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Sidearms & Scatterguns Bushcraft Knives

Chief_Rick

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Aug 12, 2020
212
118
MS Gulf Coast/World Traveler
Or whatever you call them. I was looking for a machete and saw this. Had to have it.
What do you have?
This is a Lon Humphrey Retribution with dark Curly Maple and orange liners.
10" 52100 steel blade, 16 1/2" overall.
It's a beast!
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The TOPS BOB has a lot of goodies, IMO.

My one dislike is the blade thickness seems a bit excessive(heavy) but what do I know.
 
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That bob has a lovely grind. Seriously sharp. The handle allows too many grip positions for it to ever seem hefty on task.
It’s not girthy to carry. I don’t own one but I’ve taken one out for a date. These are the sharpest knives I’ve used. Great at carving.
 
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I have a B.O.B. its hands down my favorite fixed blade, it rides in my fire pack (wildland firefighter) all season and gets used a lot for camp chores, it batons kindling very well, cooking, etc. Its also my go-to hunting knife mine has skinned and quartered 4 elk, 6 deer and an antelope since I've had it. They are very easy to sharpen due to the scandi grind and 1095 and it holds the edge well for a long time. Cant say enough good about them, the only thing that sucks is the sheath, still working on a great solution for that due to all the different missions I use it for, probably need one for fire gear (kydex with MOLLE/ALICE) and ill make a leather one for hunting and general camping/bushcraft uses. The blade thickness is a non-issue in my opinion and is a bonus for some chores (ex batoning kindling, I've used this thing pretty hard).
 
I bought this guy used.
I’m more comfortable with it’s length.
Also it was cheap!
 

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I also have a TOPs BOB and really like it. Mine is not a true scandi grind, it is a modified scandi with a convex edge. An Exotac nano XL is a nice substitute for the ferro rod that comes with it and fits in the Kydex loop.

For day hikes I like the Mora Bushcraft Black. It is much lighter, has a 90 degree spine, and has a true scandi grind. Nothings carves like a sharp Mora.
 
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For
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my Birthday last month I bought this Battle Horse Knives Patriot Scout. So far I love it! Its on the smaller size, cuts notches and feathers well. Throws a great spark of a ferro rod, and holds an edge really well!
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These two were before the BHK. A CRKT Saker and Mora Bushcraft. The Saker is the perfect shape. But the soft steel rolls bad. The Mora is still a go to.
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I’ve batoned the heck out of a Mora Bushcraft, it’s held up well. Did you have one break on you?
I have not found the scandi grind to do well for that and I've had a lot of rolling on a bushcraft (I'll try and find it for a pic but I think its out of state). It is possible mine has a sub par heat treatment? Overall, I love my Moras.
 
it’s cheap enough that it doesn’t matter. The mora crafter looks durable though.
It does matter though because that knife got f*ed in the middle of a canoe trek through the boundary waters. My younger brothers brought knives too so we had backups, but its not like I was gonna just go amazon myself another one.
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Carrying three blades is serious. I find myself minimizing as much as possible and I can’t get below 3.
 
Carrying three blades is serious. I find myself minimizing as much as possible and I can’t get below 3.

Well I don't always, it depends if backpacking or day hiking. But in PNW we have, well, a lot of wood. It helps to have a big knife or a heavy machete like my Condor Golok would be better, though bulky to carry. The saw is super light and disappears in the pack. I used to carry a small hatchet for the wood chopping and they're great for that. But in the end found that *some* big knives including the Junglas, chop about 90% as well as a small hatchet, and then are more flexible to do other tasks too, so I switched to the knife + saw combo.
 
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A tracker is always with me.
 

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Lt Wright for me. Depending on what’s happening a frontier first, jessmuk companion or outback.
 
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These are some of my favorites. The Adventure Sworn knives are super comfortable with their coke bottle handles. The best part is that you can use them and when you want you can send them back to Cody for a spa day and they will come back looking brand new. The Bayley knife is perfectly suited to outdoor tasks as well and his sheath may be the best sheath out there along with the Andy Wood Sheath. The Andy Wood knife is built like a tank. Perfect flat grind and is razor sharp. The ML knife is just a nice throwback to a time when knives were a necessity for everyday life not a luxury.
 
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I have not found the scandi grind to do well for that and I've had a lot of rolling on a bushcraft (I'll try and find it for a pic but I think its out of state). It is possible mine has a sub par heat treatment? Overall, I love my Moras.
I agree that the scandi grind isn’t the ideal edge for batoning. I’m in CO and a lot of the batoning I’ve done is with pine. I would probably have less positive results with harder woods.
 
I agree that the scandi grind isn’t the ideal edge for batoning. I’m in CO and a lot of the batoning I’ve done is with pine. I would probably have less positive results with harder woods.

I haven’t had a problem batoning my scandi grinds. You can even watch YouTube videos of people using their adventure sworn knives and batoning the mess out of them without issue. I have Batonned with my adventure sworn mountaineer knife and it’s barely scratched. It sounds like a heat treat issue.
 
I haven’t had a problem batoning my scandi grinds. You can even watch YouTube videos of people using their adventure sworn knives and batoning the mess out of them without issue. I have Batonned with my adventure sworn mountaineer knife and it’s barely scratched. It sounds like a heat treat issue.
Are the Adventure Sworn knives a true scandi or are they a scandi convex like on the TOPS BOB? I just went to their site and they look like nice knives.
 
Are the Adventure Sworn knives a true scandi or are they a scandi convex like on the TOPS BOB? I just went to their site and they look like nice knives.

They are true scandi. Cody will take care of you. If you chip it, he will even fix that. I sent him my knife for a touch up and it came back looking new after years of use. That’s why I own 3 of them.
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Mora knives are great for the price point. I have a Garberg that feels "just right" in the hand, and performs really well for camp tasks.
 
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Moras are probably one of the best values in the knife would out there. They are tuff but built the way they are they can fail easy. I would never carry one as a primary knife. I have carried them as a back up stashed away in a pocket.

My experience has been-
Scandi grind works best on wood.
Full flat on meat
Convex best of both worlds.
Convex with a secondary bevel has the best edge retention.
 
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Moras are probably one of the best values in the knife would out there. They are tuff but built the way they are they can fail easy. I would never carry one as a primary knife. I have carried them as a back up stashed away in a pocket knife.

Out of curiosity, I'm interested in why specifically you mention that they can fail easy - is this based on the metallurgy? Heat treatment? Blade design?

Not asking in a defensive manner, just genuinely curious if this is a "full tang" vs. "partial tang" issue for you, or something else entirely.
 
Out of curiosity, I'm interested in why specifically you mention that they can fail easy - is this based on the metallurgy? Heat treatment? Blade design?

Not asking in a defensive manner, just genuinely curious if this is a "full tang" vs. "partial tang" issue for you, or something else entirely.

I can’t speak for others but Moras feel cheap to me. But I know they are durable knives. Cody Lundean (sp?) uses a Mora and it’s been sharpened and reprofiled so many times that it’s unrecognizable. If he trusts it with his life then it’s a good knife. I personally like full tanged knives for hard use. But I like certain hollow handle knives and will get one made by Sam Wilson.
 
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Out of curiosity, I'm interested in why specifically you mention that they can fail easy - is this based on the metallurgy? Heat treatment? Blade design?

Not asking in a defensive manner, just genuinely curious if this is a "full tang" vs. "partial tang" issue for you, or something else entirely.

I have never had a blade fail only the handle. Once a plastic handled one in 10* weather. I dropped it on a rock and a large part of the handle splintered off. The other was a wooden handled one that split in two. Not really sure what happened to that one. I found it like that when I removed it from my pack. I’ve seen the blades broken on a few but I would think this was from the user abusing the knife.

We had a few on the homestead when I was growing up that had been sharpened so many times they were nothing but a nub.
I really like the steel easy sharpened and holds a edge The handles not so much.
 
I have never had a blade fail only the handle. Once a plastic handled one in 10* weather. I dropped it on a rock and a large part of the handle splintered off. The other was a wooden handled one that split in two. Not really sure what happened to that one. I found it like that when I removed it from my pack. I’ve seen the blades broken on a few but I would think this was from the user abusing the knife.

We had a few on the homestead when I was growing up that had been sharpened so many times they were nothing but a nub.
I really like the steel easy sharpened and holds a edge The handles not so much.

Makes perfect sense, and I've experienced the partial tang ones doing something similar (as partial tang knives tend to do when exposed to a lot of abuse and repeated force). I've seen Mora blades broken as well, but nearly universally when the blades have been side-loaded for prying. Granted, you would be hard-pressed to find a knife that won't fail when side-loaded, unless it has been specifically built to handle such tasks.

The steel is fantastic, and for the price point at which Moras can be bought, and their ubiquity, I've treated them as near-disposables especially the partial tang versions.
 
The steel is fantastic, and for the price point at which Moras can be bought, and their ubiquity, I've treated them as near-disposables especially the partial tang versions.

I know for me the Moras get abused way more than my $300.00 Bushcraft knifes. They are in my pack to be used to do tasks that I don’t want to use my main blade for. For fear of rolling or chipping the edge or snapping off the tip. They are the Bic of the knife world in that sense.