Escape Velocity

Exit postponed due to missing 'wading shoe'. Any ideas?
SBW

Fishing The River Usk Pt1

Unlikely as it may seem, especially to regular readers: myself and The Lighthouse Keeper are making our way westwards to fish the River Usk a Brown Trout stream that rises in the notorious Brecon Beacons. The Brecon's are an exceptionally handsome range of hills in Wales that have been the making or breaking of many a military career. I've been up there a few times over the years and the place is usually thick with squaddies being beasted along by their PT instructors. Who will, amongst other choice incentives, be offering age-old moto of the Brecon experience "if it aint raining it aint training!"

While the poor young recruits are suffering it, TLK and myself will be living out our Trout Bum fantasies; drinking whiskey-laden coffee for breakfast, eating fried things, and growing Abercrombie and Fitch style stubble.

A few mobile posts to follow and then a full report on our return, in the meantime more military cliches HERE
Your pal
SBW

Picture credit

Gear Freak, Kit Tart, Blogger

" I know nothing else that so restores the buoyant optimism of youth as overhauling ones kit "

Horace Kephart 1906


"Um-errr, I think I've got everything"
SBW 2012

More soon
SBW

Poo; A Photographic Study

As many of you are are also amateur naturalists this won't sound as strange to you as it perhaps would in less inquisitive circles.

Taking a walk on the marshes:

Elfa: What are you doing? You're taking pictures of Poo!
SBW: always! Poos I have known, loved, and photographed
Elfa: if I'd known you were interested I could have stopped flushing the toilet

More soon
Your pal
SBW

A Street SO Posh....

That Arugula AKA Rocket grows from the cracks in the paving! Who'd a thunk it?

More foraging and fishing to come, and of course that long awaited rabbit hunt

SBW

There's No Auction Like a Firearms Auction

If you're like me and already have too many hobbies, look away now. 

Apart from inane eBay searches, charity shops and locked unit auctions there aren't too many places that you've consistently got a shot at a bargin with.  A lot of the gun auction sites  basically have people selling off their pride and joy, so they're pretty clear on the upper value of their guns and rifles. That leaves the physical auction houses which are amazing troves of treasure, the Purdy, Rigby and Rolex end of things is a bit crowded but the 'Pikey' and 'Ephemera' end is where the magic happens anyway.

How many great stories are in this lot? Estimate is: $150 - $200

A build-yer-own Rigby kit AKA a 7mm Mauser with tidy wood work and a knackerd barrel, is estimated at  $100-$200 sounds a bit vague as an estimate to me, run $40 up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it. Or thinking again what about "re-barrel it and start competing in Service Rifle!" Go on, you know you want to.

Pre-war Nazi Ammo? Est. at a measly $50-$80 the clips alone are worth that.
[He tells himself]

I was pretty taken with one of these for £200 the other day. If it opens at $30 (£19.36) in front of the wrong crowd it's not going to have too many takers. If I was in Florida I'd be all over it.

As the buyers at the gun auction are squabbling over the high-end stuff a lot of 'working guns' fall through the cracks, but wether you're in the market for a dinner-getter or an heirloom, searching for 'hunt'-ing ephemera is lots of fun and will occasionally throw up real bargain-of-a-lifetime finds like this stunning signed photo....

Look everyone, its the boring one out The Avengers and him off the coffee ads. Yours for £4!

What did I bid on? Not telling.

More soon

SBW

Review: Spyderco Sharpmaker 204MF Ultra Fine

If you're the kind of person who has one of those annoying 'wheel sharpeners' for your knives best to stop reading now, as either you don't care about edge durability or you dont yet know what it'll mean to you. I'll concede that 'wheel sharpeners' can achieve a sharp [ish] edge, but never a durable edge.

 I know its frustrating to start with, but by working your way through a set of stones you get an edge that is far more robust and with enough patience far far sharper too. It took me ages to be able to get even half decent results on a set of stones. While I was practicing I used and reviewed the Spyderco Sharp Maker, which with - a very small amount of practice/following the instructions, will give you excellent results. The Sharp Maker is absolutely the perfect sharpening system for Spyderco's blade geometry; works surprisingly well on axes, and is very safe and handy for broadheads: it took me a while to get good results from thicker convex blades like the F1, but its excellent and intuitive for any flat-ish grind.


What you get is a box that does double duty as a stand/handle for the hones, setting them at 40 and 30 [giving you grinds of 20 and 15] degrees for blade sharpening, 12 degrees for scissors and flat for an improvised bench stone. Comes with course brown and fine white hones which make short work of carbon steel and are hard enough for stainless' including the 'super steels' like VG10 ect.

I've always wanted a pair of the Ultra Fine hones but they used to be crazy money so I never took the plunge. They've come down in price a bit lately so I ordered some from the chaps at Eden Webshops and two days later they were on the door mat.

Puta Madre!

Hallelujah

Yes sir I can boogie

They're good, really good, they take you to a whole new realm of sharpness, and considering the sharpness you get from the fine hones, that's really something. To illustrate the point my TK6 has a cutting edge in Super Gold Powder Steel hardened to 62, the fine stones made very short work of restoring the factory edge.

If you've already got a Sharp Maker, get a set, these you will love. If you haven't yet got a Sharp maker you've only yourself to blame.

More Soon

SBW

Conversations In Gun Shops Pt1

Been a while, no? Work, money, girls, yah di yah di yah.Getting back into it, more posts to come. Soon.

This one took place a while back, I was dropping an air rifle off for servicing at a well known north london specialist where I found the proprietor standing behind the counter with a look of world weariness barley concealed behind a veneer of shopkeeperly bonhomie.

On the 'punter' side of the counter was blading man in his late forties, wearing those nasty multi coloured beach trousers, a red wife-beater, and three wrist watches. Yep three wrist watches - the internationally recognised symbol of a nutter.

No sooner had I popped my weapon on the counter [really your minds!] when we were somehow conjoined in conversation. Well I say 'conversation' he was ranting and I was nodding in disbelief. The proprietor allowed himself a sigh of relief.

Edited Highlights:

I'm a mercenary.
I've just got back from Egypt.
I was the winner of a gun fight in a police station on the Iraqi border.
I was shot with 7.62x39 rounds here and here [points to cigarette burns on his arm]
The Bedouin saved me by giving me 13 pints of their own blood.
I'm on my way to Hollywood
I'm an armourer for the movies
You can read all about it in my forthcoming book.

By now I'm backing towards the door, 3watches' eyes are getting wilder as he warms to his subject

3watches: 'You can tell them you've met The Bear'
SBW: 'Rest assured, I will'

More soon
SBW

Ka-Bar - The Knife Of The Marine Corps

KA-BAR Knives from Common Machine Prod. on Vimeo.

Apropos of not a lot, I saw this on BB this morning and thought one or two of you might like it too. The Ka-Bar is certainly and iconic design, not totally convinced by the claims of 'finest craftsmanship' myself but with a few hours and a few sheets of sandpaper they can be made pretty user friendly. I've had one in the past and would have another one. More Soon SBW

Bargain VG10 Kitchen Knife Review

Many of you have written in to jeer at the amount of money I drop on gear, no offence is ever taken because my off-line friends mock me even more savagely, but in my self image I see myself as something of a bargain hunter so for this post I'm reviewing something that's such great value for money that it actually challenges Mora of Sweden's crown as 'best bang-for-buck outfit on the planet', effusive praise I know, but deserved!

When my pal at Edenweshops told me he had a range of kitchen knives I must admit I was a little underwhelmed, everyone and his uncle are selling kitchen knives and most of them are terrible, then he said 'They're in VG10' now as regular readers will know that made me sit up and pay attention, VG10 is one of the super steels that hold an edge long after the competition has been rendered blunter than the cold-word from a plumber. Then he showed me the price list! In the parlance of todays young people OMG! WTF!!

Up until a year ago VG10 was always at a fairly hefty price premium - prices starting at $100/£100 a blade and rising very steeply from there. With kitchen knives inexplicably costing even more than survival knives and stalking knives, more like $150/£150 and very quickly reaching double that and beyond

Because Eden are a relatively new name in knife sales, and this is their first foray into manufacturing, they've priced the knives at the level known as 'no-brainer'. Yep finally you can have a whole set of chef's knives for what one of the better known brands would set you back for just one knife.

Edge Holding? VG10 steel takes care of that.

Blade geometry? Cuts like a lazer, really like an effing lazer.

Fit and finish? 95% of what you'd get for several times the price, and nothing that you couldn't smooth out with a few sheets of wet-and-dry in and hour or so.

Kitchen Brag factor? Way way cooler than Global Knives for a fraction of the price

I've got one of the posher Damast series knives in the 'Santoku' blade shape, the perfect all-rounder for kitchen duties, and with its oil-on-water damascus pattern blade very very sexy, but if you're just after function rather than entering the 'kitchen tools arms race' with the other foodies, you can forgo the damascus option and just have plain VG10 blades for even less money! Personally I'm saving up to take advantage of the Whole-Set-For-30%-Off offer they're running at the moment.

Good Stuff, from nice guys, at silly cheap prices.

Very soon McShug and your pal SBW will be field testing some of Eden's own label binoculars against one of the better known names in American glass

More soon

SBW

Chef's knife, 20cm
£ 43,90

Bread knife, 20cm
£ 39,90

Carving knife, 20cm
£ 39,90

Santoku knife, 18cm
£ 43,90

Utility knife, 13cm
£ 24,90

Paring knife, 9cm
£ 19,90

Woodcock Recipe

At the end of the season we had one of our all too infrequent 'Bloggers Armed Ramble' where The Bambi Basher, Mc Shug and your pal SBW took a walk in the woods, giving the dogs one last romp and taking potshots a Tree Rabbits and Woodies. As we were about to call it a day, with nothing in the bag, McShug produced this beauty from his game pocket saying" You said you'd always wanted to scoff one - its had a week, pongz a bit" and I became the proud [if slightly smelly] owner of a Woodcock.

The Woodcock had been hanging for week when I got it, I hung it it until that well known barometer of ripeness - more than one flat mate asking about the smell - announced it was freeze-it or eat-it time. In old Blighty legend has it that a Woodcock should be nailed by the beak to a post in an out-building and only cooked up when the body falls from the head. Sadly that's about two weeks longer than the flat mates patience, so mine was ripe but not maggoty. I saved the head for an art project, but when roasted the birds skull should be split in half and using the beak has a handle the roasted brains should be sipped from the halved skull.

The Woodcock is an almost mythic gamebird, after a solitary migration in early November they over-winter in woodlands, living in a scooped nest on the ground and feeding mostly on earth worms, until the frost hardens the ground when as needs must they eat seeds and berries. In a very harsh winter even visiting bird tables.

McShug took this one with 'the wife's 20g semi', and over the years I've seen a few versions of the 'woodcock gun' all short-barrelled fast-to-the-shoulder shotguns, with Berretta even making a specialised set of rifled shot-dispersing barrels for their Ultralight [mmmmm want]. As bursting from the ground cover a Woodcock famously zig-zags though the woods at alarming speeds they are often many many outings and indeed cartridges to the bird. What has to be the most exclusive of shooting organisations is dedicated to this elusive bird. Since 1949 the Shooting Times Woodcock Club has welcomed members ONLY when they have pulled off a 'left and a right' without taking the gun from the shoulder, and done so in front of two witnesses.

With its well deserved reputation as the ultimate gamebird I wanted to savour the full experience, the bird seasoned with just salt, cooked whole and served 'old's cool' with its guts as the seasoning.



Perhaps a little over cooked - rescued from the oven after 12 minutes, still pink and bloody



The guts are very very strongly flavoured, a potent, forceful taste of the woods, they wont be to everyones taste, think of them as a woodland caviar.



Thigh and breast of woodcock, Black pudding [aka blood sausage aka Boudin noir], roast aubergine and browned halloumi, and for the dipping sause a reduction of pan juices with unsalted butter and woodcock guts.

Lots more to tell, just little time to tell it

SBW

Wooo hoooo!

Just bought 21 packs of asparagus for £3.15
SBW

The Bushwacker Had lost His Considering Hat

I'd been in morning for my lost hat, I'd hoped, I'd moped I'd even ordered another one. When Andy posted the good news on Facebook, 'Look what the dog dragged in!'

More soon
SBW

Book Review: The Lure Of The Falcon

If you like your humor understated and if you've ever found yourself enthralled by small creatures in wild places try this one on for size, its a boy-meets-nature memoir with a difference.

Boy meets nature, boy finds broken Kestrel, boy mends Kestrel, boy takes Kestrel with him to boarding school, boy takes Kestrel with him to WWII. Boy and Kestrel are captured by the Germans, boy and Kestrel escape from POW camp, boy and Kestrel are captured again, boy and Kestrel......

We were thrust at bayonet point into a room on the second floor and lined up infront of a large table littered with papers, telephones,typewriters and other official impedimenta. Behind the table, wearing civilian clothes peering at us through rimless glasses, sat the flesh and blood embodiment of the villainous Gestapo chief that I had seen in scores of films. With pasty face and soulless eyes he was about as alluring as a bird eating spider. As soon as he saw us there before him, bearded filthy and rheumy -eyed with weariness he started barking questions in the approved hollywood manner.
Suddenly his tirade which had sounded like a succession of bursts from a bad-tempered machine gun ceased in mid-volley and I saw our  inquisitors cobra eyes fixed on me  - where a slight but obvious bulge appeared in my ancient jacket just above the waistline. He threw back his chair and, moving with surprising speed, hurled himself round the table and grabbed me. One podgy white hand dived inside my jacket, in search no doubt of the pocket radio he suspected to be concealed in my bosom. there was a slight upheaval, followed by a yelp of pain. He recoiled and withdrew his hand which was dripping with good Aryan blood.

 Cressida had struck her blow for freedom. Now surely Nemesis would strike me down. Feeling if I felt anything, that i really had nothing to lose except life itself I put my hand to my jacket. Cressida scrambled aboard and I withdrew her into the daylight.  There we stood Cressida and i exposed to the full fury of this powerful representative of the third reich.  I glanced at Cressida , her hackles raised, her wings hanging as she mantled, her eyes glowing like red coals. the expected revolver shot never came. I looked at the Gestapo officer who had retreated a few steps,  his pallid face was if anything whiter than ever. I glanced at the armed escort, the henchmen behind the table all were speechless but when I looked longer I saw that they were inarticulate with ill-suppressed laughter.

Well worth a read

more soon
SBW

Got A New Knife?

Why do we test knives on arm hair?
So we can recognise fellow knife nuts!

Unboxing Review: Fallkniven TK6

[Drum Roll] For the first time in the history of the SBW blog, ladies and gentleman, bushcrafters, hunters, foodies, boys and girls: something from the 'I Want One' series has actually dropped on to the doormat! I know! I can't quite believe it myself! My friends at Eden Webshops have been kind enough to let me have a Tripple Krona 6 to play with.

The Totally Objective, Scrupulously Fair and Unbiased bit 
The TK6 is one of the lesser-spotted Fallkniven's. I know a few people who want one, but no one who's seen or handled one, and I'm guessing that's because of where they fit into the Fallkniven range. Most of us started by buying an F1 and then looked at the range and either went for something bigger as a camp knife (S1) or the WM1 as a neck knife. The now 'hens teeth' 'posh F1' with the Micarta handle is highly regarded, the TK2 is a bit more 'Bushcrafty' so the TK 5 and 6 haven't found as much traction with the knife buying public in the UK.

I've always wanted a little-big-knife; something smallish but very strong, I tried the Bark River Mikro Canadian II - loved the blade shape but loathed the fit and finish, and found the blade just a bit too small. There are lots of nice folders out there, not many of the nice ones currently within budget, and the hassle of taking them apart to clean them after beast-processing duty kind of puts me off.
Truthfully, despite what I might say from time to time, I'm not done accumulating fixed blades!


In the hand - first impressions
Petite. Petite yet muscular. The TK6 feels quite heavy for it's size, and is sharp enough to pop hairs off my arm going with the lie of the hair! Very Sharp!! There's a noticeable palm swell that I'd not picked up looking at the pictures. The bolster-to-blade fit is seamless. The fit between the Thermorun and steel could be better although it wouldn't be a big job to sand it out.

Specification
Total length: 6.9" (175 mm)
Blade length: 3.15" (80 mm)
Blade thickness: 0.18" (4,5 mm)
Weight: 120 g (4.2) oz
Steel: 3G which is  Fallkniven's proprietary name for a lamination of  VG2-SGPS-VG2.
Hardness (edge): 62 HRC - yep sixty effin' two!!
Handle material: Thermorun AKA Grippy Black Plastic
Sheath(s): Fold-over black leather or Zytel (a cast plastic)

Design
The TK or Tripple Krona [three crowns] series are a celebration of Swedish knife design and are somewhere between Fallkniven's more utilitarian knives [F1-S1 ect.] and the ultra high-end Northern Lights series. The Fallkniven design philosophy is immediately present; super trick steel, and a thick laminated blade, with a convex grind.

Steel
The 3G knives have a reputation of being slow to blunt and then equally slow to sharpen. Being a lamination of three pieces of steel they are incredibly strong allowing the use of very hard steel in the ore without the risk of cracking. The centre section of the lamination obviously forms the cutting edge and is Super Gold Powder Steel, a super trick steel from Japan that can be hardened to 62 HRC. Which is A LOT harder than most knife blades so its not going to lend itself to easy field maintenance. But on the upside it should still be sharp by the time you get home.

Handle
The TK5 comes with Cocobolo scales, personally I'm not a believer in Cocobolo as a material for knife scales, some people are allergic to it, and in comparison to other timber it's just not that good looking. I want my knives for field use, not as drawer queens that are just for looking at and occasionally fondling.  I've always wanted to pimp one so a TK6 with its Thermorun handle seemed like a better bet.

Sheath
You can have a choice of Fold-Over leather or Zytel sheaths. I know the fold-over sheaths have both their fans and detractors, I'm not that fussed either way myself. The Zytel sheaths are truly spectacular in their fuglyness proving that even utilitarianism can be taken too far. There is a whole cottage industry devoted to making sheaths for Fallkniven knives, with some of the guys, like Martin Swinkels, making really nice work. My plan for the TK6 has always been to pimp it out and give it a matching sheath.

Value for money
Sure Fallkniven are asking quite a lot of money for what is basically a mass produced knife, the F1 isn't the crazy bargain its once was, but is still a lifetimes worth of knife for around a days pay.
The TK6? Yes you could buy a very nice knife from one of the less well known makers for the same money, but you wouldn't get the laminated super steel. The TK5's price puts you within reach of a true custom knife bespoken to your requirements. But as the knife I most wanted to commission would be a TK5 clone anyway and G3 is only available from Fallkniven I'm using the TK6 as my starting point.


As regular readers will know I don't really care about the initial purchase price: I've been cash rich and [as now] I've been cash poor.  When I've had the money I've been pleased to be able to afford good kit, when I've been broke I've been pleased that I have good kit.
Some of the good kit that I bought a while back is now two and even three times what I paid for it. My pal The Northern Monkey said no to an F1 at forty quid back in the day, and now they're a hundred and twenty, expensive is relative, quality isn't.


I'm planning on the TK6 being 'another lifetimes worth of knife'. So having used up the other 'value is what you get' mantras in previous posts I guess I'll just have to repeat the words of a man wiser than I

'I spent most of my money wining and dining northern tarts, [and buying boutique outdoor gear]. The rest of it I just frittered away.'

Edenwebshops sell all the cool brands of knives, and somehow are quite a lot cheaper than most suppliers, very nice guys to deal with, warmly recommended.

Better go and put that first heart-wrenching scratch on it.

More soon
SBW

Lansky Knife

To christen the iPhone and enter the world of mobile blogging/the 21st century here's a micro review of this workhorse from Lansky. And a very capable tool it is too

More soon (that's so as SBW jnr writes his review)
SBW

How To Cook Children?

My microwave has a special setting for them! Well who knew?

SBW

Golden Eagle Snatches Knife

From the "whodathunkit" files: Dutch wildlife photographer Han Bouwmeester had been cutting up some meat hoping to bait a Golden Eagle into snapping range when the bird swooped and snatched up his Mora 510 and made off with it. At less than a tenner for the knife, a small price to pay for the shot of a lifetime!

The Daily Fail quote him as reporting
'I was happy with the absolutely cracking and unique picture. The eagle is holding it exactly as we should do with it. What a crazy once in a lifetime moment this was.'
More soon
SBW

The Mindful Carnivore Book Tour

You know those blogs where the writer raises some question about food, animals, or human relationships with nature, and engages readers in an interesting conversation? Well, our pal Tovar Cerulli has started a lot of these conversations, and written the excellent book "The Mindful Carnivore" which I have read, thoroughly enjoyed, and shamefully not yet reviewed yet, is takin'it 'on-da-road'. Yep you can meet the blogosphere's hunter/philosopher for yourself! If I had the cash I'd fly out to join in the fun, every event promises to be one of lively debate, and inspirational mindfulness. With your chance to pick up a signed copy

• Denver, CO: Thursday, May 10, 7:00 pm at West Side Books
• Berkeley, CA: Monday, May 14, 7:30 pm at Pegasus Books Downtown
• San Francisco, CA: Tuesday, May 15, 7:30 pm at The Green Arcade
• Seattle, WA: Thursday, May 17, 7:00 pm at Elliott Bay Book Company
• Omaha, NE: Wednesday, June 13, 5:45 pm at Soul Desires

Hopefully he'll get down to Texas and we can arrange a side-by-side picture of him and the LSP.

More Soon

SBW