This is a review of the Bear Grylls Ultimate Survival Knife, produced by Gerber and endorsed by Bear Grylls. I thought I would post this as being of interest to the forum, given the following of Bear Grylls and his popularity as a survival guru based on his TV show.
The knife is shown at
http://bear.gerbergear.com/Knives/ultimate-knife/I was actually quite interested when this knife came out: it appeared to be worthwhile in the ads, so I ordered one from Amazon for examination. Ultimately, I returned the knife for refund. Consequently, I did not attempt to sharpen it with its sharpener or use the fire starter so that I could return the knife in unused condition. However, for the purpose of this review, I did use comments gleaned from others on the Internet, most from Amazon, but one from Blade Forums, who did use these features.
The knife design is impressive. The blade shape and size are well thought out, having a 4.75 inch length that is a good one for a survival knife, the blade is thick enough to provide good strength, the shape is excellent, and the serrations cover about 1/2 of the blade and are of an efficient design pattern, similar to Benchmade's. The blade is covered with some kind of unknown grey material to protect the steel. On the top of the blade there is a ¼ inch wide notch where the steel is exposed to use to strike the fire starter.
The knife is well balanced. The handle design feels good in the hand, and the material appears to afford a good non-slip grip. I like the pommel design, and think it an excellent feature on a survival knife. Gerber seems to be the only company that offers this feature, and I applaud the decision to incorporate it as there are times in the field when one wants to pound on things and a stick is too ackward.
The additional features that are enclosed with the knife are useful: the whistle is loud, althought I would replace it with an aftermarket design like the Fox which is much louder. The sharpener appears to be some kind of diamond material and is very rough. I did not try it, but think it would keep a serviceable edge on the knife without much problem. Including it as part of the sheath is a good idea. It is covered with a piece of nylon to keep the sharpener clean and from rubbing on clothes. There is also a ferrocerium rod that appears capable (from reviews on the Internet) of providing a good shower of sparks, but some complained that it was too short. The rod started fits very tightly into a part of the plastic sheath.
The sheath is made of a plastic and holds knife tightly enough that I believe that it will not accidently come out. The sheath is attached to nylon webbing to carry it. However, the webbing is one or two thickness of nylon and the stitching does not appear very strong. The sheath will fit most belts and can be rigged both vertically or horizontally but its loops are not wide enough for the military web belt and there appears no way to use Molle fasteners with it to attach it to the vests that are so popular.
There is also a very basic picture of some air-ground signals that almost appear to be chosen at random (Yes, no, need medic, drop message, need mechanical assistance, do not attempt to land, among several others) but the plastic on which these are printed is on the outside of the back of the sheath where it will rub against the user's pants. I wonder how long the signaling diagram will last before it is completely rubbed off, as it does not appear to be much more than printed on the plastic without anything over it to protect it.
Overall, I was impressed with the ideas incorporated in this knife system: it has some very good features that would be useful to the owner.
Now, having said all of these things, let me say that from here on, the review is going to get ugly.
While the design of the knife and the accompanying accessories was impressive, the execution was not at all.
The knife was made in China. This in itself might not be a bad thing, but the quality shows throughout it. Overall, there was poor fit and finish of the handle onto the blade, and the cut for the firestarter on top of the blade was at an angle to it rather than perpendicular to the length as I would have expected. Gerber makes almost all its other knives in this price range in the USA, including the superb LMF II, on which the Ultimate Survival Knfe seems to be based, so I fail to understand the decision to make this in China.
The handle appears to be a coating of rubber over a hollow plastic tube. At the end of the tube, the pommel is attached with two plastic pins. Two reviewers on Amazon commented that the pommel broke off when the knife was used for batoning or the pommel was used as a hammer. However, one other reviewer stated that he had driven the knife into a tree by hammering on the pommel with a mallet and had no problems with it.
IIRC, I have seen mention of the blade as being a full-tang design. This is not the case, as can be seen in pictures where the pommel broke off and the interior of the handle can be seen. (See the review at
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=790424).
I am unable to determine the type steel used in the blade. On Gerber's website, it is mentioned as "High Carbon Stainless Steel", which could be anything from old beer cans to used car springs. There are claims by others that the knife is made of 7Cr17MoV stainless or 440A, but to date, they have not given their sources when I queried them. Other knives made by Gerber in this price range, such as the LMF II or Prodigy, list the steel type, such as 12C27 or now 420A, and I do not understand why Gerber is so reluctant to mention the steel used, as it might be a strong advertising feature if they had chosen a good one instead of some anonymous type.
Overall, I was so disappointed in this product that I returned it. It had such great promise and a superb design that was unfortunately betrayed by an extremely poor execution. Had the knife been made of 1095 or better yet, 154CM, with a full tang, an integrated pommel (not hard to do in these days of CNC machines), and a handle of Kraton or Zytel I truly believe that they would have had the best knife on the market for the money, even if they had to raise the price to around $100 retail. (Currently it retails on various websites for as low as $45, with most selling it for around $60).
This is advertised as the first product in a line of outdoor survival gear, The Bear Grylls Survival Series, produced by Gerber and endorsed by Bear, which will include other useful survival products, such as clothing. I only hope that the poor quality demonstrated in this knife will not be indicative of the quality of rest of the line.
Perhaps the most telling remark on the Bear Grylls Ultimate Survival Knife was when another reviewer commented to the effect that this knife would serve to open his TV dinners while Bear was resting in a motel. To this I would have to add "while he counted his monies pouring in from all of the Bear-wannabes who bought this product thinking it was worthwhile because his name was on it."
Unfortunately, it is not and I cannot recommend its purchase when there are many, many alternatives on the market for about the same (or a little more) money, such as the Cold Steel SRK, the Benchmade Rant 515, the EESE RC-4, and the Fallkniven F1 Swedish Military model to list models with which I am familiar.
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