of it after 40+ mins:eek::eek:, and some overly hard work and I had boiled a cup of water, I then decided that my old Joseph Rodgers with the 3 1/2" blade was better than my RAT 7 for making both small shavings and even splitting small pieces to kindling size. The RAT is just too deep to effectively use for small tasks. Don't get me wrong I love it and my BK7 but my next blade purchase will be something smaller!

Don't under-estimate the value of a smaller fixed blade I did and now think I'll get a smallish BRKT and keep the 7's for chopping and hacking.

Jules :D:D
 
southern bigfoot said:
Don't under-estimate the value of a smaller fixed blade I did and now think I'll get a smallish BRKT and keep the 7's for chopping and hacking.

Jules :D:D
Click to expand...

Absolutely. This is why the bushcraft style of knife has gotten so popular lately. It works for so many of the common tasks, and weighs so little you can take it when you can't carry a larger blade or as back up to it when you do.
 
A 4" knife is the most practical size there is. why? because it is big enough to be used for batoning, cutting, slicing and other outdoor/bushcraft/camping things and at the same time small enough to stop you from chopping things.
I guess it is a cultural thing.
In the US, the Nessmuk "trio" is the guide:
A small axe (or a folding saw)
A 4" fixed (not bigger, not too much smaller)
A 2" folder (or a multitool)

In Northern Europe the puukko is the king, and the Mora and Fallkniven knives are ancestors to it.

I know that people want BIG knives, but a knife does not perfom better because it is big. If size was king the military would use Katanas as survival knives :) but now performance is king and that is why knives like Camillus/ Ontario JPSK, Gerber LMF II and Fallkniven F1 are about 4".

If you want a non combat looking outdoor knife, you should look into what bushcraft people use. The Moras are popular, the Hultafors GK is gaining popularity, the Fallkniven F1 is a favourite and the Ray Mears Bushcraft knife clones are good too.
There is no use whatsoever for big choils, serrations, black blades and such.

Yes, and testing beforehand is a good thing, then you would realise that the Mora 2000 is useless to make sparks without modification (to "round" spine), that the compass on the "cool" 10 bucks chinese "Lifesaving knife" shows 35 degress off (but you dont walk on a straight line in the forest anyway) and that a broken in firesteel is better than a brand new one :) and that your neck knife screws up the compass :(

One other good thing to know is that just because you can get sparks on your PJBs on a calm sunny day in your back yard doesnt mean that you can get a nice roaring fire going in notime in a rain storm in the middle of nowhere. When it really counts, your fancy gadgets might be floating down river and you have only a small knife and a firesteel.
When you manage to make fire from nothing you can start using modern methods, it is not a good time to learn the other way around.

Some ten years ago I and some other people were cave crawling and ended up in a cabin. Noone was smoking and I wasnt as prepared as I am today. We tried firedrilling and it might have worked if we had known about the "notch" so we ended up trying to drill a hole in the wood instead :( After an hour someone with a lighter showed up.
 
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