Further to my thorough abuse of the Ultimate BG Gerber (here: http://www.britishblades.com/forums...er-Survival-Knife&highlight=bear+grylls+knife ) I wanted to follow it up with teh parang. Until this little beast came along.
Well, I finally got one of these in my hands after it was released earlier in February. A different beast to the Ultimate Survival Knife as it is much smaller. It appealed to me right away when I saw the prototype picture as it seemed similar in size and thickness to the superb Bayley S4 Bear used to carry. I love that knife as it is so small and flat. For £17.50, I had to get this new Gerber Compact to try out. Cheap as chips or what. No doubt it will be twice that when it hits the UK later this year. Heinnies are definately getting them in, but you are possibly looking at April now before they get them in stock. Bargains can be had Stateside and you can get them for as cheap as $24.99.
My last review of the Bear Grylls Ultimate had me starting out with a largely negative view of the knife. This time was different and my expectations had risen hugely. I was brought down to Earth with a big slap of reality.
With the Bayley S4....
I don't know what I was expecting, but when I got it in my hands, it felt weird and small (yeah, I'm no Sherlock). It was much smaller than I was expecting. The plastic sheath included in it felt cheap, and the belt clip with that awful orange again. Initial thoughts didn't live up to what I was expecting after the Ultimate.
Anyway, rucksack full of scran and knives, off I went to a remote location reserved for idiots who like to fanny about with knives...
The knife itself in sheath is an overall 200mm long...
Like the Ultimate, the grip is rubberised over a harder plastic base. This one has a full tang. The sheath is quite a thick plastic with a loud orange belt clip that will fit a belt of 1 1/2 inches.
The knife itself is an overall 195mm and has an 85mm cutting edge, 25mm of that are serrated. Yeah I know 90% of you are now groaning, but the Ultimate serrations didn't interfere at all with the day to day cutting tasks. So maybe this will be OK too.
The knife does have a choil. I quite like it as it makes for quite a comfortable grip and makes the edge close in to your hand for greater control and power.
Unlike the Ultimate, this Compact has jimping on the spine to aid your thumb in gripping...
As for size compared to other knives...
As you can see it is far smaller than the Ultimate in everyway...
Thickness of the handle is also very different...
The tang is without doubt full. It protrudes from the handle at the rear to allow for hammering and crushing. I'm not going to abuse this knife with the bush hammer technique. It is so small with a thick 5mm blade, that it will undoubtably stand up to severe abuse.
The sheath has a clip which can be removed and reversed quite easily, for whatever carry configuration you wish to use. It's orange!...
The lock up on the sheath is done with an integral moulded clip which locks into the choil. Lockup is very tight with no play whatsoever...
It also has a rubberised insert set into the centre to aid gripping and easy removal of the knife. My initial impressions on the naffness of the sheath are slowly dwindling after I realised it's only a £17.50 knife and it knocks spots off the Mora sheaths of similar price and more. So what did I expect really?
The sheath also has thumb push jimping to aid removal of the blade...
-and a drainage hole...
The clip can be removed for those not wanting the lovely orangey goodness. It leaves a robust channel, which no doubt can be used to make some more interesting method of neck/baldrick carry for all you folks that like to mess about with other options...
Personally, I like it fully removed as it makes it more compact. And for all you folks that have Craghoppers trousers (pants for you US dudes), the inner pocket on the main cargo pocket is perfect for carrying it. I wore it in there all day today, and it was unobtrusive and not in anyway noticeable...
Thus suitably tooled up, I went on some epic adventures to test it out.
Well, I finally got one of these in my hands after it was released earlier in February. A different beast to the Ultimate Survival Knife as it is much smaller. It appealed to me right away when I saw the prototype picture as it seemed similar in size and thickness to the superb Bayley S4 Bear used to carry. I love that knife as it is so small and flat. For £17.50, I had to get this new Gerber Compact to try out. Cheap as chips or what. No doubt it will be twice that when it hits the UK later this year. Heinnies are definately getting them in, but you are possibly looking at April now before they get them in stock. Bargains can be had Stateside and you can get them for as cheap as $24.99.
My last review of the Bear Grylls Ultimate had me starting out with a largely negative view of the knife. This time was different and my expectations had risen hugely. I was brought down to Earth with a big slap of reality.
With the Bayley S4....
I don't know what I was expecting, but when I got it in my hands, it felt weird and small (yeah, I'm no Sherlock). It was much smaller than I was expecting. The plastic sheath included in it felt cheap, and the belt clip with that awful orange again. Initial thoughts didn't live up to what I was expecting after the Ultimate.
Anyway, rucksack full of scran and knives, off I went to a remote location reserved for idiots who like to fanny about with knives...
The knife itself in sheath is an overall 200mm long...
Like the Ultimate, the grip is rubberised over a harder plastic base. This one has a full tang. The sheath is quite a thick plastic with a loud orange belt clip that will fit a belt of 1 1/2 inches.
The knife itself is an overall 195mm and has an 85mm cutting edge, 25mm of that are serrated. Yeah I know 90% of you are now groaning, but the Ultimate serrations didn't interfere at all with the day to day cutting tasks. So maybe this will be OK too.
The knife does have a choil. I quite like it as it makes for quite a comfortable grip and makes the edge close in to your hand for greater control and power.
Unlike the Ultimate, this Compact has jimping on the spine to aid your thumb in gripping...
As for size compared to other knives...
As you can see it is far smaller than the Ultimate in everyway...
Thickness of the handle is also very different...
The tang is without doubt full. It protrudes from the handle at the rear to allow for hammering and crushing. I'm not going to abuse this knife with the bush hammer technique. It is so small with a thick 5mm blade, that it will undoubtably stand up to severe abuse.
The sheath has a clip which can be removed and reversed quite easily, for whatever carry configuration you wish to use. It's orange!...
The lock up on the sheath is done with an integral moulded clip which locks into the choil. Lockup is very tight with no play whatsoever...
It also has a rubberised insert set into the centre to aid gripping and easy removal of the knife. My initial impressions on the naffness of the sheath are slowly dwindling after I realised it's only a £17.50 knife and it knocks spots off the Mora sheaths of similar price and more. So what did I expect really?
The sheath also has thumb push jimping to aid removal of the blade...
-and a drainage hole...
The clip can be removed for those not wanting the lovely orangey goodness. It leaves a robust channel, which no doubt can be used to make some more interesting method of neck/baldrick carry for all you folks that like to mess about with other options...
Personally, I like it fully removed as it makes it more compact. And for all you folks that have Craghoppers trousers (pants for you US dudes), the inner pocket on the main cargo pocket is perfect for carrying it. I wore it in there all day today, and it was unobtrusive and not in anyway noticeable...
Thus suitably tooled up, I went on some epic adventures to test it out.
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