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Review Bark River Adventurer CPM20v

Gary W. Graley

Gary W. Graley

“Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Mar 2, 1999
Messages
27,026
Greetings all, a friend out west had gifted me this very nice neck knife a while back and started carrying/wearing it recently, took some images today of her, a great size for an EDC and the wood is amazing on it as well. The blade is CPM20v and took a keen edge

Blade length from top of the wood scale to the tip is about 3.1" long from that point back the handle is about 3.7" long giving an overall length about 6 3/4"

Sheath is a leather neck carry, being held in place by a powerful magnet within, no qualms at all about it ever falling free on it's own.

I've cut open several boxes, whittled some hard wood around the yard, trimmed up some 550 paracord, pops right through that easily and some other miscellaneous jobs, through all it worked great, the contour of the handle and the overall design was borrowed from Murray Carter's neck knife style with some small tweaks by the folks at Bark River. The edge comes down to almost a zero bevel which aids in it's great cutting ability.

So far the steel CPM20v seems to be holding up well, Bark River says it heat treats these to around 61-62 RC so it's pretty hard stuff.

All in all, it's a very nice carry knife and grateful for getting her in, here are a few images shot today, I put on my bobtail fob, two diamond knots with a Celtic bead sandwiched in between, makes for a nice way to retrieve the knife and looks great too.

IMG_6896 by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

The scales, not sure what they are, red yellow maple ??? someone more knowledgeable please chime in regarding that.

IMG_6901 by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

IMG_6902 by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Get's a thumbs up from the "G2 Steel Virus Foundation"...(not setup yet but still affecting millions of knife lovers ;) )

G2
 
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Thanks guys, anyone recognize what kind of wood that is?
G2
 
Sweet! Bark River makes some fine blades. I like their A2 steel. Hard to beat Mike Stewart's know-how when it comes to heat treat; I have three of his 52100 blades from when he was at Marble's, two Campcrafts (stacked leather and micarta) and a Fieldcraft in stacked leather, and they cut like screaming witches.
 
Alberta Ed said:
...Hard to beat Mike Stewart's know-how when it comes to heat treat...
Click to expand...

My understanding is that BRKT outsources HT like most manufacturers, and they are relying on their contractor to know how to HT the steel, just like the rely on a contractor to water-jet the steel and grind in the primary. They grind in the convexity post HT following the lines from the initial grind. Most of what BRKT does is handle assembly. Hard to beat their astounding variety of handles!
 
You are most welcome, this knife is very handy as I've been carrying it for a while now, easy to retrieve and return and very sharp. It might be to small for some but my medium size hands it works well.

For me the indents on the sides don't work as well, it would be better to have them ground wider, personal taste.

The sheath is great, I'll get some images of that soon, retention is very good and the nice part is that it is a quiet draw, unlike a kydex loud snap.

G2
 
Did you verify it's actually 20cv? They've been having issues mis labeling steel types.

Otherwise it looks amazing love that style.
 
Not sure how to tell?
It's a first production run
I emailed them about the wood but no response yet...
G2
 
Bark River must be busy, as I haven’t heard from them, I might give them a call on Monday about the scales and if I should be concerned about the blade steel.
G2
Update:
I think I’ve found what wood and you were right Akcir ! Thanks

Orange Tigertail maple burl
 
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XtianAus said:
Nice!! Sweet looking blade and 20cv is awesome :thumbsup:
Do you/anyone know if the scales are epoxied on?
Click to expand...

Not sure, but I've noticed during some of the plant tours some scales are clamped in place so I would think that they do epoxy them.

and thanks unklfranco, they do a pretty good job and they look nice. But, today I went to touch up the edge on my water stones and the one side got some errant scratches on the blade about half way up or so. I took a closer look/feel of the blade grind and found the one side is more rounded while the presentation side is fairly flat ground. I had noticed scratches on the one side when the knife arrived from my friend, it needed to be sharpened up and I just counted those scratches as a sharpening accident and wasn't worried about it. But today, didn't care for that, I hate to scratch the side of a knife while sharpening, so I took my handy dandy sharpening stones and proceeded to flatten down the one side, it's better now, still a bit more convex than the other but closer now so I do not scratch the blade during sharpening.

Bark River must do hundreds of knives each week, to catch this one would have been a miracle, unless they had made a go-no go type gauge that you would set the blade into to make sure the grinding was good on both sides and also not TOO thin either, but that would take time to build one and they make a lot of different style knives making an inspection tool like that a logistic nitemare

The blade now has one side with an almost mirror finish and the other satin as from the factory, she cuts a bit better now too...:)
G2

even afterward, you can still see that one side bulges a bit, but it doesn't bother the sharpening now and cuts fine, but before, it was even more pronounced

bulged side, after I had stoned it down some...

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

flatter side, how it came

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr
 
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Tonight I took the lanyard off, well, I cut the lanyard off ;) to radius the lanyard tube so it has a better smoother transition, while the way it came wasn't cutting the paracord, it is just a little nicer overall to have that finished this way. Tim Wright has instructed me about this a few years ago, his work is far smoother/better but it is a start :)

Here is how it looked originally, just full thickness of the lanyard tube up to the wood,

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr


by cutting narrow, very narrow, strips of sand paper, you run it almost like you are buffing a shoe, until you get it close to the edge of the wood handle

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr


and here is the finished lanyard tube, smooth polished radius now

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Nice knife, this just adds a little nicerness to it (that's ok, I can make up words as I go along...:) )
G2
 
Thanks I’ll see if mine stains
G2
 
I put a drop of ferric chloride on there and let it sit a short while you can see a faint mark but nothing much
G2
 
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Just got a nice email from Anna at Bark River, she says that what they are calling that wood is

Red & Gold Maple Burl.

Pretty scales for sure!
G2
 
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