Gear Review: The Council Tools ApocalAxe

First of all, regardless of the name, this Council Tool ApocalAxe has uses well before the apocalypse arrives. And while it would certainly make a formidable and handy zombie stopping weapon (seems killing a zombie is redundant), the ApocalAxe will work fine on those that haven't had the privilege of dying the first time.

Thor’s Hammer

Made of hammer-forged steel, the ApocalAxe is far stronger than stamped steel that would save costs and simplify manufacturing. The ApocalAxe on the other hand has its iron grain aligned through being smashed with 20 tons of force while glowing red hot. Although the forging process might produce superior strength, it is a little rough around the edges from a finishing standpoint. But as a fan of hand-forged Swedish axes, the spit and polish of modern high speed manufacturing is easily overshadowed by performance and durability.

Council Tools has been forging American-made cutting, digging and striking tools since 1886 when John Pickett Council founded the company. Based in Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina. Council Tool has been instrumental in not only forging some of the best US-made traditional tools, but also in the design of new lines of tools for specific purposes. For instance, when the US Forest Service approached Council Tool in the 1930s to create forest fire fighting implements, one outcome was the Fire Rake, or catalog number LW-12 in case you want to order one.

The ApocalAxe contains a set of essential tools and grip choices, and one not-so essential bottle opener. However, the near-six-inch cutting blade, the hammer head, gut hook, and the pry bar end are truly go-to essentials of any large survival multi-tool.

Home Front

The domestic chores the ApocalAxe can handle need little introduction, but the survival elements of the ApocalAxe cannot be underestimated. On the domestic side, the blade is both a hatchet and a knife. An Ulu knife to be more specific. With a gripping surface above the blade edge, the is a direct and complete transfer of precise force from the hand to the cutting surface. Traditional knives have the blade leveraged from a distance, but the Ulu is more like brass knuckles.

As a hatchet, the ApocalAxe behaves itself quite well. The head weight of the ApocalAxe is low compared to axes with edge lengths this side. Well, actually, I don’t have a traditional axe let alone hatchet that has an edge anywhere near this size. In fact the only edge close to this is the Timahawk, another tool with tremendous survival leanings. Even my 35” Gransfors Bruks Felling Axe has a blade a full inch shorter than the ApocalAxe.

On the far end of the main blade is a smaller blade in the form of a guthook/seatbelt cutter. Due to the placement of the grip handle forged into the main blade area gives great purchase and tremendous leverage when using the gut hook. The grip also provides the same advantage but in the opposite direction when applied to the main blade. Much like the classic Ulu Knife that has provided Eskimos and vintage hunters alike a fabulous knife design for meat slicing, light chopping, and skinning.

A hammerhead is found opposite the main blade. It is smaller than a traditional framing hammer face. In fact one would have to drop down to something the the 12 ounce claw hammer range before finding a similar hammerhead size. Notably, the head is also quite smooth, and could use some texture if pounding nails is a major use of the ApocalAxe. But for general pounding, breeching, and occasional self defense, the hammer head works quite well as-is.

Another feature of the hammerhead is as handguard keeping a secure fist on the forward grip. When using the blade as a Ulu, or yanking on the gut hook, the web of your hand butts up against the neck of the hammerhead.

Pry Me

On the southern end of the ApocalAxe are a lightly tapered prybar edge, a bottle opener, and a lanyard hole. In between the main edge and the pry bar is a rubberized grip almost five inches long. And hidden under the grip are a series of holes that will make excellent paracord anchor points should the apocalypse outlast the rubber-covered handle.

This would be a good time address the overbuilt and uber functional sheath. Similar to many full-cover axe sheaths, the ApocalAxe cover is a full leather, fully stitched complete cover with no less than eight steel rivets. Belt slots outfit the back of the sheath along with a single D-ring to use in a dangling configuration. But the real advantage is that with the blade cover on,  full access to the hammer head and pry bar features are accessible and encouraged. A fold-over flap with a single snap secures the cover.

In the field, the ApocalAxe chops very well. Not quite a dedicated axe, but plenty good enough. In fact for general chopping chores, the ApocalAxe could easily be a go-to hatchet, no questions asked. Even though the blade is on the larger side, it chops like a smaller edge in average sized workpieces. If you put the entire blade to work such as on a larger diameter branch or trunk, you would quickly hit the end of the leverage of this tool. But again, that is not what this ApocalAxe is for.

When choking up on the blade using the Ulu-like handle, the axe behaves better when punched or swiped. Pounding straight down into wood does little since the small amount of force is distributed over too large an area.

As a hammer, the ApocalAxe pounds with more force than you usually need with a head this size. Common outdoor hammer uses are nails and tent stakes, but as a weapon, this is pretty good choice. It is also the ApocalAxe surface of choice for breaking glass, windshields, and lightweight breeching. The axe blade is for chopping. The hammer is for pounding and breaking.

As mentioned, the gut hook does an admirable job especially after a touch up with file and ceramic rod. Council Tool knows that those serious about their edged tools often prefer to do the final detail sharpening. While the blade of the ApocalAxe comes sharp enough to get the adventure going, power users will want to hone the edge to their preference. However the gut hook could use a polish no matter who uses it. Out of the box, the gut hook had a tough time with elk hide. But a few minutes with a file, stone, and ceramic, the ApocalAxe could be yanked through thick hide and seat belts alike.

Since hunting season is still a ways off, I went to work on a roadkill to see how the ApocalAxe worked processing game. Well, gamey game, that is. Like the guthook, the main blade would do well for a customized sharpening for specific tasks whether wood or meat. Not that the factory edge wasn’t sharp, but it was not at the level of sharp that I am use to.

The prybar aspect is as functional as any quality forged 16 inch straight pry bar. And “forged” is the key word here. According to James Elkins, a vice president at the company, “Council Tool Designed this tool to be a highly reliable, tough, and multi-functional tool that does quite a few jobs efficiently and well and it is again the only tool in its category that is drop forged out of a single 4140 high carbon steel billet, heat treated and tempered so that it will not break or bend.”

Stamps are for Licking

Compared to some of my other stamped steel options, this Council Tools ApocalAxe is vastly stronger, and you can easily feel it when in use. In fact, I would like to reference Snap On again. Tools might look the same, but the forging, heat treating, and especially the very iron from which it was birthed, makes all the difference in the world. And there are plenty of YouTube videos of catastrophic failure to backup my personal experiences. A human under an adrenaline rush due to escape, evasion, defense, or panic can easily deliver enough force to fail a foot-and-a-half pry bar. Heck, even without adrenaline I’ve bent spud bars that are inch-thick circular steel about five feet long. I bent Estwing axes, bent large screwdrivers, bent crowbars, and snapped sockets. I’ve broken pipes with a wrench, crushed oil filters, and snapped off lug nuts. So unless your survival tool has that final 10% stronger everything, you literally won’t know it’s limitation until you actually need it. I mean really need it.

Likewise, if your intended needs may include some precision in your prybaring then the somewhat coarse taper on the pry bar tip could use some thinning. Now I am comparing the ApocalAxe to my go-to pry bars made by Snap On. But those are dedicated pry bars and have little use elsewhere. Council Tools thoughtfully ships the ApocalAxe with the option to remove some material if desired which is infinitely easier that to add missing iron.

Finally there is the bottle opener. The one on the ApocalAxe is fun to use simply because it has such a brute force lever arm behind it. It opens bottles as well as any good bottle opener, and just might displace my favorite opener namely the Magpul Armorer’s Wrench. But opening bottles is not the only use for this tool. The prying feature of a bottle opener can be applied to anything else that needs prying and has a similar lip geometry as a bottlecap.

Don’t Wait

While the ApocalAxe will certainly be an exceptional heavyweight multitool for darker times, the ApocalAxe is also a necessary car, truck, or bug out tool for both escape and rescue. And should the zombies attack, the ApocalAxe will make a fine defensive and evasion tool. But seriously, zombies are little more than a metaphor, and EMPs are (hopefully) a fictional vehicle for prepper fiction. But non-fiction vehicles often need a little assistance when bent or rolled over. Glass needs breaking. And wood needs chopping. So while the ApocalAxe might have some heavy overtones in its name, you don’t need an apocalypse to put this essential tool to work.

Gear Review: The SOG Pillar: A USA-Made Knife

SOG Knives in general need no introduction, but a few SOG blades particular do require a few minutes of your attention. And one such knife is The SOG Pillar.

The SOG Knives company takes its name from a Vietnam-era covert US Special Ops unit known as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group or MACV-SOG. But the real story here is that the SOG part of the MACV-SOG was a cover name to hid the real goings on. Soon SOG began to be shorthand for “Special Operations Group” which was a little more descriptive and honest given the nature of SOG work.

Many know SOG knives to be of good value and often of excellent performance. The Washington-based company named SOG began in 1986, but can trace its inspirational roots to special operations during the Vietnam War. The SOG Speciality Knives company began as the dream of Spencer Frazer who as a UCLA math/science graduate worked in the aerospace defense industry as an research and development tool, die, and model maker rubbed shoulders with artists and inventors. The first SOG knife was the SOG Bowie, a commemorative nod to a fighting blade Frazer could feel was magical when he held one.

The SOG Bowie was the extent of the entire SOG knife line for a while and retailed for $200. And that was over 30 years ago. Sometimes events in a corporation’s history in not so much circular but spiral ever ascending in quality and design while maintaining a familiar form. And thus is the case of The Pillar.

SOG began its journey into our hands with fixed blade knives and USA-based manufacturing.  As time went on their designs diversified, so did their manufacturing options. In 2016, SOG had its blades and multitools manufactured in forges and tool factories on the Asian continent. But 2017 brings some of that knife forging and construction home. So in a spiral of inevitability, SOG presents a USA-made fixed blade of exceptional steel and design.

A Pillar of Society

The Pillar is the single fixed blade in the USA-made release of knives. There are three folders, all automatics, that also care the USA pedigree. But the Pillar represents a homecoming of sorts, to the point it first caught my fancy, and then my desire, and finally my loyalty.

As many readers know, I have a fondness for super steels and cutting edge designs. And I am happy to say that the SOG Pillar is a knife worthy of the respect any top-shelf knife deserves, whether custom or off the assembly line.

The Pillar, and note that I choose to capitalize “The” out of respect, is a blade of the highest performance and sharpness. The Pillar is 7.4 ounce 10-inch masterpiece of stonewashed S35VN steel. The five and a half inch blade is all business, and the canvas Micarta scales form a near-perfect union between human hand and tool.

Downstream

On the blade-side, the clip point is classic SOG with a traditional edge belly, but an embellished spine carrying forth three transitions from aggressive jimping at the grip end, to a graceful dip in the spine-flow, to a classic focus to the tip. While SOG does get creative with its spins including full rasps, the treat The Pillar shares with us is what I believe to be the sharpest 90 degree spine bevel in recent memory. Corner turning on the spine of The Pillar will strike fear in firerods the world over.  In fact you can just wave The Pillar close to a fire steel and sparks will fly. It’s that sharp.

The choil just forward of the index finger guard (where all choils are found) is pronounced enough for functional use, but not so deep to interfere with full blade-length cutting tasks, or large enough to impede with precision grip-close bladework. Some knives have a chasm between grip and blade causing trimming and paring work to suffer due to the leverage distance between hand and true edge. Which is exactly why the sharp edge most kitchen knives begins immediately where the handle ends, and even sometimes flows back under under the grip to get a headstart on the slicing chores.

Upstream

The balance point of The Pillar is distinctly within the handle. The fore-aft flow of the knife centers just behind the index finger in an regular forehand grip. Many blades of this stature have skeletonize steel under the scales that moves the balance forward. Not The Pillar. The only absent steel out of sight under the grips are the two small holes where the fasteners bolt the Micarta scales to the blade. A balance behind the index finger makes for a very solid feel in-hand and with precision movements which is an especially good thing given the literally razor sharp edge The Pillar received at its American factory. The tradeoff of a balance-back design is found in a decreased chop force for a knife of this weight. Batoning with the The Pillar is a real treat however, especially with the plentiful flat shelf running from the midsection of the spine to the tip. But using The Pillar for such crude tasks could be viewed as an insult to the intelligence of this blade. However, that did not stop me from splitting some pine rounds with a diameter three-fourths the length of the blade.

The overall grip size of The Pillar falls somewhere between medium and small. Unlike Gerber’s blocky LMF or KaBar’s Becker series that leans on the circular, the greying canvas Micarta scales on The Pillar provide a firm handshake without making themselves the life of the party, meaning they do not attract undue attention during use. Some blades have grips that consider themselves more important than the overall knife. Grips and scale must know their place in the knife dynamic and serving the human hand is, as Ford says, job one.

Popular handle materials for fixed blade knives these days include good old wood and a pile of synthetics and composites including various plastics, G10, and Micarta. For the record, Micarta is a layered composite that could contain linen, canvas, paper, fiberglass, carbon fiber or other fabric which is then pressed and heated into a strong plastic that feels great in the hand. Micarta can trace its roots back to 1910 when its properties of electrical non-conductivity, temperature insensitivity, and disregard for moisture were new in such a strong material.

Rounding out the back end of The Pillar is a protruding tang with both pronounced jimping and a large diamond-shaped lanyard hole. The curved steel on the back end of The Pillar presents a viable surface upon which pressure can be applied, and even blows if absolutely necessary. But pounding on the knife might constitute abuse under the SOG Lifetime warranty, as it should.

Steel Valor

So what’s up with the fancy steel? S35VN is a powder steel from Crucible Industries (CPM) that abbreviates stainless (S), Vanadium (V) and Niobium (N). This precision mix of elements including carbon, chromium, and molybdenum makes of a blade of exceptional durability, sharpenability, and resistance to chipping and folding. The S35VN steel is tougher than even the famed S30V that I’ve sung the praises of in other reviews. Furthermore, The SOG Pillar’s Rockwell hardness of 59-61, and a glorious mix of metallurgical alchemy in the steel, The SOG Pillar is about as stain resistant and corrosion resistant as a fine knife steel can be given our current mixes of earthly elements.

The SOG Pillar is a leans more towards the tactical/combat side over a survival/bushcraft blade. The Pillar has hints of that mean look we love about the SOG Seal Pup but with better steel, a more refined finish with less of the black special ops persona, and a vastly stronger handle design using scales over a solid steel frame over the Seal Pup’s glass-reinforced nylon handle completely enclosing a smaller tang. Fully enclosed handles are necessary to reduce the chance of electrocution if the blade encounters a hot wire, and also to reduce the thermal conductivity to a bare hand of hot or cold, but mostly cold.

A Sheath Done Right

The Pillar comes with a outstandingly well engineered friction blade cover complete with locking mount that will clamp securely to a belt up to 1.5 inches wide and a quarter inch thick. In the field, The Pillar is as fast to deploy as to stow, all one-handed. And about the only way to knock The Pillar free from its sheath would be to fall about six feet landing on your head. Needless to say that would likely negate your need for a knife, possibly forever.

Removing The Pillar from the sheath is a real treat. The highest grommet hole on the spine-side of the sheath has jimping on it and is an excellent thumb ramp allowing, encouraging in fact the extraction of The Pillar in one clean safe move.

The Pillar and I have made several trips now and it’s still dangerously sharp. I’ve come to appreciate the handle size even more, and enjoy The Pillar’s fluid ability to slice with precision. Despite its tactical leanings, The Pillar works wood very well and shaves fire sticks with ease. The Pillar is just as comfortable working in the kitchen slicing meat and veggies as it would be, and this is just a guess, separating life from a bad guy during government sanctioned wet work.

On a more domestic tone, The Pillar is presented well in its box at point of sale. When you open the cardboard, The Pillar is floating in space centered in the rectangle. In actuality, The Pillar is secured in transparent plastic. Compare this to being stuffed in a sheath and wrapped in a piece of paper, then stuffed again in a box. Presentation of the knife might end the moment the knife goes into service, but the pride of workmanship comes across even before you touch the knife.

When it Matters

Although the tactical edginess of The Pillar might scare some hunters and outdoorsmen away, I can say with confidence that the classic lines and proven clip point are more than capable of cutting up whatever needs cutting up whether bush or beast. Those folks with survival bends might find The Pillar alluring as a bug out knife or primary resident in the Go Bag. And I would certainly agree. In fact The Pillar is like a stick of cutting dynamite that can sit quietly on belt or pack, and does basic work without complaint, but at a moment’s notice The Pillar can step up to be the most aggressive and angry knife in the room. Instead of pushing a lesser knife to work above its pay grade, The Pillar hedges your bets towards the Big Survival side, which is exactly where they should if you’re serious. Mall ninjas need not apply.

The SOG Pillar is not an ordinary knife. The Pillar can play well with the little jobs yet jump to the front line and charge into battle when things go bad. Spencer Fraser, the founder of SOG has said about his company, “We don't settle for ordinary. "We never did, and we never will." And The SOG Pillar proves that. Again.

Gear Review: The Fällkniven PHK Professional Hunting Knife

As knife designs evolve they have to overcome the traditions and stereotypes of the past. There are more designs now and part of the reason is we let our creative juices flow easily when we know that sales might driven by an innovative look as much as higher performance.

When I moved to Montana as a young child, there was only one real hunting knife around here. The Ruana. Rudy Ruana began making knives in Bonner, Montana back when his first clients were Native Americans who needed better blades for skinning horses. Since that time Ruana knives have been the go-to hunting knives for anyone roaming these parts. But back then, the only common options to fill the Ruana void if you couldn’t afford one of Rudy’s blades were knives by Buck, Case, and Schrade.

Rudy retired from the knife business in 1983 which happened to be the same time Fällkniven was ramping up half a world away. In 1984, Fällkniven opened its doors to the world pushing blade technology in directions Rudy never would have dreamed of as he was using old car and truck leaf springs from which he forged his early blades.

In many ways the newest Ruana knives carry forward much of the same look and feel of their ancestors. The core values of the Ruana knife is to preserve the Ruana knife experience. But that doesn't mean Ruana isn’t innovative. In fact they revived one of their more survival-like blades recently in a joint venture with TOPS Knives of Idaho. The blade is called the Smokejumper and revitalizes a design that Rudy created back in the 1930s when smokejumping became a thing. And the minimalist blade with paracord-wrapped skeletonized handle will look quite familiar to those who wander the knife aisles of the survival goods stores.

Charade Schrade

As an elementary student, my knife budget was certainly not what it is today. At that time I fell in love with a US-made Schrade Old Timer Woodsman. It was beefy with a full tang nestled between its nylon faux-wood handles. The steel was, and still is, average. As my knife tastes changed I moved through a handful of other hunting blades, but the size and shape of the Woodsman was always in the back of my mind, especially the blade thickness and rich belly. But not unless some seriously great steel was part of the deal. And a handle upgrade. Today we are well into the 21st century after all and that was two thirds of the way through the 20th century.

The Hunted

There seems to be very few constants in knife making these days with human strength (lifting, holding, wielding) being one. And second would be that the blade can cut into or through the stuff we like to cut. Not too dull. Not too flexible. Not to blunt. Kind of a “Goldilocks Blade.” Beyond that, there are few rules. But there are many traditions, and it is those anchors of history that we have to overcome in order to innovate.

Since the mid-1980s the Fällkniven Knife Company has served the needs of those who might find themselves floating to earth under a parachute, or working their way back home after a crash landing. The Fällkniven F1, also known as the Swedish Pilots Knife, is a small package of cutting dynamite where hunting is on the menu, but the menu is quite large with many vegetarian options. I carried the F1 in my hunting kit, but often found myself looking around for something better when it comes to hunting tasks and game processing. And Fällkniven yet again answered the call.

Related: Survival Gear Review: Fällkniven A1 Pro

The Fällkniven Professional Hunting Knife, or PHK, is a gorgeous upswept-point blade of mildly larger proportions than dusty traditions would specify. Frankly, the moment i saw the design of this blade, I knew it would be good. There was just something so right about it. So modern but primitive. It carried forward the belly of a skinner with the rigidity of a wilderness blade while offering the user a more control though an indexed grip that did not demand fingers be parked only in designated spots. Like something you would see in sub-Saharan Africa. The Fällkniven Professional Hunting Knife has an upsweep-drop point which seems like it could be a juxtaposition, but in fact it’s the best of both worlds. Perhaps the best of all worlds.

The potentially contradictory blade shape of upswept-drop point is an irony of iron that really works. Traditionally upswept designs were elegant but small slicers that skinned game through intricate sweeping motions with total control due to a far-forward index finger placement riding the spine out near or on the blade tip. When the blade exceeds the distance between palm and index finger, the whole hand must move beyond the grip and out onto the blade pinching it between thumb and middle finger while the index does the steering. It’s a dangerous move that requires practice especially when done quickly or blindly...or often both. On traditional larger drop point blades, the tip of the blade rides below the index fingernail meaning it's easier to poke a hole into the skin or membrane during a slice. The pros can drag the tip precisely like a surgeon’s scalpel, but anything done in the field or when things are wet, cold, or as noted before, usually both, is risky. And the more blood and sweat in the mix, the more likely the game won’t be the only one skinned. However, on the Fällkniven Professional Hunting Knife the upswept drop point allows fairly precise driving even from the back seat. The thick spine provide firm but smooth purchase, and the added length in front of the fingertip is easily adapted to by any serious user

Sons of Anarchy

There is a term in knifedom called the “Sharpfinger.” It is both a general and proper noun. Essentially a sharpfinger is a type of knife that is held and manipulated much like a sharp index finger. The most popular sharpfinger is the Schrade, which just happens to be quite similar vintage to my Old Timer Woodsman. The latest Schrade Old Timer Sharpfinger is a thin-bladed, low-quality steel, Chinese-made nod to the Sharpfinger of the past. But one would never carry just a Sharpfinger alone since it is barely enough knife to do the skinning but not much more. Actually that’s not quite true. It seems the Sharpfinger is also a hit with some Hells Angels, in particular Sonny Barger who defended the sharpfinger knife by saying, “I like knives with sharp points. You never know when you might want to pop a balloon or peel a banana." Barger’s book Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club is a great read and should be mandatory prepper consumption for myriad of reasons. And I’ll just leave it there.

Iron Maiden

The iron coursing through the veins of the Fällkniven Professional Hunting Knife blade is a 3G laminated steel scoring a 62 on the Rockwell hardness scale (HRC). The tang is a broad protruding one that, like Fällkniven’s survival blades, pops out the back of the grip completing the solidity of this package. A single grommeted hole graces the far end of the Kraton grip allowing a lanyard to be attached.

Related: Fallkniven A1 Survival Knife

But with change comes controversy. If mildly noticeable deviations from the blade norm will raise eyebrows from the general user and smirks and sideways glances from the knife glitterati, then drawing your PHK from its zytel sheath will leave mouths agape. Until they use the knife system, that is. Without knowing it, most survivalist and hunters are carrying on a tradition that began long ago. The camo-clad crowd spouts “two is one, and one is none.” But what they are really saying is carry both your Sami and your puukko. The Sami (or Leuku) is the big blade, and the puukko is the smaller blade. For those who also feel the need to pack a machete in their BOB, well now you too get a historical word to define that part of your kit: Seax.

Big blades and little blades have been complementing each other for millennia. But not just for failure recovery, but for a highly planned and discriminatory division of labor. Big jobs for the big knife, and small jobs for the small knife. A further refinement of this concept did develop further prejudice and that is with the sacrificial blade and the primary blade. or the Pawn and the King, if you will. In hunting circles, there is the hunting knife that is cared for, babied, and often rides safe and warm in the hunting pack instead of on the belt. And there is the working knife that does all the daily maintenance and dirty jobs far below the noble duties of the king. I admit that I too practice this bit of favoritism, but in terms of survival, the OO knife (double-oh knife), or Only One knife concept is very real when the hunting gear must be high speed, low drag.

Left Field

In the quest for the ideal blade or blades, some odd but effective knife shapes and features evolved into some pretty interesting and divergent designed such as the Wyoming Knife, Gerber’s Vital series, and all the variations of the Ulu theme. While I appreciate the creative knife options for specialized hunting tasks, I don’t see them as “instead of” knives, but rather “in addition to” knives. Meaning the hunting pack just got heavier. Some hunters even have a “surgical roll” of blades, hooks and saws that they unroll alongside the still-warm game. But usually those leanings are more in the direction of taxidermy than meat hunting especially when the truck is miles or even days away. Let’s take a closer look at hunting knife innovations and how come they are so necessary today.

Traditions Change

I think it all started when hunting moved from an out-the-backdoor activity to a pseudo-military expedition into the untamed wilderness. There’s not a lot of hardware to carry when popping a Bambi off the back porch. You gut the beast right there donating the innards to the predators that keep the place clean and tidy. Drag the carcass back home. String it up on a tree to cool. When ready, you head to your  kitchen for some meat and bone-specific cutlery. Basically an outdoor butcher shop.

All is fine and dandy until you are miles into the woods and your quarry might not go down willingly like the whitetail snacking on your hedges would. Enter the big (for a) hunting knife. When money and carry-weight is tight, items seem to gain more uses. Military knives moved from BDU belt accessory to top-tier hunting wardrobe. The knife needed to run triple-duty as a camp knife for those lifetime adventures in the national parks, off-grid hunting expeditions, and there is always the self-protection thread that runs through the timeless fabric of knife ownership.

Like all evolutionary change, as one critter specializes, another pops up to capitalize on the available niche. So as the hip-hugging hunting knife moved away from the detailed work and more towards the bigger cruder jobs, little knives moved in like tiny mammals taking over the mini-landscape left behind as the dinosaurs grew bigger. Then when the mighty asteroid dirtied up the place 65 million years ago, the little furry warmbloods made their move. And here we are, more or less.

Specialized knives started to weigh down the hunter who might actually carry a combat blade for general outdoor use, a razor-sharp cutting knife, a skinning knife, a bone saw, and perhaps even a hunting hatchet to split open those pesky big game rib cages and detach bony limbs. What drove this equipment frenzy was the search for exactly the right tool for the job, and not the best tool for many jobs. When at home, you can have all the specialized tools and blades you want. But carrying them on your back and belt is a different story. Especially when you know you will need to use the knife for many other non-hunting chores, and rarely for the chore it was designed for.

Small is Big

In a strange twist on a perpetual theme, there was a movement that started out with good intentions, but ended up causing a mess. And that movement was fueled by the belief that the better a hunter you were, the smaller the knife you needed. Basically the opposite of the Bowie and Tennessee Toothpick persona. Imagine Rambo whipping out his Spyderco Ladybug. Maybe let’s not. The issue rose to epic proportions when a hunting knife could be mistaken for a scalpel complete with a replaceable razor-thin tip. Of course then another knife was needed for regular camp tasks, and an even larger blade was carried for the traditional forest duties. But then the tiny hunting knife with its tiny blade could not remain sharp for long due to its thinness and short cutting surface. So add to the growing pile of knives the sharpening tools and extra blades necessary to keep the knives in the fight.

But the same evolutionary rules that lead to the population explosion of knives can also lead to its extinction. Blades were staying home and hunters were squeezing more performance and specialized jobs out of knives obviously not designed for such work. As the proverbial pendulum began its healthy swing back towards center, so started another renaissance of sorts with hunting knives. The short ones got a little longer. The thin ones got a little thicker. And the pointy ones got a little more dropped. And the full belly of the skinner was shared across designs.

Further, the grips gained features, and the quest for razorblade sharp steel trumped the high carbon sharpening ease of the leaf springs. Taking advantage of this enlightenment in hunting knives was none other than Fällkniven by creating an obviously unique take on the philosophical concept of a hunting knife. The Fällkniven PHK has hints of many different blades from Samurai Sword, to Tanto fighting knife, to skinning blade, to wilderness knife, to survival blade. In fact, the PHK is like a piece of contemporary art that assumes the preferences of the viewer as much as standing on its own. In other words, the PHK does it all, and most things well.

At five millimeters thick, the PHK blade shares a level of strength uncommon to traditional hunting knives. And its blade length exceeds the hunting industry standard by about an inch. Further, the attention Fällkniven gave to hygiene is something more in line with the butcher shop than the killing field. The stainless steel and kraton grip clean up nicely and provide few homes for bacteria unlike bone and wood handles.

In general, the PHK guts like a gutter, skins like a skinner, chops like a chopper and slices like a slicer. It does none of these things quite as good as a blade specifically designed and dedicated to such tasks, but the PHK is well within the margin of error for modern task-specific cutlery. Adding to this list, the Fällkniven PHK also worked great as a minor clever as it crunched through upland game bird wings and legs with skill and finesse. The full belly rolls smoothly through all things aviary, and breaks the bones of any fish you can lift. But big game is another story. Processing hundreds of pounds of animal requires some seriously edged firepower so pushing eight inches of blade length around a carcass is a task well within the Fällkniven Professional Hunting Knife skill set.

What About BOB

Each hunting trip by nature has hints of bugging out. And since the statistical chance of a catastrophic event happening does not decrease in the least just because you are wandering the hills miles from anywhere. You should view your hunting kit as your potential Get-Home gear and your knife as your bug out blade. The Fällkniven PHK Professional Hunting Knife seems an excellent blend of blade size, shape, thickness, and edge profile. So planning for the best, and preparing for the worst could be the Fällkniven PHK’s motto.

Gear Review: Surefire E2D & E1D Defender Flashlights

When I run out the door at night I alway grab a light. Whether to a store, a walk around the block, or out for the evening, an electric torch rides in my left pocket, a knife always in my right. And both are always of the highest quality.

Two torches that have the most pocket time are a pair of Surefires, one the dual cell E2D, and the single cell E1D. Both lights are the latest generation, and both are ones where I carried the prior generation as well. There are many similarities between the lights, both good and bad, but there are some significant differences as well. The things these two lights have in common beyond their maker include extreme brightness, two light intensity levels with the brightest firing first and the lowest fixed at five lumens, tail click switches, crenulated bezels, dual-direction pocket clips, use CR123 lithium batteries, are made of aircraft aluminium, glass lenses, latest LED technology, O-ring sealed housings, and astronomically high MSRPs.

The differences include the number of CR123 cells used, the sharpness of the bezel crenulations, the size of the pocket clip, the runtimes (close, however), the max brightness, the weight, and of course the length (but not by as much as you would think).

One For The Road

The single battery E1D is still a handful at four-and-a-quarter inches long, or more than three times the length of a CR123 battery. The E1D has a twin brother who instead of sporting an aggressive exterior actually had deliberately subdued features designed to slide in and out of pockets without snagging. It is called the Surefire EB1 Backup.

The E1D’s 300 lumen output is more than enough for big tasks, but the true measure of a survival light is how low it can go and five lumens is an excellent choice. Carrying the light in a pants pocket is noticeable. Not because of the weight but because the bezel shares the same diameter as a quarter. The type of tail-cap switch is an option on the E1D. I chose the traditional two-click with shroud, however even with the shroud the light is still unstable when standing on its tail. But then again it was never designed for such uses. While the shroud does protect from unintentional lighting, there is still ample room to deploy the switch with almost any bump or corner that is smaller than the shroud. The harsh form of the E1D easily slides in and out of clothing with very little chance of snagging. Four potential lanyard holes cover the tail switch shroud, and the pocket clip prefers a lens-down fairly deep carry.

The E1D weighs about three ounces with battery which doesn't add much swing weight to the fight, but if the flashlight weighed much more, you wouldn't carry it. So light is good for a light.

Make Mine A Double

The E2D Ultra Defender is a full 123 battery longer than the E1D and just under two times brighter at 500 lumens compared to 300. The bodies of both Defenders are textured with a rougher but still comfortable gripping surface. Much better than most other lights that offer little more than a teflon-slick surface that is dangerous under the best of conditions.

At 5.6 inches long, the Surefire E2D fits wonderfully in the hand with both primary and secondary striking surfaces peaking out from your fist. The the shape of the light housing fits great in the hand with increased diameters at both ends keeping it centered. At a hair over an inch thick at its widest diameter, the E2D is strongly grippable by even small hands.

One of the defensive aspects of these lights include their ability to behave as a club, and a sharp one at that. It’s a mild force multiplier at best, but a multiplier it is with six sharp scalloped crenulations ready to dig into flesh. Although the smooth surface won’t likely capture much skin DNA, the blood that will be drawn can certainly provide evidence should it be needed.

The E2D should provide a little over two hours of maximum lighting beginning at 500 lumens and tapering down over time. Or with a second button click within a second will give you almost three solid days of five lumens of output. Of course all runtimes assume starting the burn with fresh quality batteries. The Surefire E2D with two onboard Surefire batteries weighs only 4.2 ounces.

Photons from a Phirehose

Don’t get me wrong. I am a fan of massive amounts of lumens. Nothing is a cool as lighting up the side of a mountain with something that easily fits into your pocket. Or illuminating the trail at night out a few hundred yards. But turning on a 500 lumen light in a dark place is like a flashbang going off without the noise. Anything within five feet of the light is too bright to look at, and if you were hoping to read a map or find your keys, good luck. Most indoor lighting chores are close up and require no more than a dozen lumens, often much less than that. Surefire offers a five lumen low gear which is plenty for personal tasks and affords enough light to walk briskly over uneven terrain. But don’t take off running with five lumens or you will quickly outrun your stopping distance.

Spilling Light

Firing off hundreds of lumens might sound like a good idea, but the contrast difference between an fully illuminated surface, areas within the light’s spill, and those regions still in shadows is so great that your eye cannot adjust fast enough to see anything but a brilliant dot surrounded by utter blackness. About the only way to use a 500 lumen light inside a car is to cover the lens with your fingers allowing only a few photons to sneak out. But that won’t work well or for long. With each movement, the light intensity changes, usually towards the too much light side, and the horsepower of such lights generates enough hot aluminium to burn your hands. Finally, if your other hand is busy, you cannot turn the light off without opening the floodgate for a few seconds. Although your car’s interior won’t quite be visible to the astronauts on the International Space Station, it will show up from miles away.

This Ain’t Burger King

Many high-end flashlights have a user interface that allows more than one choice of brightness level along with a few other outputs including strobe, SOS signal, and moonlight level. But with half a dozen brightness choices comes complexity and unpredictableness. The idea for many choices is a good one...on paper. But in real life, the multitude of choices in a defensive light can be worse than an empty mag or unfamiliar safety. In the case of the Surefires, the two choices, all or just a little, are plenty. And “all”l must always be the first option when pushing the switch.

So in a nutshell, the Surefire Defender Flashlights are excellent at providing blinding light, long low-level runtime, and a sharp circle of crenulations to add some spice if things go all hand-to-hand on you.

Having carried and extensively used Surefire flashlights for decades, and the E2D series for years, I am confident that it is one of the very best choices out there for the situations it was designed for. It is at the top of my Bug Out list, and I travel with it without hesitation. My only concern with the Surefire Defender Flashlight that some uber-efficient TSA agent will consider it a banned item and keep it for himself. To avoid this violation of my constitutional rights, I often wrap a ring of electricians tape around the business-end neutering the look of the bezel’s crenulations. I’ve also been known to black out the name of items like this with tape in order to prevent easy identification by thieves, and to keep the security-curious from wondering why a flashlight is called a “Defender.”

Gear Review: Magpul Tejas Gun Belt

The Magpul Tejas “El Original” Gun Belt is what happens when tradition falls into bed with technology By combining the best leather with the best polymer for the purpose. And thus Magpul invented a whole new genera of gun belts.

The top grain bullhide was taken only from the shoulders of the finest English speaking bulls, while the polymer is mixed from the finest carbon atoms harvested from dinosaurs buried deep in the earth.

Open Wide

At 1.5 inches wide and a quarter-inch thick, the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt would be a formidable weapon on its own, but it true purpose in life is to carry your weapon with style, grace, and undying devotion.

What makes the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt unique in the gun belt world is that it successfully mates reinforced polymer with leather forming a cohesive and practical belt. The polymer lines the user of the belt ring while the bullhide rounds out the public side.

The strength of the polymer allows the adjustment holes to be closer together at about ¾” apart. Closer than usually found on leather-only belts where the risk of holes stretching or tearing into each other is greater.

The Original Tejas Gun Belt retails for about $85. For a hundred bucks more you can get one that substitutes sharkskin for the bullhide. Or for $25 less you can get the Tejas “El Burro” that lacks both the sharkskin and the bullhide leaving you with just a heavy duty polymer belt. Plenty functional, but less the fancied-up materials.

Open Carry

The human-facing side of the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt handles sweat like a champ. The polymer side of the belt is impervious to water weather salted or not. In fact the polymer of the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt is impervious to just about everything. Modern synthetics are amazing and to have one half of a high quality leather belt be magical synthetic is worth the admission price.

To test the limits of the Magpul Tejas “El Original” Gun Belt, I packed a particular handgun all over the grizzly infested snow-covered backcountry of my neck of the woods. Strapped to my hip on my Magpul Tejas Gun Belt were 3.5 pounds of Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan with Galco Leather Holster and six rounds of Buffalo Bore 340 grain .44 Magnum +P+ ammo. That’s over 55 ounces of asymmetrical belt tugging gun weight! For reference, a fully loaded Glock 17 with 17 rounds onboard weighs just 31 ounces or just a little more than one-half of the weight of the Alaskan. It’s like wearing a fully-loaded Glock 17 and a fully-loaded Glock 26 on the same side of the belt at the same time.

After hours of hiking through the snow on many occasions, I have to say that the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt is by far the best gun belt i’ve ever used. Not that my other gun belts don’t serve me well, but the overbuilt composite (leather and polymer) design is impressive. The weight of the holstered gun and big bladed sheath knife is distributed all around the waist, and there was no twisting, sagging, or leaning off the hip. Honestly, at first i was aware of the heft of the gun on the belt, but not much later, even the heavy Alaskan melted into my stride as the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt carried the weight with no added attention. Where range reviews of the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt fail is that the true merits of this belt begin to shine many hours into packing a heavy gun that can only happen through authentic carry.

Buckle Up

The stiff Magpul Tejas Gun Belt requires a bit of patience when buckling up for the day. The flexibility of the belt is nowhere as much as thin leather or nylon webbing belts like the 5.11. Instead the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt is a rock-solid platform to wear your gear. Sometimes I wonder if the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt is more of a gun belt than a pants belt, but I’ve not yet reached the level of bodily decay to need a belt to prevent dropping my “trou” unintentionally.

And since the sales of the Glock 19 compare to the Ruger Alaskan at probably 10,000 to one if not more, I did plenty of “lightweight” testing carrying a G19 around. Compared to the Ruger Alaskan, the G19 was weightless and rode on the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt with invisibility.

Dress for Success

The Magpul Tejas Gun Belt, while an excellent gun carrier, is also a fine looking piece of your dress-up kit. You can rock this belt at the office, the night life scene, and of course the gun range. At no time does the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt feel like it doesn’t belong as some gun belts do.

In Summary…

The Magpul Tejas Gun Belt is not your grandfather’s gun belt. It is a modern take on a historical weapons carrying trend. The combination of leather and polymer should satisfy the most discriminating belt wearers. But now that the dust has settled on my review of the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt, I just have to say that since I want the feel and sound of leather (especially with wheel guns) with the strength, durability and downright imperviousness nature of Polymer, I am 100% sold on the Magpul Tejas Gun Belt as the best dedicated gun belt.