To those that own a Proficient or a Bushcraft

[Spydesense]

I think you will like it. Mine worked well on butchering up a moose hind quarter. The only thing I don't like is the sheath insert, it can be a little annoying when you have it misaligned and have to take a second to sheath it properly.

I have to agree with the sheath insert problem. The tip seems to go on either one side or the other more times than into the insert, it was the same way on my Bushcraft. Is there a fix for this?

 

[Zoomie517]

I am picking up a brand spankin' new Bushcraft in a trade tonight. I will test against some of my personal favorites.

I was already forewarned about the idiotic piece of plastic in the sheath. The current owner even offered a couple of alternate sheath choices.

My thought is that if it becomes a keeper, I'll make the additional investment for a quality sheath.

I haven't given much thought to knife handle temperature. I always wear gloves during any type of wood processing be it 10 F or 95 F............... due to my soft, supple, desk-sissy hands.

 

[Catabis]

Don't count out the Gayle Bradley Bowie. The steel's excellent, and the corrosion resistance is there. The blade's a tad shorter than you're looking, though.

I have both the Mule and Bradley Bowie in PSF27 and had some issues. I wrote about it in Spyderco forums and got info from cliff stamp and bluntcut, neither of which solved my problem

I had issues with psf27 edge chipping out during sharpening on Spyderco extra fine stone if the angle was less than 35deg inclusive.... No cutting was even done, not even paper test...no work was done. I repeat, edge chipped out DURING sharpening and I have 30+ years sharpening so I can't say it was user error.

Once I changed the inclusive angle on both blades to 40deg the blade performed flawlessly. If somebody has some hints on why psf27 is doing this, lemme know. I even walked up to the Spyderco factory and spoke with sal directly and he said they never tested the steel and took Gayles advice to use psf27 so sal wasn't aware of this. He offered to Rockwell my knives (I haven't done it yet, maybe living 200yds away makes me complacent) but I'm perfectly happy with psf27 at 40deg inclusive however it would be nice to find out about psf27 and the HT that Spyderco employs in this steel or to learn that psf27 simply does not like <35deg angles. I tested several different angles but since both knives are brand new and expensive I didn't want to continually regrind brand new knives to nothing. I used wicked edge system to profile and hand polished afterwards. I chose to do this because the factory grind, especially on the tip of the Bradley, are VERY blunt, probably 60deg inclusive or more, so this was all to make the knife a cutter and not a blunt force trauma device that looked like a knife. It was not an intentional test to find fault in the steel or Spyderco. But I'm glad I did, I learned a lot.

Either way this is just FYI and I am in no way condemning psf27 or Spyderco. These are my findings and just wished to pass on my experience with psf27.