The best would be if we could have, the Alpha handle and blade point, with the Bravo LT blade thickness and not longer than 5 inch. The best length on such blades, is something between the Gerber Strongarm and the Ka-Bar Mark 1 blade lengths. That's almost 5 inch but not longer. If it's not a 7- 10 inch chopper, then there is no reason, to lose dexterity and anything else, with a 6 inch blade. 6 inch can't make a jack of all trades, neither a medium size knife, If I'm not mistaken, they make a 1.2 Bravo LT version, for the German market. That knife with liners to make the handle a bit thicker, would probably be my choice.
Who does BR contract with to produce their blades? They do not show any videos of actual blade production in Escanaba. I suspect they come from across the pacific. I would like to see some hardness testing to check the quality of the heat treating.
you can request it on the pre-order form you fill out when pre-ordering from KnivesShipFree. I got an Ultralight Bushcrafter in full convex from doing exactly that
the "mislabeled" steel issue has happened more than once, and unfortunately, they suffer from terrible quality control these days. It's a shame, because I like their blade designs and convex grind, but the quality control and steel issues are inexcusable for the price of the knives.
As far as I can remember, The mislabeled steel incidents that occurred were A2 being sold as CPM 3v. The only way to know for sure is to send the steel away to a lab that can test for alloy content. The mislabeled steel came to light because people were noticing that their “3v” knives were rusting too easily. 3v isn’t stainless, but it is very corrosion resistant compared to A2. Cedric from Cedric and Ada Gear Review channel has a video on it, as he received a mislabeled knife. Also, if you search google for “Bark River mislabeled steel” you can find out more. There are many forum posts with pics that discuss this issue and offer ways to check the steel by how quickly it rusts. I’m pretty sure it was mostly A2 mislabeled and sold as 3V , but the mislabeled knife Cedric received may have been a different type of CPM steel. It has been a while and I can’t remember the details
