Sorry, but I would never buy anything even remotely connected to Bear Grylls.

To those who thinks he is X-special forces is way off mark. He was in the territorial army 21:st SAS, but that is not the S.A.S, Special Forces proper, which is the 22:nd.

Just what the world needs, another survival knife!

I suppose it can slice bagels about as well as any other knife costing the same or more, but why the initials? Oh, wait, they aren't initials - they are an acronym - Blatantly Gaudy.

Blatant, utterly shameless marketing. But that's what makes the world go 'round, baby.

The knife and kit are probably not bad. Provided you could sand off the silly BG -- that's just embarrassing.

Thing is, I'd never have a big honking paperweight like that with me on a trip, or in most of the survival situations I could imagine. So it's more of a fun toy to play with around the firepit.

WW,

How do you carry your Skeletool? Do you hang it, carry it in a a belt, or in pocket?

I like my Leatherman Charge Ti but find it a handful (heavy and a tad large) to carry. I should compare the weights of the Seletool to the Charge Ti.

I tend to carry my Mk1 in pocket and then carry the Charge and my Mk3 in my daypack.

About the BG knife, I guess its waaayyyyy better to have any knife than no knife at all.

I have $15 Moras and the $100+ Mk3, and use them all for different purposes and at different times, but I don't abuse any of them - I just don't, nor am I overprotective. They all have their place.

Regarding Gerber ... they've made some great knives.

I used to be a big Buck knife fan, but I found them hard to sharpen. Then I became a big fan of Gerber knives - they sharpened real nicely.

I never found any fixed blade knives I liked. I didn't like the Bucks or the Gerbers. Almost 30 years ago I bought a cheap Mora knife at a Pamida in NW Iowa to use to dig/cut plants out of the ground during a botany class. I was shocked by how tough the knife was and how much abuse it stood up to (OK, I did abuse that knife, but I was much younger back then). It really wasn't until maybe 3-5 years ago, after finding Equipped.com, that I realized it was a Mora knife. That was actually my favorite fixed blade through many years. Sharp and tough.

I bought a Becker BK10, but found it just too heavy to carry around. Tough, but heavy.

Then Equipped.com introduced me to Doug's Benchmade knives and things have never been the same.

The part timers bring other specialist skills to the regiment.

For example there has been many a Super Army Soldier team (22nd) entered into the OMM and have been left trailing down in the list with the also rans against the civilians.

Same with the USN SEALs - there are middle aged men around such as Frank Chalmers, who would easily beat many a SEAL in a long distance swimming race.



Apparentlty Frank dreams of swimming the Tay river estuary on New Years day making the same crossing he used to when he was a teenager (did teenagers exist when Frank was one?) in the summer months

Whether any of us "like" Bear or Gerber (who doesn't like Discovery Channel?), can't lose sight of fact that all three are, first and foremost, commercial endeavors designed to appeal to a segment of viewers ... and make money along the way. Towards that goal, they've been successful.

The BG Survival Knife is available preorder for $60 here

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003R0L...ASIN=B003R0LSMO

If it's specced similarly to the Gerber LMF II i.e. same 12C27 Stainless steel (I have tried to find out if its 12C27 but with little success) then it looks like reasonably good value for money for $60 considering the all the little additions such as the firesteel, microwhistle etc. The BG symbology may even push the price down further to $40. That would be a whole lotta of Knife if someone somewhere marked it down to $40. Might be worth book marking the Amazon page and checking back in a couple of months considering that its only available for pre order in November.

Ok I'll admit it I've got some BG monikered long sleeve shirts made by Craghoppers (basically identical to Nosiquito Range). I picked them up for £15 each. The same shirt without the moniker usually retails for £35-40. I've found another use for Duct Tape.

A person could probably do a lot worse than the "Bear Grylls Ultimate Knife" for the same price.

I'm not a big fan of the partially serrated blade, but you get a fire starter, whistle, diamond sharpener and sheath with it. Granted I don't know the specs of the blade steel or other included items, but they would start to add up in the price of any similar kit.

With that said, of course you could always do better as well, but I don't think a beginner putting together their first survival kit could go too far wrong with the BG knife.

We all started somewhere, and I know my first knife, fire steel, sharpener and whistle cost more than $60 and those pieces aren't even what I carry now.

$49.95 + $6.95 shipping from Rocky National.

I also noticed they have listings for a Compact Scout Knife, Folding Sheath Knife, Parang Machete and Scout Knife as well as the Ultimate Knife that all bear the Bear Grylls and Gerber name, so it looks like they're trying to hit multiple price ranges.

*Disclaimer* I have no connection to Rocky National, Gerber or Bear Grylls, I just quickly looked up the knife in a search for specs and saw they had a price that was lower than the MSRP.

Regarding the blade steel, only a few of the early runs of the LMF II were actually made of 12c27, and were afterwards eventually switched to 420HC, with a few runs of other steels in between. Gerber said the change was due to supply issues with the sandvik steel (they probably thought the supply was too expensive).

I wouldn't count on getting anything better out of this knife.