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I'm back today with a new video and I want to show you something I just got in the mail today
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I had to go down to the post office to pick this up because it came internationally from
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Finland and I had to sign for it. And what this is, is the Skarma Bush Knife
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Now there's a few videos on YouTube about this. A couple guys have been doing some testing with this thing
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It's a fairly new knife to me. I was very unfamiliar with it until about a week ago
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So I started seeing this thing everywhere on YouTube and Instagram and it's like, ok
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I have to check this thing out because it's just the whole idea of this knife and the
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looks of it are just very intriguing. I don't have a lot of big chopping knives, a few, but I don't have a lot of experienced
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large chopping knives. So I really wanted something that I could depend on, something that was really trustworthy
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Now I did a review a while back on the Carnivore X
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It's the cheap Walmart knife that you can pick up for like under $25, but that is not
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something I would probably depend my wife on and certainly not going to be a dedicated
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bush knife for me. So when I saw this thing I thought, ok, this is a possibility of something that I would
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probably put on my belt every time I go to the woods because it really seems like an
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almost one tool option. So this is a full tang knife. Goes all the way to the back
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Has a sharpened 90 degree spine. As you're going to see here, it strikes a ferro rod fairly easily
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I've heard that some of these don't come as sharpened as they should so you may have to
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touch it up a little bit, but mine was just fine out of the box
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It's a very aggressive Scandinavian grind and then right down here, from here to here
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it has a different grind, a little bit of a secondary bevel to it and that's actually
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for finer work. I was able to get some decent curls with it with that smaller grind
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It's sold in Finland by a company called Verstylika and Verstylika has a really nice shipping
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policy that they'll ship anything to the U.S. for $9.99. That's priority mail
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This thing only took about a week for me to get it from Finland
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Very impressive shipping time. The products they have on their website are really unusual
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They have a lot of Finnish military surplus. They have their own clothing line that they produce with Finnish camo, which is very cool
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Then they have this line of knives that they're selling. So there's the Skarma bush knife and then there's also a pukko, actually two pukkos
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There's a pukko called the pukko 140 and the 110. 140 just is the size in centimeters, I believe
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Then the 110, of course, is smaller. This particular bush knife is stainless steel
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It also comes in a carbon steel. The carbon steel comes with a black handle and the stainless comes in a gray handle or
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you can get the option of getting it in a red handle
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I picked the stainless because that's what they had available. They didn't have any carbon blades available
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Plus I thought, well, if this is going to be a dedicated shopping tool and it's going
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to be in all kinds of weather, why not stainless? I mean, I don't have a problem with stainless steel
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As you're going to see here with the testing I've done, it performs just fine with what
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I've done so far inside today
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The model I chose came with this plastic sheath
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Then as an option, you can order this MOLLE sheath that goes over that
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In retail, the knife and the plastic sheath I think are around $65 US
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Then the scabbard that goes over that plastic sheath, the MOLLE, that's like $24 or something
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I really like that option of having a MOLLE sheath because that way I can attach it to
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a backpack. I can also attach pouches to the front, which I've done here
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This is a little fire kit I put together just for this
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When I got it, it had two straps, MOLLE straps that came off of it
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I really didn't like those. They were very hard to thread through and they didn't have any kind of closure or buckle
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They kind of are a pass-through and then you loop back in, weave it back through
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This weaving or this webbing is really tight. What I'm going to do is if I put this on a pack or on a belt or something, I'm going
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to go ahead and just use malice clips on the back of this. I think that'll be way more secure
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I cut those straps off. For hanging on my belt, this is the belt loop that's included
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It's not very wide. I'm just going to use a carabiner like this and run this through my belt
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I've tested that. It works really well, hangs nicely. It does have a little bit of a retention on the front with the strap
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It clicks in nicely to the MOLLE sheath. In fact, you got to be kind of careful
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You can actually jam it in there too far and it'll get too tight. You just pass that through
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The nice thing about this sheath is that it's open at the bottom so it passes completely through
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You see that? That's nice because if this thing's going to fill up with water, it's going to run through
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the bottom. I think that's a great feature
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The handle is extremely comfortable. I felt like I had a really good grip
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I didn't feel like I was losing control of it in any way
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Because the handle is so long, it really gives you two positions. You've got a back position and then you've got a forward position for finer tasks
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With the back position, you can get some nice wrist action, good chopping
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The weight of the blade is doing the work for you as you're popping those cuts
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When you want to come in and do something a little bit finer with doing some curls or
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some finer carving tasks, then you can choke up on the blade. That's it for today
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I just wanted to show you guys what I've got in the mail and show some initial performance
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tests with it. I'm definitely going to be going out in the woods with this sucker soon
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As always, please like, subscribe, and share. I'll see you guys next time on The Prepared Wanderer