It's your show virtuovice, and a good one at that. Your opinion it quite worthy of listening to. The quest for finding and personalizing our favorite/perfect knife or knives continues. Thanks for your input. I for one am learning from this saga of the consummate knife lover you have perpetuated. Cheers
Dutch bushcraft knives brought me here . Fascinating, I only got into knives the past year due to watching bushcraft shows during COVID . Yes bushcraft knives like cpm 3V as there favourite steel. You inspired them very much. Keep well keep safe. Daz from australia
Im surprised the Bravo 1.5 did not make the list. I thought you liked it much. The Lovelace hunter looks very nice for for deer dressing. Cant wait for deer season!
Awesome collection! Your great observations noted. More videos like this would be fantastic! Thank you for your many informative videos. Love the attention to details on feather sticks making.
Super video! I own at 100 knives but only a few I use alot! Bravo and little caper for hunting and bushcraft! Plus, Ontario machete! Too bad about those Japan laws! My machete is priceless in all situations! Enjoy you video and please keep them coming!
Yes Sir I have been waiting a long time for this video. And I inderstand that six months ago or six months from now it could easily have 4 or more different knives in the mix. Same is here. Whichever knifes are in my bag are my necessary knives. Thanks for new video. Take care
Doc, you worry me with this bear obsession. If I was going out into bear country I think I would leave the reground Nata in the garage and take a couple of handheld flares. Bears have got multiple Bark Rivers of their own... 2 pairs of 5 each at the end of 2 long, fast, powerful arms, plus another 10 in reserve. On top of that they have a mouth full of Ka-Bars AND the willpower to keep going - even if they are badly hurt. I'll miss that "Hello -knife people".
Thank you! Very usefull information. You are very thorough and I have learnt allot from your videos. Also it is very good to see the landscape in Japan. This summer I will try your way of preparing trout:)
Say Heah Doc, I live in a area where we have Black Bears only, even then I feel the Bears have the edge, heh heh heh, (pun)anyhow in those areas I carry my modified Para Ordnance Expert in Stainless Steel .45acp 1911 re - done into a .460 Rowland, even then some say it's too lite, I know better, but a knife ? You must be a Superman.
My favourite bushcraft knife, to date, is the Jeff White Bush HD. The knife is beautiful to me, keep a remarkable edge and is my best one for sharpness vs blade thickness. Unfortunately the handle is too small for my big hands. But still is my favourite overall knife.
My friend. You are a legend. EDIT. I have a few of these knives. Love the way you altered the Ontario.. though mine is bayonet style. Mora, I love..carry everywhere. It's replaced the knife my father gave me(buck110) though mora I have is companion style but carbon. Have recently transitioned to the BPS adventurer as my everyday carry.
Great you show a new video in english! I tried following your other channel in japanese but no way for me to understand a single word. Thanks for sharing!
Doc, I had my Rodent 6 thinned down and the top gaurd taken off its becoming one of my Fav. 6" blade, and it came out great at the Busse Custom Shop, I have a suggestion for your Bear Protection Knife, instead of modifying the Rodent 6, I'm thinking of taking the top gaurd off on the Busse Team Gemini, I bet we would have some of the best knives for such use, it's long, it would be more fluid, and the steel IMO is the best.
Great videos again..I must say your videos on knives are my most favourite as I to are a knife buff..I have many different bushcraft knives but my main carry now is my Fallkniven Idun with stacked leather handle..4"laminated steel blade..expensive but well worth the purchase in the long run...I also take my condor bush lore with me ,I prefer convex knives but usually tend to go for full ting with good ergonomics ...good Scandinavia grinds are also good...but I always have to take my Ka bar BK2 when I go in to the woods or mountains ..heavy but by far the best for chopping and battening ..been in the UK we have some great blades due to our great Sheffield steel company here..I'm just starting to learn how to begin reprofiling blades...made a few mistakes but getting there..keep up with your videos very interesting and beneficial...Many thanks
I have bought two new knives, thanks to Virtuovice's reviews! Mora Companion and Fallkniven TK2. The thin blade, and very comfortable handle of Mora Companion, makes it excellent for cutting tough material like wood. The convexed top of the handle fit into the palm of the hand perfectly, and relieve pressure when cutting down hard. The thick blade of TK2 is more suited for cutting soft material, like meat. The handle is very comfortable, but not suited to cut tough material like wood, because the top of the handle is NOT convex, and does not fit into the palm when cutting down hard. However, the angled design of the handle is wonderful, and you know exactly where the knife is in your hand and which angle the blade has without looking at it. More precise to hold than Mora Companion. Now I have three knives for different purposes: Mora Companion: For all around utility and bushcraft. Also good for hunting, fishing, shellfish and clams. (I think this knife is pretty ugly looking, not harmonic in forms, but still very comfortable and useful. Strange that something that is ugly, can be functional. It is ironic, that my cheapest knife, the Mora Companion, will probably be my most used knife.) Fallkniven TK2: For hunting. (My most expensive knife. TK2 is luxurious and beautiful. It is like a jewel! I don't want to mess it up, and will use it only for the most exclusive of activities. It is a pleasure just to hold, and it feels like a natural outgrowth from the hand! A Masterpiece of craftsmanship.) Gerber Silver Trident: For self defense. A brutal knife. No one is going to force their way into my home.
You sir are a master blade sharpener. Fantastic collection of knives. Bark River makes some beautiful, high quality knives. What is the model name of the black Bark River life you use for bushcraft/survival? Domo Arigotto. (sp?)
No swiss army knife? The blades are thin and tiny, for small everyday tasks only but the tools are fantastic and the quality and worksmanship are awesome. I feel naked without one in my pocket. I guess you can legally carry the 58mm ones in the city even in Japan, it may look like a toy but it is still a very useful little tool.
Picked up a Weatherby Vanguard series 2 in .308 caliber a few weeks ago. As you may know Wako, it is actually a Howa product; I'm very please with this fine Japanese product.
i think you have 2 sets of fine knives, for "all around" use. knives for a life-time and back up (or alternate) choices you could outfit yourself and one more person/even 4 people in one camp i admire your choices
Great choices, I have some of the same ones. I think I have also seen you with bear spray on your belt when out fishing. This is also a great choice. Fighting a bear with a knife must be a last resort.
I'd have to say I also love the mora light my fireknive as a must EDC.with a good full tang.(bark river with 4inch)and I'd be good for just about every thing.
With practice it should be possible to get used to effective deer dressing with any decent hunting knife. I would choose Fallkniven TK2 or a Bravo, simply because they are more handsome than Fox River! Maybe even get used to exclusively handling a Bravo 1.5 for deer dressing - because then, in an emergency situation, you will have both survival knife and effective hunting knife in one.
Greetings from Tasmania. l've been following your youtube videos for a while now. l'm into bushcraft and my current loves are the Tops BOB, and as a secondary l use a Tops Scandi trekker. l love these knives, but wanted to see what all the fuss was about when it came to Mora knives. l watched your clip on the Moras and a few other scandi grind knives and went for the Marttiini which cost me $35 AUD all up shipping included. l love the thin scandi blade for wood working. The only down side is that l find the grip to small for my hands (not really an issue as my hand travels all over the blade foe carving). l know you are fond of the Moras, but l reckon you should give Marttiini of Finland a go. Also just currious as to where you live. l didn't realise hunting was such a big thing in Japan. Keep the videos coming. Well done.
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys ,we all like to play and then justify it afterwards,PS I also have wasted thousands of dollars on knives,and it was worth every cent,good luck with your toys.
Again, I say...many, many, many confirmed accounts of a man killing bears (even grizzlies) with just a knife. In the late 1800's knife hunting was a celebrated sport with and without the use of dogs and several legends of that period killed hundreds of bears with a hunting knife. One was former Governor of South Carolina: Wade Hampton. He killed upwards of 500 bears in his life with fifty of those being taken with just a knife. A man with a good knife and a cool head in battle can kill the crap out of any bear.
I'd love to believe that. Sincerely. But I just don't know what a 200 lbs man vs a 600 to 1000 lb raging charging Grizz at least 20x stronger and faster than a man, that rolls around large boulders and logs and digs all day long for subsistence could possibly do in terms of any significant damage to it with a hunting knife. I wouldn't even feel secure with a 454 Casull. But I'd rather go down fighting anyway with some chance of evening up the odds if the bear was hard wired with intent on eating me alive. Respectfully...
roadwary56 I hear ya. I never fought a bear. But, a 100 lb pit-bull got in my house when I was moving in (2005). I didn't see him till it was too late. I grabbed him by his collar, dragged him outside, picked him up over my head and body slam him one handed. He didn't feel heavy at all. He whimpered like a puppy and ran home with a broke leg flopping. I'm not by any means a physically impressive man...just a short fat dude. I could have wrung a bear's neck easy at that moment for sure, lol. Cheers.
Haha. Hey that's a good one. Good on ya. Remind me not to tick you off or wind up in your house uninvited (not that I would or could). lol Yeah, sometimes motivation trumps size. Imagine what you could have done to that pooch with your knife in hand. And cheers to you down in "Tar Heal" country. Used to live next door ya in east TN, go Vols. You know what I'm talking about.
Grizzlys usually aren't raging, especially 200 years ago when they had less encounters with man. I think that makes it more plausible for one man to kill more than one bear.
I am not a knife collector. I am a book collector. BUT, I still felt that something IMPORTANT was missng from my spontaneous collection of knives. A real good survival knife! So, now I have bought a Bark River Bravo 1.5. I am sure it will be my best companion when Europe collapses, and everyone has to defend for themselves, and survive on their own. Now I have four great knives: Mora Companion Fällkniven TK2 Bark River Bravo 1.5 Gerber Silver Trident I must say again how great TK2 is. The angled form of the handle makes you know immediately its position in your hand. MUCH more so than a knife with a handle made of curved forms! This also makes TK2 a great knife for close up self-defense combat, for you can very quickly change its position in your hand, without looking, and know its exact position by feeling. Japan, land of the Samurai, land of Integrity and Honour, and straightforwardness. Please stay true to your culture and racial identity. Please don't become multicultural. Don't make the same mistake that Europe has made! BECAUSE it would be your destruction. The International Banking Empire hates Japan's independence, integrity, and ethnic unity. They will try to destroy you, like they do to every country, and make you part of a global New World Order. They will try to flood your country with Arabs and Africans, break you down, and mix you up. DEFY IT! Hail Victory!
I really cannot think of a better thing to waste money on than guns and knives. There is just a magical feeling of slowly opening a box with a new gun or knife in it. We can’t carry hand guns for protection up here in Canada neither. Although I would hope to never have to tackle a bear with a knife, I carry either my Kabar fighting knife or my Kabar Big Brother. It would be better than fighting a bear with your bare hands, lol.
I would use my Cold Steel SRK in VG-10 SAN Mai” for fighting bear, or my Glock 81, maybe my Kbar 1211, also have bushcraft Gerber Prodigy fine edge, and a Cold steel Kubon Tanto” my Stepdad just bought the Recon Tanto VG-10 San Mai, very nice Knife!
Wako, Please stay far away from bears. My wife and I saw one last year. It was a large California Black Bear that was the size of a mid-sized car. They have a lot of power, and they are fast. That Counter-Assault is a good first line deterrent. If you have your hunting rifle, I would not hesitate to use it (despite the law) if the bear spray does not work. What good is the law if you are dead? That said, most bears will avoid people, and I see you take precaution with bear bells and such. I would hate to be in a knife fight with a bear, but make him earn his prize if it ever gets to that point. My wife and I always carry Counter Assault when hiking/backpacking in bear country. The real danger are the wild cats, which are 150+ lbs. You can use bear spray, but you are suppose to fight the cat off if you get mauled. Fight back. I carry an Emerson CQC15 and a Bark River Bravo 1 for this.You need a knife that is fast, will not fail, and has traction and secure grip. The Emerson CQC15 has all of these for me.
Love your videos. I'm a knife collector as well benchmades are my favorite ( rift, hunt skinner especially). What r your thoughts on kabar knives (aka. Kill a bear).
Hey there, I am a silent watcher of your videos and enjoy them so far, but now I am about to buy my first bark river knife and I'm thinking about the Gunny rampless or hunter, bravo lt hunter and the fox river, but I am not sure about the steel yet, because I want it to be easily sharpened and because I use it for camping, hiking and kitchenwork and also for hunting in Germany(here we usually open the belly first and only take the guts out not the meat) and I don't want it to rust too easily because it can lie around in the blood for a while and I'm often not able to clean it instantly, so I'm not sure if the a2 with a patina or the cpm 3v is better and the other thing which is the harder one is that I want to be able to sharpen it on a field trip, I'm not sure if I would be able to easily sharpen the 3v with just the bark river compounds(black and white, without green ;) ) or if I should take sand paper or anything like that as well and which grit, I wouldn't care if I had to sharpen it after like 2 days of kitchen work or light hiking/camping or after every 1-2 red deers from Germany to retain the edge easier, because I'd rather sit for 5 minutes every second day of the week than for 30 minutes with more material I need once a week(just as an example) I hope that u can help me Best regards Moritz
You have an awesome knife collection there thanks for sharing I loved the fourth knife it looks very cool by the way what do you think about recurve blades? And also how do you sharpen them?
haha lol...you were spot on about how much money you have to spend before you find out which ones were good ,bad. etc..its called an expensive education but i think its just something we all do,amd even when we know as much as anyone can and after years of spending lots of money,we still cant resist a knife that catches our eye lol,the big question is what did you learn. and if you could only keep three which would you choose?
I have spent a lot of money on knives and learned that what I necessarily need are Bravo1.25 3V for survival and Fox River 3V for hunting and Mora Garberg for bushcraft.
Have you ever tried the Survive Knives, GSO 4.1, CPM 3V, 4.25" cutting edge, 5/32" thick, great heat treatment. I think this will be my #1 bush craft knife, of course, we can never have too many knives. Yoi ichinichi o osugoshikudasai!
Hi. You did not say the name of your preferred bushcraft knife here (the fifth one here) . What is is? A Bark River Bravo? (It would be helpful if you list the knives in the description :) )
I have decided to buy a Bark River knife based largely on your reviews. I am hoping for a knife that will be the best option for many needs, specifically hunting large game, camp use, and some bushcrafting. What is your recommendation of the bark river knives?
+Jonathan Blanck The best game dressing knife is Fox River LT Elmax. In case the game is small like a 180 pound doe, Classic Drop Point Hunter Elmax should be the best. Rampless Gunny Elmax is good regardless of the game size. Elmax is the most suitable steel for game dressing practically in my experience. For bushcrafting I love Bravo1 the best. Its steel should be A2 or 3V because of their toughness. Bravo1.25 is a little too long to carve or whittle wood cleverly while it has an advantage for batoning. Rampless Gunny 3V is a little Bravo and always handy for the same purpose. The old batches of Bravo1 3V and Gunny 3V had fat geometry. I recently confirmed the new batch of Gunny 3V had a nice thin geometry. I will check the new batch of Bravo1 3V soon. Thanks.
Say Heah, I have a Attack Model #18 Randall Made. I also have a Model #14 with a One Finger Groove Handle. Bob at Randall told me its almost indistructable Also I got lucky my #18 is made in 440c. I also have a CarbonV Laredo and the San Mai 3 Matches which is a Mamba Jamba of a knife. Yup its a Big'un. Plus two recent Bowies. my BK-20 Bundok Bowie and my BK-29 Moses Bowie. Both 10" + bladesBut my Fav. Knife I like to bring to a Bear Fight is my Para Ordinance Expert 1911 S.S. Converted to a .460 Rowland, heh heh heh at least. It's like a .44 magnum but with more fire power.,,.
Fight a bear with a knife? lol If your lucky he will just get annoyed, I wouldent even use a axe against a bear. Try pepperspray or a spear instead and you might stand a chanse.
Doctor: I appreciated very much seeing you discussing your primary knives. I would like to purchase a Bravo 1 3V rampless. I am primarily a feathersticker and rope cutter. Would you recommend the Field version or the LT version for my usage?
Cool collection. I like how you've changed your bevels. I have a question though. What brand is the fourth knife to the right (the second bear fighter)? I like the brass bolster guard and the "raw" finish towards the spine of the blade.
Will you do a knife collection 2014 video soon? I'm curious which knives you still have. I don't think it's a waste of money. If you can enjoy having a knife as much as you would enjoy spening that money on something else it's worth it. Some people buy $200 dollar bottles of wine and it's worth the money for them. We knife lovers spent it on knives.
I learned, that most factory edges are not good, and It is better to have some marring on face grind and a sharp convex edge, marrring , can be smoothed out, hard fine stone fine sand paper
Hi Wako, I've watched 4 of your video's today, really helpful. Can you please tell me what the smallest Bark River knife you have in this video is, the one that you prefer for dressing smaller deer/does that might weigh 150 pounds or so? Thanks, Gus
The best knife I love for dressing small deer is Loveless Drop Point Hunter in this video. Currently it is available in 3V as well as in A2. The weight of the small deer I call is around 150 pounds as you mention. Thanks.
Thanks Virtuo, My understanding is that the traditional "loveless" grind is a hollow grind, but you seem to prefer convex. I find convex much fiddlier to sharpen in the field, whereas I can more easily touch up a convex grind in the field. What is your thinking on this? Second question - the regular style Bravo Gunny looks to have almost the same length, thickness and geometry as the Loveless Drop Point Hunter. Is it just that you like the handle better on the Hunter, or is it the drop point you like better? Thanks, Gus
Osmium Gus The belly lines are substantially different between Drop Point Hunter and Gunny. Drop Point Hunter has a rounder belly and is suited for a high angle approach to rib bones to take straps. It is better for small deer. Of course the specific hunting handle of CDPH is excellent. Hollow grind is much easier to sharpen with bench stones. But for the field touchup using a small piece of fine stone or leather strop with a compound, the both geometry has no difference in my opinion. Chip restoration is unnecessary and ridiculous in the field. Stropping makes a sharper edge than stone touchup obviously, and the convex geometry is better suited for the stropping. Thanks.
Thanks JPS, i cant really see the difference in the belly lines from the pictures on the BR website so that feedback is really useful. Appreciated. Gus
Hi Wako, I've had the BRK drop point hunter now for nearly 2 years and I love it. It is my only convex blade and even though the handle is a little short and only gives me 3 1/2 finger grip but it feels great in the hand. for field dressing Fallow deer it is a ripper. Thanks for the advice.
