Evaluate: Crawford Survival Employees | RECOIL OFFGRID

Survivalists have a particular “factor” for giant sticks. Caught in an sudden state of affairs, certainly one of their first orders of enterprise is to search out or minimize a big stick that may function a climbing workers, membership, fishing pole, or perhaps a spear. Past these particular features, an enormous chunk of wooden can be only a comforting factor to have while you’re going through the unknown.

Irrespective of how artistic you’re, although, a stick plucked from nature continues to be solely a stick. Whereas it might definitely enable you preserve your steadiness on uneven terrain and provide you with a preventing probability in opposition to each two- and four-legged predators, its résumé just about ends there. To wring extra perform out of it, you want a greater, “purpose-designed” stick just like the Crawford Survival Employees.

Because the brainchild of legendary customized knifemakers Pat Crawford and his son Wes, at first look, the Survival Employees seems to be nothing greater than a high-quality climbing workers produced from aluminum as an alternative of wooden. In actuality, it’s an extremely versatile, fully modular survival system that provides performance far past a humble stick.

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Survival Employees Fundamentals

Pat Crawford developed the unique Survival Employees practically 30 years in the past and its brilliantly easy design continues to be unmatched in at the moment’s market. Hand-crafted one by one from hardened, black-anodized aluminum, it consists of a two-piece physique, a metal level, an aluminum deal with and cap, a 440C chrome steel blade, a rubber crutch tip, and a gentle rubber grip. When all these elements are assembled collectively, they yield a 57-inch climbing workers that conceals the 440C chrome steel blade inside the higher part like a sword cane. The underside part, gives on-board space for storing for survival provides and equipment — in addition to different distinctive features (extra on that shortly). The actual genius of the design, nonetheless, comes by means of while you begin mixing and matching all these elements.

Meticulously machined threads on the ends of the varied parts of the workers permit them to be rearranged and screwed collectively in numerous configurations. Unscrew the deal with, take away the blade, and exchange the deal with cap with it and the workers turns into an instantaneous spear. Take away the highest part of the workers and screw the deal with into the decrease tube to create a 38-inch strolling cane for city environments. Detach the deal with and higher tube from the decrease tube and also you’ve obtained a skull-busting 24-inch baton/swagger stick and a completely practical 33 3/8-inch blowgun.

This group was shot from 7 yards. Small recreation beware.

All of the screw-together joints of the Survival Employees characteristic O-ring seals that preserve the elements from working free and be certain that all the pieces stays watertight. The screw engagement of all of the elements can be extraordinarily sturdy and ensures spectacular energy in each joint. Strategically positioned knurling gives non-slip surfaces on all key areas and makes meeting and disassembly of the elements a breeze with out the necessity for instruments.

In its primary configuration, the Survival Employees is a severely stout climbing workers that additionally makes a kick-ass influence weapon. Though its on-board blade’s slim profile and thick grind don’t make it a full-service survival knife, it nonetheless gives spectacular reducing functionality for many chores. When mounted as a spear blade, it’s additionally much more sturdy than the standard “lash-a-knife-to-a-stick” survival spear and might be assembled that means in below a minute. Though it’s not really useful as a throwing weapon, as a stabber, it’s very formidable.

As a result of the tube sections are joined by a stable threaded coupling, they can’t be used collectively as a blowgun; the longer decrease part works greatest. Its .61-caliber bore is polished easy to scale back friction and sized to accommodate modified .625-caliber business darts now manufactured by Chilly Metal. Created from heavy metal nails with injection-molded plastic cones, these darts, at the side of the workers’s massive bore measurement, are essentially the most environment friendly means of maximizing ballistic efficiency in a short-barreled blowgun.

Inside cause, a bigger bore means that you can get extra breath into the blowgun’s tube quicker, producing extra energy and velocity. Smaller tubes (.38 and .40-caliber) compress your breath, however usually fail to harness all of it. Blowgun bores of .50 to .625 are the actual candy spot, particularly with heavier darts that hit with better authority. In case your stalking abilities are ok to get you near small, tasty animals, the Survival Employees’s blowgun can assist you keep nicely fed. You can too retailer as much as eight 4 3/8-inch darts within the workers’s decrease tube.

We examined the Survival Employees’s spear on a foam model. The blade penetrated fully with little or no effort.

The Dave Canterbury Bundle

The Survival Employees’s LEGO-like modular design has made it a favourite of great survivalists for many years. It has additionally sparked numerous concepts for different parts and bolt-on elements that make it much more versatile. When famous survivalist Dave Canterbury obtained his palms on one just a few years in the past, he not solely cherished it, however started designing extra parts for it.

Canterbury felt that the usual blade on the workers was too slim and most popular one thing with a wider profile and higher edge geometry. Though it wouldn’t retailer inside the workers, it may very well be a extra versatile reducing software and, in its function as a spear blade, would create a big sufficient wound channel to sort out bigger recreation, together with wild boar and deer.

Wes Crawford responded by creating the Missile Spear Level/Neck Knife, an all-steel knife that works in live performance with the workers. By itself, the Missile is a compact, double-edged neck knife that rides in a Kydex sheath with a small fireplace starter. Its blade is beveled on just one facet and its twin reducing edges are each about 70-percent serrated.

Above: One optionally available accent Crawford Knives presents is the Missile Neck Knife, which may also be used as a potent spear tip for the workers. It is available in a Kydex neck sheath with a fireplace starter.

Solely 5.5 inches total, the Missile knife gives instantaneous entry to a reducing software with out having to disassemble the workers. Holes in its skeletonized deal with permit it to be hooked up to a stout chrome steel adapter utilizing two slotted machine screws. Screwing the adapter into the tip of the workers converts it right into a severe double-edged spear.

Optionally available 3-pronged spear head

By eliminating the usual blade, Canterbury additionally freed up house contained in the workers for storing different equipment, together with a Firesteel fireplace starter and a three-pronged spearhead for taking fish in shallow waters. As a result of the workers’s metal tip, threaded coupling, and head all have matching inner threads, these equipment might be hooked up to any certainly one of them for safe, rattle-free storage that leaves the remainder of the workers’s inner actual property obtainable for different gadgets.

Missile knife mounted to the Survival Employees as a spear

Different Equipment

Each severe survivalist fine-tunes his gear to fulfill his particular person wants and abilities. That form of personalization suits completely with the Crawford Survival Employees’s modular design idea. As increasingly of their staffs obtained into the sphere, Pat and Wes started receiving requests for different parts that both retailer inside the workers or, just like the Missile Neck Knife, might be carried as a complement to it.

Like an enormous hollow-handled Rambo survival knife, the Survival Employees’s roughly 15 cubic inches of inner space for storing can home a stunning quantity of substances if it’s correctly organized. Pat and Wes provide that group within the type of a set of watertight plastic take a look at tubes that may be stuffed with matches and tinder, water purification tablets, powdered drink mixes, remedy, fishing sort out, hand sanitizer, and the rest sufficiently small to suit into them. Additionally they provide accent kits with micro-sized flashlights, miniature lighters, fireplace starters, and whistles, all sized to trip contained in the workers.

Optionally available storage take a look at tubes

The inventory deal with part, which rides on the high of the workers and usually serves because the grip for the blade, is fabricated from knurled aluminum. Should you choose one thing heavier that hits more durable, Crawford sells an optionally available chrome steel model. Need a T-handled grip for the shorter “city” configuration? No sweat; they provide that too. In case your survival meals plans embrace selecting not-so-low-hanging fruits and nuts, they even make a “gaff” hook that attaches to the highest finish of the workers.

Many preppers contemplate a slingshot to be a really viable survival weapon. Should you fall into that camp, Pat and Wes additionally have you ever lined. Their handcrafted slingshot design is produced from hardened 440C chrome steel and surgical rubber tubing. Though it may be shot very successfully “as is,” its deal with can be skeletonized to suit the identical adapter because the Missile Neck Knife/Spear Level. The adapter gives an improved grip and permits your entire meeting to be hooked up to the highest of the workers, the place its leather-wrapped fork may also be used as a capturing relaxation. And in the event you’re into slingshots, don’t overlook you could additionally retailer your ball bearing ammo within the storage tubes contained in the workers’s shaft.

Genius or Gimmick?

Optionally available T-Grip attachment

Like several software, the actual utility of the Crawford Survival Employees lies in your skill to make it and its parts carry out the duties you want while you want them. As a result of it’s a modular system you could configure, its skill to fulfill these wants is kind of spectacular. As a climbing workers or strolling stick, it helps you retain your steadiness on any form of terrain, makes a potent influence weapon, and gives on-board storage for a complete survival equipment.

Its normal blade, whereas not a full-service survival knife, is sharp, robust, and amazingly helpful. It additionally transforms the workers right into a real-deal spear in a matter of seconds. Equally, the workers’s blowgun perform is legit and shoots with severe authority and accuracy. In actual fact, in chronograph and penetration assessments, it simply rivaled purpose-designed blowguns, together with some with longer tubes. Relying upon your private wants, ability set, and price range, you’ll be able to selectively add choices to your workers with Crawford’s big selection of bolt-on equipment, or put your individual ingenuity to work and go the DIY route.

My first publicity to the Survival Employees was means again in 1991 when an Military buddy of mine purchased one. As an avid knife collector, I used to be very aware of Pat Crawford’s work and was blown away by the workers’s handmade high quality, however I nonetheless wasn’t positive it was definitely worth the value. Nearly 30 years later, my buddy is lengthy retired from lively responsibility and has logged actually hundreds of miles climbing with that workers. It’s nonetheless going robust and he wouldn’t half with it for something. ’Nuff stated.

Crawford Knives Survival Employees Specs

For searching fish in shallow water, Crawford presents an optionally available three-pronged spear head. It may also be saved inside the workers when not in use. The inside of the workers presents fairly a little bit of on-board space for storing. The optionally available take a look at tubes assist preserve survival gadgets separated, dry, and arranged. The T-Grip attachment is paired with the heavy metal substitute deal with for a hard-hitting mixture. When the usual blade is hooked up to the highest finish of the deal with, the Survival Employees immediately turns into a formidable spear.

Total Size
57 inches

Weight
29 ounces (normal mannequin with blade and 6 blowgun darts)

MSRP
$349

URL
www.crawfordknives.com

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Written by Michael Janich