Bark River, Bravo, A2 Blade, Black Micarta Handle

This model has a black canvas micarta handle and A2 steel. The Bravo-1 was developed with the assistance of the training unit of the Force Recon of the U.S. Marine Corp. These folks bought a large number of knives on the commercial market and tested them without saying anything to any of the makers. The Bark River Gameskeeper came out on top to fit their requirements of a real time general purpose survival/bushcraft knife. Bark River Knives were contacted by them and were asked to make a knife based on the Gameskeeper with a few changes. The Bravo-1 is the result of their input. The changes made to the original Gameskeeper were the addition of a ramp style thumb rest on the spine and changing the guard into an integral self guard. They also wanted the choil eliminated to bring the sharp edge all the way to the front of the handle slabs for leverage in notching. The balance of the knife had to be on the first finger. Balance was achieved by skeletonizing the tang to put the weight evenly over the first finger position. The handle slabs had to be epoxied and bolted to and through the blade. All of the Bravo-1 have the handle sets attached with bolt sets. They are non-removable. The screw slots are ground off as the handles are finished. The synthetic material handles will all have stainless steel screw sets. All the natural material handle sets are attached with brass bolt sets. The ramp on the top of the Bravo-1 is not actually a thumb ramp. It serves two purposes. The rear part of the ramp is notched to engage the firesteel. The front part of the ramp aids in putting more pressure over the plunge line for notching. The final result is a heavy duty bushcraft/survival knife that can stand up to abusive use. (Information from Bark River Knives)