Knives of Alaska Bush Camp Fixed Blade

What's everyone's 2 cents on this knife? Just curious.

http://www.knifeoutlet.com/shop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=AL014

Knives of Alaska make exceptional Knives! I have no experience with that one in particular, but their knives I have used are well built, beautiful tools. Looks like a decent deal also.

I have never owned any of their products, but I handled a bunch of them this summer (in Alaska of course). They all seemed to be very well made and finished. This looks like it might be a pretty good price...

Simon:

I'm going to give a critique based on that web page alone. Don't be discouraged -- all the stuff I'm saying just reflects my personal preferences, and yours may well be different. And again, I've never seen this knife in person.

AUS-8A is a good steel by me. It holds its edge better than 440C, but is only a little harder to sharpen.

I don't like knives without a sharpening notch. As you can see, the edge runs right into the ricasso without relief. That means that if you sharpen on a square stone, and try to sharpen right to the ricasso, one edge of the stone will ride up on the radius between the bevel and the ricasso and thus put undue wear on the small area of the blade where the other edge of the stone runs.

I don't like grips with notches for every finger. I can never get my hand quite settled. But I have slightly smaller than average hands. I do, however, like a single notch when it's incorporated into the guard

It has a lanyard hole, and I like that on a survival knife.

The bevel doesn't rise up very far, which can mean that the knife won't slice well, and may be poor at shaving wood. On the other hand, it will probably be good at splitting wood when batoning -- another survival knife plus. This all depends on how thick the blade is. The text doesn't say.

Those are the things I can say based on the picture and description. But I've never been able to tell what a knife was REALLY like until I held it in my hand -- so maybe you'll just have to take the plunge.

Of course, if you just resolve yourself to becoming a collector, one more knife is just SOP.

Bear