TOPS Knives BOB • Brothers of Bushcraft • Bushcraft Knife Field Review

Hey, what's up, turtles? It's Crick here with Black Owl Outdoors. Today I'm going to be doing a review on this Brothers of Bushcraft knife from Topps Knives. One of the Brothers of Bushcraft, Joe Flowers, sent this to Stoney and I. I want to thank you, Joe. This is available, I think, on Topps Knives for $150, $160. You can definitely find it a little bit cheaper online. It comes with this little whistle right here, which... I'm not going to do it so loud. You might blow your ears out. But anyways, it's a nice little feature. I don't know why I did that that loud. If you're in the woods, your voice isn't going to carry to help distress. Blow three times, all that good stuff. Nice little feature. I'm definitely not going to leave it hanging on the knife. Put it in my pocket or on my pack. I just want to show you how the knife comes from the factory. And this Kydex sheath. On the front here is this little... little arrangement with some magnesium and a ferro rod. And actually, Joe and I exchanged a few emails with Joe talking about this. He said this was his contribution as well to this notch, which I'll get into in a second. Which is nicely placed on the outside of the Kydex sheath. You know, I really don't ever use magnesium to start fires. But I've always carried one in my pack. But ever since I started getting back in the outdoors, camping, all that good stuff, I've always liked these. Because in a pinch, you know, they're absolutely going to be amazing in a pinch to get a fire going in a wet environment. But like I said, I don't ever use them, but I really like to keep them. So I really appreciate this as it's going to be a, quote, survival and a bushcraft knife. And I'll get into sort of, you know, what that means in a second once I get the knife out and talk a little bit around it. Nice Kydex sheath. I like it. This belt clip, you know, leaves some things to be desired. But nonetheless, it's effective. And like most Kydex sheaths that I've... in my experience I've had, I really don't... I mean, regardless if a belt loop comes, I'm always going to want the drop... drop some whatever clip to let it hang a little bit lower on the hip. As you can see, now if I had this on my belt here, which I'm not wearing a belt actually, it would be up here. But the drop point, you know, hanging down here. But that's a problem with a lot of Kydex sheaths. Just the talker style, you're going to have it right up higher on your hip. Sorry, talking about the knife. Get it out. And now, let me back up for one second. On these sheaths, there's usually a little spot for my thumb, which helps through the assist to open. A little bit of pressure. Pop it out. Now, like I said, this is sort of going to be a bushcraft and survival knife as it stands. And because it's almost around 10 inch length, that's why I'm going to call it a survival knife. Right around... it's a little under blade length, 5 inches. Made out of 1095. Has this coating on most of it here and this exposed 1095, this modified Scandi, which I absolutely love to cut wood with Scandi grinds and modified Scandis. Just super fun knives to use for woodworking. As opposed to a flat grind, which are nice, but don't work that great. I'll just do some more... I'm just going to get a little bit of cutting and whittling in my hand here. Continue talking about the knife. It just really bites into the wood. I know a lot of people, a lot of our subscribers and people on YouTube and the community really like these sorts of grinds on their knives as opposed to a flat grind. And it does have this small bevel. This secondary bevel is really small here. Maybe a millimeter. Which I believe, as we want to call it, I was actually just having this discussion earlier today, leaving some comments. I think it's just meant, obviously, to give the blade strength, but also acts as almost convexing it. Instead of having the convex round, it's sort of coming down the Scandi and then just that secondary bevel is making it stronger. Which obviously, as survival knives go, when you want a baton, you want that little bit of extra strength. A little bit of extra strength in the edge. Like I said, it's a really comfortable knife. My Carta scales. See the swoop? It's not just a flat, straight back of the spine. It's curved up here. There's a hump right here. That's what makes this knife comfortable. And also, on the opposing side, there's a swoop as well. But that's what makes this knife comfortable. And it's heavy. Excuse me, I think this knife is 14 ounces. Right around 14 ounces. Forgive me, I'm drawing a blank on this. But it's heavy. And the thickness of this puppy, 4.7 millimeters. I think it's almost a quarter inch thick. So it's definitely got weight to it. You can definitely bang all around this. It's going to be a great knife to use for heavy tasks. It has that feel. Like I said, I've mentioned before, throw it at a rock monster and have no problems with it. And also, there's also... I'm picking up the detail. It acts as a bearing block for friction fire with a bow drill. And there's one on each side here. And there's another one over here. And I'm not going to try to do a bow fire with this today because it has rained for literally days straight. The relative humidity is so high. Even wood off the ground, dead wood off the ground, is so saturated right now that I've gone into that. I'm not even going to attempt to try to do a bow drill with this to show it. But stay tuned. There could be a video on that using this knife for that. A little lanyard hold. And this is the part of that notch that, down here, goes in conjunction with a sort of survival fire tool, if you will. I'm not going to get a huge pile of magnesium. But basically, follow me. I'm not going to take this to the ground soon. Basically, I'm going to use this, and I'd scrape off a bunch of shavings here. It's going to take a little while. That's why I never really like magnesium for the time. I just got a few shavings there. I'm going to pick it up. But basically, I would use this, and I could strike this and get a spark. Like I said, something I'm probably never going to do. Well, not never. But as fire-making go, this is great in a legit survival situation where it's wet and you literally need a fire. Trying to find dry tinder and all that would be horrible. So this is really great if you're ever going to need it. Let's hope you never, ever need it at that point. But let me just get this back in the sheath. And I just want to reiterate how comfortable this is. I really like the color. Just the look of this knife is just like a classic bushcrafting knife to me or an outdoors woodsman, however you want to say it. Do some batoning with it. Feels comfortable. Feels nice. The extra weight, like I said. It's all good in the neighborhood. I just think the brothers of bushcraft really took a lot of things into consideration when they were making this knife. And just going a little bit deeper than I would want to for a feather stick. Not the best piece to try with. It's just making work. Just this modified Scandi is really just a great cutter, just great for cutting. There we go. Digging into the substrate again. You can see hardly any effort, just body weight. Hardly any effort, just body weight, just to get these small little feathers, if you will, pieces of wood feather. So all in all, just a great knife. A lot of thought has gone into this with the collective, the fellows that made this. A little bit of jimping back here I forgot to mention. But a lot of thought has gone into this knife, and you can just tell when you're using this knife. All the different tasks this is good for, all the different tasks you can use it for, for long, extended use. I don't know if you're watching this how long you've held a knife particularly. Once you start whittling and getting to certain woodcrafting, holding a knife for two hours and potentially doing push cuts, doing something like this, if you're doing small work for hours, your hands are going to hurt, your fingers are going to get raw, all that stuff. But you can tell when a knife is going to get comfortable, how a knife initially feels, if it's going to be comfortable for that extended period of time. Now you can't obviously trade thick skin just through repetition of doing something, but you can definitely get an idea of how comfortable a knife is going to be over an extended period of time. And I feel this is going to be a very comfortable knife to use for that. Not really going to be a chopper, not that much weight to it. I mean, there is weight to it, but in a pinch you can see it would work. Make a quick spear point, sort of, and then go into it for demonstrative purposes. Get the idea. This is Craig signing out with Black Owl Outdoors. Later turtles.