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I recently had the extreme please to pick up both of these fine blades and though I have only owned them for a month or so, I figured it was a good time to write up a quick review.

The Bark River Bravo 1 was developed by Bark River Knife & Tool with the assistance of the training unit of the Force Recon Division of the U.S. Marine Corp. The recon group field tested random knives from store shelves in hopes of finding a knife that best suits their field needs. One of which was the Bark River Gameskeeper and after testing and relaying the information to Mike from BRK&T they came up with the very successful and extremely popular Bravo 1.

The Specifications of the Bravo 1 are:

Overall Length: 9.065 Inches
Blade Length: 4.250 Inches
Blade Steel: A-2 @ 59 RC
Blade Thickness: 0.215 Inch
Weight: 7.375 Ounces
Full tang construction
Full convex grind

The Bravo 1 comes in a huge amount of different handle materials and colors, mine happens to be Blaze orange G10 and according to Bark River’s owner Mike Stewart the Blaze orange is one of the best selling handle materials.

OK, let’s get down to business. When I first received my Bravo 1 and felt it in my hand and was totally satisfied, the fit, feel and heft of this gorgeous knife is incredible. It felt rock solid and comfortable in my hand and with its full convex grind was razor sharp out of the box. My only initial disappointment with the Bravo 1 was the factory kydex sheath. The fit of the sheath was kind of loose and the kydex used was the thinnest available. I addressed my concerns with Mr. Stewart and he stated that the sheath was exactly what the Marine Force Recon team wanted, compact and light weight and as far as the fit of the sheath Mr. Stewart said for me to send my knife back in and he would have a new sheath made. So at this point, I was not satisfied with the sheath, but extremely satisfied with the quick response and the best customer service I have ever experienced. Here is a picture of the factory Sheath taken from DLT Trading’s website. DLT in my opinion has the biggest selection of Bark River products. I was planning on and did order the factory leather sheath with the firesteel loop, which is extremely well made by Sharpshooter sheath systems, so in the end it was not worth it to me to send the knife in for another kydex sheath.

Now, back to the blade review. My first kitchen experience with the Bravo 1 was with a 2 pound half frozen London broil and I must say the slicing ability was extraordinary. I was able to shave thin slices (about 1/8 of an inch) of the beef with no problems and it sliced better than most if not all of my kitchen knives and cut the beef like a hot knife through butter. Even the frozen portions of the steak were very easy to slice through and I was able to get even thinner slices than the thawed portions. Next was to make a fire using natural materials and the matching blaze orange firesteel that I picked up when I bought with the leather sheath. I found some thick oak bark and began to curl off some thin slices for kindling. Edge went through the 1/2 inch piece of bark without any issues and I was able to curl off many tiny pieces of bark, I used the knife in a drawing fashion to accomplish this. After I gather my additional kindling and the bark curls I then used the blade in a scraping manor to get a small pile of oak dust to hopefully catch my spark. Using the back of the blade rather than the recommend thumb ramp against my firesteel worked flawlessly and the sparks were flying, unfortunately I could not get flame from my oak dust. I resorted to crushed up dead oak leaves and after several good tries was able to obtain fire, it was my first stab at using natural materials so I was kind of excited.
After fire was obtained the Bravo 1 was handed over to my wife for a little bit of hot dog stick making. It is not a problem to make a hot dog stick with almost any knife, but my wife did not want to give me the blade back. She spent a great deal of time shaving the stick to perfection. After that little trip to the woods it was back in the kitchen for some more steak slicing and after all of that the Bravo 1 maintained its edge and again I was able to thinly slice the steak as I had done before.

One of the coolest things about Bark River knives is the ability to piggy back a smaller knife like the Mikro Canadian to a larger BRK&T knife like my Bravo 1. All of the newer sheath have this ability and it makes for a great package. The firesteel loops are also very cool and can be fitted with a small flashlight or other items if you opted out of the firesteel.

The specifications of the Mikro-Canadian are.

Blade Steel: A-2 (12C27 in my case since its a 1st production run)
Steel Hardness: 58-60 RC
Blade thickness: 0.15 inches
Blade length: 1.75 inches
Overall Length: 5 inches
Weight: 1.625 ounces
Full tang construction
Full convex grind

This little bad boy is one of the coolest heavy, small duty knives I have ever owned and it has not left my back pocket since I got it. My only downfall is that I wish it was blaze orange to complete my matching set, I must be more fashion conscious then I thought. All that I can say about this little guy is that it will cut the hell out of anything in its way. For its size it is very comfortable in my hand using a 3 finger grip and is very easy to maneuver around what ever you are cutting. I haven’t done too many field tests with this one, but breaking down boxes is extremely easy and does not require a huge amount of pressure. Paracord is not a problem either, nor is heavy plastic packing both of which I have cut many times over without any loss of edge retention. Again I hate to sound redundant but the piggy back factor is one of the most innovative things Bark River has done.

Overall Bark River knives are extremely usable tools backed by a lifetime warranty and extraordinary customer service. I would, and have recommended BRK&T products on many occasions because in my opinion BRK&T knives are simply the best bang for your buck knives on the market.

For More information and good conversation please head over to the Bark River section at knifeforums. Also Mike Stewart the owner of Bark River makes a lot of posts in those forums and if you have any questions about any of the Bark River products I’m sure he will be happy to answer them.

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