There is a lot of good stuff out there in this Golden Age of Gear we live in. New uber folders drop once a week, features that were the sole territory of customs come out all of the time, and the fixed blade game has moved from handy and good to straight up bonkers awesome. These three knives represent some of the best medium sized stuff out there. I'd like to have included an Adventure Sworn blade, but four way shootouts get complicated and their blades are not exactly readily available (the same could be said for the Survive! Knives stuff, which, for sake of easy writing, will be written as "Survive Knives" sans exclamation point).

This shootout focuses on medium sized knives, which are often called camp knives. These knives are designed to be the fixed blade equivalent of the Number 5 Jack Plane in woodworking--they can do a bit of everything. In the hands of someone with skill (which is decidedly not me), they can flex from tinder prep to food work to batonning. If you only want one fixed blade, this is the size. Generally the blades run from just under 4 inches to just over 6 inches. The three knives in this shootout are (from left to right, individual reviews linked):

Fiddleback Forge Bushcrafter

Survive Knives GSO 4.7 in Cru Forge

Bark River Knives Bravo 1 LT in 3V

There are a few other knives that could have fit in here. LT Wright makes a ton of great stuff, as does Fallkniven, Benchmade, Spyderco, Arno Bernard, Helle and EnZo. In the end, I picked these because these three blades were the ones I liked the best, but I could have easily swapped one out for the F1z, a Spyderco Southfork or any number of Helle blades.

All three knives were tested extensively in the fall of 2016. Every three years we get our trees trimmed back just before winter to help not lose power. This year I asked the tree guys to leave all of the limbs in the yard and over a period of a weekend my six year old son and myself processed all of the wood. It was a good deal of material--all green, with a healthy mix of pine, oak, and maple. I did a lot of delimbing, batonning, chopping, and fire prep (we had a fire each day and camp food at lunch, yum!). This particular weekend was called the "Chopocalypse." And it was an apt name. We started at 7:30-8 AM and finished at dark and did a lot of chopping. I had one of these three knives in my hand or on my belt the entire time.

Design

Bravo 1: 5; Bushcrafter: 3; GSO 4.7: 1

The points do not accurately reflect just how close all of these knives are. Their designs are really similar with a few differences in blade shape, grind, and handle design, but for the most part they are all very similar. The Bravo 1 stands apart from the other two, but no knife here is a bad design. All are basic, functional knives and I really like them all. All of them got a 2 in their respective reviews because they are being compared to the field or the average. Here, where they are compared to each other, there has to be some ranking, so that a knife that scores a 2 against the field would score a 1 here.

I like the look of the Bravo 1 the best, it is a damn sexy knife, having the visual tension that Bob Loveless referenced in spades (which is a trait all Bark Rivers have, in my opinion). I recognize that the Fiddleback Forge has a very unique look and it is exceedingly well executed in that regard, but it is not an aesthetic that really speaks to me. The GSO 4.7 is clearly from the ESEE/Ka-Bar/Ontario school of fixed blades, and among that company, it is a beauty queen. Here, among the supermodels of the fixed blade world, its merely okay.

Fit and Finish

GSO 4.7: 5; Bravo 1: 3; Bushcrafter: 1

Again, the knives here are all closely grouped. None were bad in anyway. All were among the finest fixed blades I have handled. There is a layer of polish, both literally and figuratively, on the Bravo 1, that is very pleasing to the eye. But among the knives, the GSO 4.7 seemed to be more considered, more tweaked, as if Guy Seifert is checking every little thing, from the ricasso, to the plunge grinds, to the grippiness of the handle scales. Everything is masterfully done. The Bushcrafter isn't a slouch, but among this elite company I detected an ever so slight wobbliness to the cutting edge grind.

Handle Design

Bushcrafter: 5; Bravo 1: 3; GSO 4.7: 1

There is no real question here--the Bushcrafter is just superior to everything else I have used, handle-wise. This category is the Bushcrafter, a bunch of space, and then the other two. I couldn't think of a single way to tweak the Bushcrafter, its that good. For the other two, I disliked how slick the polished handles of the Bravo 1 were out of the box, though that problem was remedied with some use, and I wasn't a fan of the GSO's index notch/guard where was very steep with a tight radius on the curve. This means that with lots and lots of use, which all three were subjected to, there was a sensation that your hand was bunching up against this part of the handle.

Steel

GSO 4.7: 5; Bravo 1: 3; Bushcrafter: 1

I have used 3V many times, and O1 quite often, but this was my first knife with Cru Forge. And through lots and lots of heavy use, Cru Forge was the only edge that never chipped out and, at the same time, was easily restored after it eventually dulled. My Bravo 1 has a small chip in the belly and the O1, as good as it was, didn't last quite as long as the other two steels. Additionally, getting both back to shaving sharp was something of an ordeal, but not with the Cru-Forge. Its always hard to compare steels when the knives all have different geometry, but with that caveat out of the way, I feel confident that, in my single small sample, Cru-Forge was the winner. I know that is a bit of steel snob heresy, but I am faced with this dilemma--do I go with the data sheet and the online reputation of 3V or do I accept the results that are right in front of me? In the end, I went with results, with the caveat that this is a super small sample size and an apples to oranges comparison.

Blade Shape

Bravo 1: 5; Bushcrafter: 3; GSO 4.7: 1

The top two are really close but here, the beefy, bulky spearpoint of the GSO was a clear "loser" (again, all were great, just some are not as great as others). The blade shape brought down the primary grind to something like the midpoint and that, coupled with the overall thickness of the stock, made the knife more popping and less slicing than the other two, which, depending on how you use a camp knife, could be an advantage or a disadvantage. Both the Bravo 1 and the Bushcrafter could do food prep. The GSO couldn't, really. In the end though, the Bravo 1 did well in both hard use and detail tasks and it is in large part thanks to its general purpose blade shape.

Grind

Bravo 1: 5; Bushcrafter: 3; GSO 4.7: 1

Let me explain this simply--I love the Bark River full height convex grind. It does everything, does it well, is easy to maintain, and looks great. Between Barkies and Fallkniven fixed blades, I am convinced, this is the grind of choice for fixed blade knives.

The other two are fine, but again, in this tight race, fine is not going to grab five points.

Sheath Carry

GSO 4.7: 5; Bushcrafter: 3; Bravo 1: 1

This is a place where the winner has lapped the other two. Though it rides high, I found that positioning to be handy. Both the Bushcrafter and the Bravo 1 have "less good" leather sheathes. In fact, the Bravo 1's sheath is not just "less good," its pretty terrible. Its wide, rides low, and can move around a bit. If there is a single reason not to by the Bravo 1, the sheath is it. The Bushcrafter's sheath is a pretty forgettable leather number, neither heinous nor impactful.

Sheath Accessibility

GSO 4.7: 5; Bushcrafter: 3; Bravo 1: 1

In the years I have written the site, I have always wanted a "blind" sheath, something I could use without looking and a few were close, but the GSO's was the first that was truly blind. Guy Seifert's design here is amazing and though it just looks like a normal sheath, once you use it you will be convinced--this is the way to go: kydex, high riding, wide open mouth. Again, the GSO laps the field here.

Useability

Bushcrafter: 5; Bravo 1: 3; GSO 4.7: 1

With a great handle, comes long-term comfort when in use. Of the three knives here, it was the Bushcrafter that most felt like an extension of my hand, something that, over the long run, did what I wanted it to do more often. It was deft and fluid, cutting quickly and precisely without any significant toll on my hands.

Both the Bravo 1 and GSO were very good as well, but not quite on the level of the Bushcrafter. I couldn't get over the balance of the Bushcrafter, especially when compared to something like the GSO, which, frankly, is probably a class up in terms of size, again making the comparison not a perfect apples to apples comparison.

All were good. One was amazing.

Durability

GSO 4.7: 5; Bravo 1: 3; Bushcrafter: 1

All of these knives took a beating with aplomb. None shyed away from hard use and all came out on the other side looking splendid, which is something I can't say for the Helle I reviewed a few years ago. The combination of build and materials means that these knives will last a very, very long time. That said, the GSO is a bit heavier duty. I never worried about the other two, but I was completely unrestrained with what I thought the GSO could handle. Again, it is a bit bigger than the other two, so maybe its just a size thing, but either way the GSO felt like a more substantial tool (insert pun here).

Overall Score:

Bravo 1: 33

GSO 4.7: 30

Bushcrafter: 28

This matches up with my sense at the beginning of this project. They are all very good knives and though there are some real differences in some categories they all felt like they were the same level of quality, overall. If anything, I think they should be clumped a little more, but the scores are the scores. It is also worth nothing that the Bushcrafter is probably a better knife in the hands of a person with more skill. It lacks some of the babying features, like a prominent guard, that the other two have and once those features are removed, the knife is capable of more if its user is.

Value (Points per dollar):

Bravo 1 (as configured): $249.95: .13

GSO 4.7: $189.95: .16

Bushcrafter: $374.95: .07

This is an easy calculation--the GSO 4.7 is significantly cheaper than the other two, probably half the price of the Bushcrafter and 60% the price of the Bravo 1. If it nearly took the overall crown, accounting for the price difference makes the winner clear.

Overall Winner: GSO 4.7

This is a pretty easy one to pick because the GSO 4.7 is so economically priced. There is room for the price to go up and the knife still be one of the best fixed blades on the market. If price is no object I do think that the Bravo 1 3V LT is probably a better knife. The only issue is that in addition to the price increase, you also have factor in the price of a replacement sheath. That starts to get you into the $350-$400 price range, which is a lot for a production fixed blade. The Fiddelback Forge is really a custom so the price matches. That means that it will never be the best value, but you know that going in, given its custom provenance.