Has anyone torture tested any of the Gerber Bear Grylls line of survival knives?

S

SurvivalKnives

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Jan 6, 2015
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Hey there,
Any information on this subject? The Gerber Bear Grylls line of knives includes folding knives, fixed blades and multitools. A good critical review or torture test would be very helpful in my evaluation of the Bear Grylls gear. I have had the Bear Grylls Ultimate Multitool for sveral years now and it has never failed me so I will be writing a critical review on this in the multitools section of this forum soon.

Thanks
 
The BG stuff varies quite a bit in quality, some good, some not so good. The ultimate pro is a really solid knife that i have put through it's paces, and i'm a big fan of the survival AO.
 
I managed to destroy a Bear Grylls Compact Scout within a few minutes. I did nothing extreme, a little-bit of wood carving was enough.
 
Multitool.org has about 20 reviews. Including comparisons between the Bear Grylls stuff and the Les Stroud stuff.

I'd post links but there is too many.
 
Hey mate. There are a lot of BG reviews kicking around. "Torture testing" isn't much of an indicator with that line because in my experience and from what I have seen they tend to do quite poorly when it comes to basic cutting and edge retention. I have bought and tried a Gerber BG ultimate survival knife and a Gerber LMF2 out of curiosity and was underwhelmed by both when it comes to general outdoor use.

I have heard that the BG pro series is a bit better but for what you would pay here there are much better things around.

Digressing a little now (bear with me)

It can be difficult to find affordable quality knives in our end of the world. My advice is to avoid anything which doesn't tell you what the blade steel is, or uses gimicky terms like "surgical stainless" or "samurai steel".

For inexpensive folders look at Opinel and Svord. They are both basic but are good performers.
For inexpensive fixed blades keep an eye out for knives made by Mora. They are solid quality and pretty well priced, even here.
...obviously you'll need to talk with your parents/guardian about buying them, given our knife sales laws.
 
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May I ask the difficulty in finding a knife in Australia? Is there a regulatory issue?
 
well every since I heard about the recalls where the parangs handle would detach from the blade I have been hesitant to "test" a gerber item on anything but spreading country crock on toast.
 
Gerber was sold by Pete Gerber back in the 90s to Fiskars and the quality is gone. A great knife company before sale to pretty much junk now. Most knives are made off shore. A previous poster suggested Mora and Opinel and Svord which are excellent choices.

RKH
 
Actually, the sale went though in 1987, but the company had started downhill before that. I think that the last of the Mk 1 and 2 models made from L6 were sold in like 1981 and even at that point, they hadn't been forged since maybe 1973-74. The switch from forging to shape to straight up stock removal probably did not make a huge difference, but the switch from L6 to some mid grade stainless most certainly did IMO. To my mind, Gerber pre 1980's was more of what we might today call a "speciality cutlery company" and was arguably replaced in that niche by companies like Al Mar and later, Cold Steel (early pricey stuff) SOG, Pacific Cutlery/Benchmade, Spyderco, Blackjack, etc. in the 80's and 90's when it stated down the road to being a more moderately priced competitor to companies like Buck.
RKH said:
Gerber was sold by Pete Gerber back in the 90s to Fiskars and the quality is gone. A great knife company before sale to pretty much junk now. Most knives are made off shore. A previous poster suggested Mora and Opinel and Svord which are excellent choices.

RKH
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Your right jdm61. My apologies on the date Gerber was sold. I should check the date to be sure. Lazy in my old age and a dimming memory. I have some Gerber folders and an armorhide fixed blade from the late seventies that were excellent knives.

RKH
 
RKH said:
Your right jdm61. My apologies on the date Gerber was sold. I should check the date to be sure. Lazy in my old age and a dimming memory. I have some Gerber folders and an armorhide fixed blade from the late seventies that were excellent knives.

RKH
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I have a 1971 second gen forged L6 Mk II that I score in a pawn shop in like 1990 and I still have my little rosewood and brass frame sportsman folder that I bought new at Oshmans in Miami in like '81. My late 70's L6 Mk I got lost/stolen long ago.
 
PURPLEDC wrote: "I have been hesitant to "test" a gerber item on anything but spreading country crock on toast." -- Now THAT...was funny.
 
PURPLEDC said:
well every since I heard about the recalls where the parangs handle would detach from the blade I have been hesitant to "test" a gerber item on anything but spreading country crock on toast.
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Back in August of 2012, I heard about a recall of my Bear Grylls Gerber parang for blades snapping at the handle (ouch!). I submitted the info to Gerber, and waited for a prepaid return shipping box. And waited...and waited...and waited. It took over 6 weeks for them to send me the prepaid box.

So I returned the parang and the sheath. A while later, I got the new/improved parang and sheath. I liked the edge on the replacement parang, although the sheath seemed suckier (not as well designed as the original).

So about 8 months later, Gerber emails me about a recall on their crappy sewn parang sheaths. If you insert the blade incorrectly, the blade would slice through the threads holding the sheath together, waking you right up as the blade cuts your hand. Ouch, again.

I emailed the Gerber customer disservice representative the following, and never got a reply:

I'm very disappointed to receive your recent email. As a Gerber owner for ~20+ years (of at least 4 other Gerber blades), I returned my Gerber/Bear Grylls Parang last October as a result of the blade breakage recall. With the blade, I returned the original sheath.

Now, 8 months later, I hear from Gerber that the replacement sheath is unsafe.

I suspect that I'll just "kill" the blade (break it), and throw it in the trash so as to avoid the future recall of the blade handle, the blade lanyard, or the sheath velcro strap.

Poor quality, Gerber.

Way to go.

A Disappointed (former) Gerber owner.



This tells me that Gerber is not only incompetent in the design/manufacture/quality areas, but they just don't plain care about their customer "experience". Run away, run away....
 
CrufflerJJ said:
Back in August of 2012, I heard about a recall of my Bear Grylls Gerber parang for blades snapping at the handle (ouch!). I submitted the info to Gerber, and waited for a prepaid return shipping box. And waited...and waited...and waited. It took over 6 weeks for them to send me the prepaid box.

So I returned the parang and the sheath. A while later, I got the new/improved parang and sheath. I liked the edge on the replacement parang, although the sheath seemed suckier (not as well designed as the original).

So about 8 months later, Gerber emails me about a recall on their crappy sewn parang sheaths. If you insert the blade incorrectly, the blade would slice through the threads holding the sheath together, waking you right up as the blade cuts your hand. Ouch, again.

I emailed the Gerber customer disservice representative the following, and never got a reply:

I'm very disappointed to receive your recent email. As a Gerber owner for ~20+ years (of at least 4 other Gerber blades), I returned my Gerber/Bear Grylls Parang last October as a result of the blade breakage recall. With the blade, I returned the original sheath.

Now, 8 months later, I hear from Gerber that the replacement sheath is unsafe.

I suspect that I'll just "kill" the blade (break it), and throw it in the trash so as to avoid the future recall of the blade handle, the blade lanyard, or the sheath velcro strap.

Poor quality, Gerber.

Way to go.

A Disappointed (former) Gerber owner.



This tells me that Gerber is not only incompetent in the design/manufacture/quality areas, but they just don't plain care about their customer "experience". Run away, run away....
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What would have been a satisfactory response to you? It seems like you were just annoyed that there was a second recall of your machete, so you decided to take it out on the CSR.
 
SurvivalKnives said:
Hey there,
Any information on this subject? The Gerber Bear Grylls line of knives includes folding knives, fixed blades and multitools. A good critical review or torture test would be very helpful in my evaluation of the Bear Grylls gear. I have had the Bear Grylls Ultimate Multitool for sveral years now and it has never failed me so I will be writing a critical review on this in the multitools section of this forum soon.

Thanks
Click to expand...
It tends to be hit or miss. The Parangs were recalled because they broke too much. Plenty of yourtube videos on that. As for your multitool, Gerber is still fairly well respected for their multitools and their higher end knives still seem to hold some water like the LMF. But on principle, I try to avoid brands like Gerber and Cold Steel.

I always wondered what Bear's "dream" knife would be (like Ray Mears' Woodlore and Les' Temagami) but apparently he endorsed the BayLey S4 which looks to be a heavy brick, I'm also surprised that most knives bear uses seem to sport serrations
 
I thought that Bear Grylls endorsed whatever kind of cutlery came on the Anchorage Marriott room service cart? :rolleyes:
 
Making me look at any of the Gerber Bear Grylls series is a "torture test" for my eyes. :eek:

I sure wouldn't want to personally test any of them beyond some light slicing without Kevlar/Dyneema or even chain mail gloves on!
 
Hiro-kun said:
What would have been a satisfactory response to you? It seems like you were just annoyed that there was a second recall of your machete, so you decided to take it out on the CSR.
Click to expand...

A satisfactory response would have been something along the lines of "We're sorry that our product did not meet your needs and expectations. We value input from our customers (especially those who have used our products for 20 years, as in your case), and have passed your concerns along to our design/quality/manufacturing teams. Gerber looks forward to meeting your needs in the future." Nothing fancy, just common sense customer service.

Yes, I was annoyed that my machete was recalled in the first place due to poor design/manufacturing/quality control. I was further annoyed that the replacement sheath SUCKED when compared to the sheath I returned with the first parang.

I know that it does no good to "take it out" on the CSR. Their role is that of a communicator/facilitator between customer and supplier. I expected them to pass on my gripes to those who need to receive customer feedback (design/mfg/quality staff, for example). Their entire non-response tells me a lot about Gerber's responsiveness in meeting customer needs.

They don't care.
 
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