New Gerber BG Survival Knife

[sappyg]

when this thread started i had to look up bear grylls. ok... i've seen some of his shows. truthfully i did not know he was giving bad advise but, then again, i'm not much of a bushcraft kind of guy really.

i have seen some mears videos on youtube and thought they were excellent. in one video he killed and cooked a deer with a silenced rifle which i thought was a little odd for the UK. regardless, i wish we could get his shows syndicated in the US. he explained things with a historical background re: early mankind and survival.

[Gareth]

OK.  Jumping into a leaking boat in the Arctic (if he hadn't been wearing a skin coloured wetsuit he would have died) , throwing yourself into a river rapids with your 'inflated' backpack as a buoyancy aid (he was clearly wearing a life preserver under his clothes) , an avalanche test dig that is all of about 1" deep, crossing a river gorge on ancient and untested ropes,  throwing himself down every vertical slope he sees (has he never heard of walking?) the list goes on.

Keep in mind this is only the stuff I can remember seeing and it's more than enough to make me never want to see another episode of his show.

when this thread started i had to look up bear grylls. ok... i've seen some of his shows. truthfully i did not know he was giving bad advise but, then again, i'm not much of a bushcraft kind of guy really.

i have seen some mears videos on youtube and thought they were excellent. in one video he killed and cooked a deer with a silenced rifle which i thought was a little odd for the UK. regardless, i wish we could get his shows syndicated in the US. he explained things with a historical background re: early mankind and survival.

Not odd at all, we're perfectly allowed to hunt deer with rifles and silencers are perfectly legal here.  You just need a firearms licence and the land owners permission to shot his deer (which you'll have to pay for BTW).

[sappyg]

gotcha..... 

re: the BG gerber. is it really all that or is it as fake as the man himself?

i noticed that mears has an indorsed knife as well. TBH it looks more usefull to me but i am a true survival novic.

[Gareth]

Good luck getting your hands on a Mears knife though, the waiting list is massive as I understand it.  There are several makers who do similar knives that are more readily avalible.  One or two maintain their designs pre-date that of Ray's, but I don't know much about that.  As a design of knife I really like it, and certainly get on very well with the version I own.

As to Bear Grylls knife in the OP, it's not my taste visually and I'm not a great fan of serrated edges but I suspect it's an OK knife and look forward to reading a good review of it.

[markn951]

Good luck getting your hands on a Mears knife though, the waiting list is massive as I understand it.  There are several makers who do similar knives that are more readily avalible.  One or two maintain their designs pre-date that of Ray's, but I don't know much about that.  As a design of knife I really like it, and certainly get on very well with the version I own.

As to Bear Grylls knife in the OP, it's not my taste visually and I'm not a great fan of serrated edges but I suspect it's an OK knife and look forward to reading a good review of it.

From the official website's FAQ:

For those customers who have added their names to our Waiting List since 2008, the waiting time is likely to be around 10 years plus.

[Gareth]

   I hadn't realised it was quite that long a wait.  All the official Ray Mears Bushcraft knives are hand made by a single smith so there is a limit as to just how many the poor guy can produce, combine that with the fact Ray's programs are very popular and I suspect he's got a huge workload.  Practically though, I'm not sure who can be bothered to wait 10 years for their knife.

[Freudian Frog]

Eh, unfortunately, stupidity isn't limited to children.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20100304/survival_death_natl_100304/

I'd like to point out he was testing skills he learned from Suvivorman (which many here regard as a less dangerous, and superior show), not Man vs. Wild.
Though as I said, stupid people will continue to be stupid people regardless. The show he's learning it from is a moot point.

TBH 99% of the advice I hear him give is pretty straight-forward, common knowledge kinda stuff. "Warm yourself up ASAP because hypothermia can kill you quickly." Not exactly bad advice. I can't think of a good example of him giving advice that is plain wrong though.

Exactly, and when he does something crazy he says it's crazy! Heck, in the credits you can clearly see he consults a(nother) survival expert for every region he goes to. I've never seen him give bad advice, just crazy advice that I wouldn't try unless I was desperate, which is what his show is supposedly simulating!

Why blame a guy who sets himself up in a position of authority, is (at best) misleading about his background and makes money out of giving bad, potentially life threatening advice on TV?  I've no idea.

TBH mate, if no-one took him seriously and just took his show as silly entertainment, then I'd have less of an issue.  But that's not how it's sold and it's not how everyone sees it, so I can and do have an issue.

Since when did being on a TV show give him a position of authority? Did he, at any point, claim to be your or any one else's survival instructor and take you under his wing? What he does is a show that is formatted by a major television corporation. He's not some guy out in the woods with a camera trying to teach you how to survive per say, he's just a guy with some knowledge of survival skills doing a TV show about certain survival situations wherein a rescue party is not likely forthcoming, and if it wasn't Bear wouldn't it just be someone else? It's clearly not a step-by-step survival instructional program. And everytime I see him do something stupid he usually tells you this is a last resort, and then you complain about him giving himself a safety net? Of course he's going to wear a life jacket and stage events that are too dangerous to actually try. I don't understand why you're all out to crucify the guy, he's not directly instructing you to go out and use these "last resort methods" at any chance you get.

Frog...I don't recall telling you what your definition of that term is.  

You didn't have to do it directly.

 I hadn't realised it was quite that long a wait.  All the official Ray Mears Bushcraft knives are hand made by a single smith so there is a limit as to just how many the poor guy can produce, combine that with the fact Ray's programs are very popular and I suspect he's got a huge workload.  Practically though, I'm not sure who can be bothered to wait 10 years for their knife.

That's kinda bull, you'd think a guy would pick up some apprentices or hire a larger forge if he had that kind of demand, not even out of want of money but as a way of respecting people's wishes... but noooo.

[Chako]

 

[markn951]

I agree with everything Froggymeister said here 

[Gareth]

Well we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one guys.

[Freudian Frog]

Well we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one guys.

I refuse!

EDIT: Why don't we have a hugging emoticon? >_>

[jzmtl]

Two people who like Bear grill, 16 and 22 years old, case closed. 

[Freudian Frog]

Two people who like Bear grill, 16 and 22 years old, case closed. 

I know you're joking around, but when did I say that I liked him?

[Gareth]

(Image removed from quote.)

Well we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one guys.

I refuse!

EDIT: Why don't we have a hugging emoticon? >_>

Well if you can't find it in your heart to disagree then you'll just have to agree with me.

[markn951]

Two people who like Bear grill, 16 and 22 years old, case closed. 

  

[Viper]

I have absolutely no wish to join in this big argument. But that Mears knife looks just like the Spyderco Bushcraft. Same steel even.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I have absolutely no wish to join in this big argument. But that Mears knife looks just like the Spyderco Bushcraft. Same steel even.

The Spyderco is a copy of the Woodlore

[Gareth]

I have absolutely no wish to join in this big argument. But that Mears knife looks just like the Spyderco Bushcraft. Same steel even.

The Spyderco is a copy of the Woodlore

Yup, the Spyderco very much comes form the Woodlore style of knife.  It's now a pretty recognisable pattern with quite a few makers doing their own variations on the theme; different lengths, thickness's, depths, scale shapes, edge geometry, point shapes etc etc.

Whether the Woodlore was the very first or not is perhaps debatable (and not a subject I know enough about) but there is no doubt that it was Ray that made it famous. 

[MultiMat]

Two people who like Bear grill, 16 and 22 years old, case closed.  

Well the 2 people who like Bear in my house are 11 & 41 

The 9 year old does not get a chance as the show is on too late.

The 39 year old thinks Bear is a silly plonker , drinks elephant poo 

A house divided 

[Chako]

I will admit, I do watch his show out of morbid fascination. Subconsciously, I wonder...will he die in this episode? Although the rational part tells me that will never happen as he has a crew of 20 following him, he misrepresents lots of things...so he really never is in any danger. That sort of dichotomy rubs me wrong...the battle between conscious and subconscious. It is all very distressing.