Evaluation: Crawford Survival Employees | RECOIL OFFGRID

Survivalists have a particular “factor” for giant sticks. Caught in an surprising scenario, one in every of their first orders of enterprise is to search out or lower a big stick that may function a mountain climbing workers, membership, fishing pole, or perhaps a spear. Past these particular capabilities, an enormous chunk of wooden can be only a comforting factor to have if you’re going through the unknown.

Regardless of how artistic you might be, although, a stick plucked from nature remains to be solely a stick. Whereas it could definitely provide help to preserve your stability on uneven terrain and provide you with a combating probability in opposition to each two- and four-legged predators, its résumé just about ends there. To wring extra operate 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 mountain climbing workers produced from aluminum as a substitute of wooden. In actuality, it’s an extremely versatile, utterly 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 almost 30 years in the past and its brilliantly easy design remains to be unequalled in immediately’s market. Hand-crafted one after the other from hardened, black-anodized aluminum, it consists of a two-piece physique, a metal level, an aluminum deal with and cap, a 440C stainless-steel blade, a rubber crutch tip, and a delicate rubber grip. When all these components are assembled collectively, they yield a 57-inch mountain climbing workers that conceals the 440C stainless-steel blade inside the higher part like a sword cane. The underside part, gives on-board cupboard space for survival provides and equipment — in addition to different distinctive capabilities (extra on that shortly). The true genius of the design, nevertheless, comes by means of if you begin mixing and matching all these components.

Meticulously machined threads on the ends of the varied elements of the workers enable 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 on the spot 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 acquired 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 sport beware.

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

In its fundamental configuration, the Survival Employees is a critically stout mountain climbing workers that additionally makes a kick-ass affect weapon. Though its on-board blade’s slender profile and thick grind don’t make it a full-service survival knife, it nonetheless gives spectacular slicing 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 will be assembled that approach 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 strong 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 industrial darts now manufactured by Chilly Metal. Constituted of heavy metal nails with injection-molded plastic cones, these darts, together with the workers’s giant bore dimension, are probably the most environment friendly approach of maximizing ballistic efficiency in a short-barreled blowgun.

Inside motive, a bigger bore lets you 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 true candy spot, particularly with heavier darts that hit with better authority. In case your stalking expertise are ok to get you near small, tasty animals, the Survival Employees’s blowgun may also help you keep nicely fed. You may as well 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 utterly with little or no effort.

The Dave Canterbury Bundle

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

Canterbury felt that the usual blade on the workers was too slender and most well-liked one thing with a wider profile and higher edge geometry. Though it wouldn’t retailer inside the workers, it might be a extra versatile slicing software and, in its position as a spear blade, would create a big sufficient wound channel to deal with bigger sport, 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 aspect and its twin slicing edges are each about 70-percent serrated.

Above: One non-obligatory 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 general, the Missile knife gives on the spot entry to a slicing software with out having to disassemble the workers. Holes in its skeletonized deal with enable it to be connected to a stout stainless-steel adapter utilizing two slotted machine screws. Screwing the adapter into the top of the workers converts it right into a severe double-edged spear.

Non-obligatory 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 inside threads, these equipment will be connected to any one in every of them for safe, rattle-free storage that leaves the remainder of the workers’s inside 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 satisfy his particular person wants and expertise. That type of personalization matches completely with the Crawford Survival Employees’s modular design idea. As increasingly of their staffs acquired into the sector, Pat and Wes started receiving requests for different elements that both retailer inside the workers or, just like the Missile Neck Knife, will be carried as a complement to it.

Like an enormous hollow-handled Rambo survival knife, the Survival Employees’s roughly 15 cubic inches of inside cupboard space can home a shocking quantity of drugs 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 crammed with matches and tinder, water purification tablets, powdered drink mixes, medicine, fishing deal with, hand sanitizer, and anything sufficiently small to suit into them. In addition they provide accent kits with micro-sized flashlights, miniature lighters, fireplace starters, and whistles, all sized to journey contained in the workers.

Non-obligatory storage take a look at tubes

The inventory deal with part, which rides on the high of the workers and sometimes serves because the grip for the blade, is product of knurled aluminum. When you desire one thing heavier that hits more durable, Crawford sells an non-obligatory stainless-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 choosing not-so-low-hanging fruits and nuts, they even make a “gaff” hook that attaches to the highest finish of the workers.

Many preppers think about a slingshot to be a really viable survival weapon. When you fall into that camp, Pat and Wes additionally have you ever lined. Their handcrafted slingshot design is produced from hardened 440C stainless-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 complete meeting to be connected to the highest of the workers, the place its leather-wrapped fork may also be used as a taking pictures relaxation. And if you happen to’re into slingshots, don’t neglect you can additionally retailer your ball bearing ammo within the storage tubes contained in the workers’s shaft.

Genius or Gimmick?

Non-obligatory T-Grip attachment

Like all software, the true utility of the Crawford Survival Employees lies in your skill to make it and its elements carry out the duties you want if you want them. As a result of it’s a modular system you can configure, its skill to satisfy these wants is sort of spectacular. As a mountain climbing workers or strolling stick, it helps you retain your stability on any type of terrain, makes a potent affect weapon, and gives on-board storage for a complete survival equipment.

Its commonplace 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 operate is legit and shoots with severe authority and accuracy. In actual fact, in chronograph and penetration checks, it simply rivaled purpose-designed blowguns, together with some with longer tubes. Relying upon your private wants, talent set, and funds, you possibly can selectively add choices to your workers with Crawford’s wide 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 approach again in 1991 when an Army buddy of mine purchased one. As an avid knife collector, I used to be very acquainted with Pat Crawford’s work and was blown away by the workers’s handmade high quality, however I nonetheless wasn’t certain it was definitely worth the value. Virtually 30 years later, my buddy is lengthy retired from energetic obligation and has logged actually 1000’s of miles mountain 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 looking fish in shallow water, Crawford presents an non-obligatory 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 cupboard space. The non-obligatory 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 connected to the highest finish of the deal with, the Survival Employees immediately turns into a formidable spear.

General Size
57 inches

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

MSRP
$349

URL
www.crawfordknives.com

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Written by Michael Janich