by David E. Petzal

I’ll spare you the usual litany of reasons why the world as we know it is coming unglued. Needless to say, you should be shopping for the occasion, and if you’re looking for a good fixed-blade knife, here are two that are so similar in purpose and construction that I decided to review them together.

The Ranger Puuko is made in Finland, where it was designed as a survival knife by a Finnish officer named J.P. Peltonen. The original Ranger has a 6-inch blade, but people noticed that if you lopped an inch off that, it would make a dandy hunting knife. And so the Ranger Puuko you see here has a 5-inch drop-point blade made of forged tool steel hardened to Rc 58 and coated with Teflon, a 5-inch handle of hardened rubber, and a totally cool leather sheath with a safety liner and an internal rubber keeper that snaps down on the handle and holds it firmly in place.

It’s not a pretty knife, or a finely finished one. It’s meant to be used very hard. The blade is thick and strong, sharpens very easily to a blood-curdling edge, and holds that edge reasonably well. The price for the either the 5-inch-blade Ranger or the 6-inch is $169.50 from kellamknives.com.

The second knife is a brand new one from Cold Steel, and can best be described as a Ka-Bar on steroids (pictured below). It’s called the Leatherneck SF (for “Semper Fi”) and follows the general lines of the Ka-Bar, but with improvements. The 6 ¾-inch blade is made of a steel called SK-5, which is the Japanese equivalent of American 1080, a high-carbon tool steel. It’s hardened to Rc57-58 and came to me with an appallingly sharp edge and kept it extremely well. As with the Ranger, this blade will rust, and so it, too, is coated.

by David E. Petzal

The world is positively awash in survival knives these days, and some of them, I’m sad to say, appear to have been cooked up by people who never got farther outdoors than the parking lot at industrial arts school. The SK-5 does not come under this heading. It’s designed by a fellow named Paul Scheiter, and while I’m not familiar with his credentials, he knows his s**t.

This is a knife that is not too big while being big enough, made of 154-CM steel, has a terrific and more or less indestructible canvas micarta handle held in place by three stainless-steel bolts, and an excellent MOLLE-compatible sheath that’s made of coyote-colored Cordura nylon. The blade is 5” long, spear-pointed, and tempered to Rc58-60. Mine came just short of razor-edged, and once I put a shaving edge on it (30 seconds on the Crock Stick) it held that edge like Grim Death.

A more useful, simple, and well-designed all-around knife you will not find. If I were taking one to the Sand Box, I might want to have the blade bead-blasted to kill the shine, but aside from that, it’s perfect.

by David E. Petzal

One of the areas in which I resisted change the longest was snowshoes. I had a pair of Vermont Tubbs traditional webs made out of ash and varnished rawhide in the “Michigan” pattern, and swore I would never get the new style Tubbs, which are made in China out of aluminum and neoprene. For years we got no snow, so I gave the old webs away, but this winter we got so much snow that I needed snowshoes just to pick up the branches on my lawn, and since I couldn’t find the old style anywhere, I got the new ones (the Venture model). I’m saddened to say the aluminum and neoprene monstrosities work much, much better than the old type. It isn’t even close. Next thing you know I’ll be replacing all my wood-stocked guns with plastic. 

by David E. Petzal

Here are some items that have proved themselves more than worthy in the long haul:

- Minox APO HG binoculars. Tom McIntyre gave them a Best of the Best. They are not cheap, but they may very well be, dollar for dollar, the best glasses on the market.

- Cold Steel Pendleton Lite Hunter. Another BoB winner. After 7 months of constant use, I think just as highly of it as I did when I first got it. Its extremely reasonable price is an embarrassment, but then nothing is perfect. 

- Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener. The damned thing does a better job than I do. Humiliating. I gave away my sharpening stones.