OK I admit it, I love knives. My first ever knife that I recollect came from a Easter Fair and was one of those cheap bowie type blades set into a plastic bone handle. Even then I recognised that it was a piece of Chinese junk and not really fit for purpose other than to fuel a young boys active, outdoor orientated imagination. Since those days I have possessed many types of knives and have an opinion about all of them. My first survival knife was bought while I was in the army based out in Germany and acquired just after the first Rambo film came out. It was by German manufacturer Solingen and was a bit of a monster. Even though I used to carry it strapped to my bergan (rucksack), it hardly ever got used for anything but chopping, but you could store survival kit in the handle! My everyday knife is one that was given to me by Ray Mears after I did some one to one medical training with him down at his place, and since then it has, like my Iban made parang or golock, been almost on every trip and adventure into the wilds all over the world.
Of course that knife was made by Alan Wood to a Ray Mears design and it is and always will be very precious to me, However, for some of the work we do at Survival Edge, particularly the survival training rather than the bushcraft stuff, this knife and others of its ilk lack something when it comes to raw hard tough situations and it seems to me, they are just not ''gritty'' enough.
For some time now I have been hanging with Mykel Hawke and Ruth and since completing the Man, Woman, Wild series for Discovery Channel he has put some effort into designing a range of tools and blades for survival. The first of his offerings was made by TOPS knifes in the USA and was a lot of knife. I was lucky enough to have one for some time to give it the work over. Without doubt is was a heck of a blade and had some really cool features, but despite that I could not get it to work for me. I put that down to the competition. When one has had a knife for a long time it becomes personal, it has an attachment of shared experiences and unfortunately for me I just could not get used to it, despite all the good reviews the Hawke Hellion received in the knife press, my Alan Wood knife and my Iban golock were just too deeply ingrained into my soul, even though I know that the concept was that this one knife would be able to do the job of both these tools.
Hiennie Haynes was the first company in the UK to show the new Hawke range introducing the product line at the Bushcraft Show 2013 and it was the first time I got to see the new models of which there are many fine items, but there was one item that stood out for me, the Peregrine. When you first look at this knife it draws you into it. It has the appearance of something from Judge Dredd and looks quite fierce, especially the version with the serrated edge just forward of the tang, but when you get to hold it something about it draws you in and makes you want to explore it features a bit deeper and so I have included a pic with the key features. These are what stands this knife out as a survival knife as opposed to a bushcraft knife. It uses one of the popular steels to make the blade which if tempered properly will make this an excellent choice for a survival knife in that it will be durable, rust free, will hold an edge and should be relatively easy to re-sharpen.
Now some will say that I am biased because of my friendship with Mykel, but put it this way, I am also my own man with over 30 years experience in all extremes of terrain both friendly and hostile and I am well capable of making my own mind up, so here is the truth of the matter. I will keep my Iban golok for as long as it stays the course, I will keep my Ray Mear/Alan Wood knife for all my bushcraft work, but to take away on major jobs in hostile or remote locations then I will be packing this knife and building my survival kit around it. The best bit is this, if you want a golok like mine you will need to go over to Brunei, an Alan Wood knife is big bucks, but the Hawke Peregrine comes in at less than 60.00GBP.
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