A2 tool steel as used by Bark River Knives

[Leo James Mitchell]

Bark River under the direction of Mike Stewart has grown awesomely in the past few years. Their success is due to two reasons as I see it…excellent knife design by Mike and the wise use of the best steels, A2 being among the best carbon steels around IMHO.
I have two BRK with this fine steel, the Bravo 1 which was designed by Mike for the Marine Corp chaps who infiltrate beyond enemy lines to gather intelligence. They wanted a survival knife that was strong, took a great edge with good edge retention, easy to sharpen in the field and when necessary, to use as a tactical knife. Bravo 1 was the outcome of the competition…A2 was the steel that impressed the Marines and had all the characteristics they were looking for.
The Gunny is a smaller version of the Bravo 1, but not significantly smaller…to my mind it may be an even more useful knife for most chores, while its big brother may do a better job of heavy jobs like batoning.
In any case the A2 steel is an excellent, all around metal and next to 3G is my favourite.

The Bravo 1 is next to last on the right and the Guny is the one next to it.
A2 is a very desirable steel IMHO.It is an air hardening steel rather than one requiring quenching in oil or water.It is considered a general purpose steel.
The components are 1.0% Carbon, 1.0% Magnesium, 5.0% Chromium, 0.3% Nickel, 1.0% Molybdenum, 0.15–0.50% Vanadium.

Cheers
Leo

[wickededge]

Leo,
Great photo of a bunch of beautiful knives. That Bravo 1 is exceptional. Now I’m going to have to think about picking one of those up 🙂

-Clay

[Leo James Mitchell]

Just to rub it in more, here is another shot of the two knives…the Bravo 1 has Spalted Maple Burl scles and the Gunny Desert Ironwoo scales. Sorry chum, I couldn’t resist tempting you some more. It is a really great knife. I would be interested to see how it would do in the other half of your life hunting/guiding et al. Sorry for all the dust on the knives! 😉

Leo

[Anthony Yan]

If you are unfamiliar with Bark River Knives, then I highly recommend you watch virtuovice on YouTube. He is a deer-hunter in Japan who collects knives. His favorite knives are from Bark River. Please keep in mind he is Japanese, so his English has a very strong accent. To me, he seems to be quite an interesting and refined guy. When I have the spare cash, I may try Bark River Knife or two, because of virtuovice.

https://www.youtube.com/user/virtuovice

Here is a video of his I randomly selected, where he talks about 3 of his Bark River Knives:

Sincerely,
–Lagrangian

P.S. If you are squeemish, then simply avoid the virtuovice videos with the title “deer hunting”. His other videos are fine for squeemish people like myself.

[Leo James Mitchell]

Thanks Anthony! I watch virtuevoice all the time on YouTube…I have great respect for his knowledge of knives and hunting…and his wisdom in a broad range of fields.
” Hello Knife people!”
He is one of the good guys!

Leo

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