I already owned a lars falt knife which was my favourite knife at the time. I wanted another lars falt in stainless for trips around water but since casstrom don’t make one I bought this knife. To my surprise I found that I preferred this knife to the lars falt (and every other knife I own) because:
1. The handle is extremely ergonomic. The handle locks into your fist perfectly and has a beautiful coke bottle shape that you can’t really appreciate until you see it in real life. The area just before the spine is wide so you don’t get the painful pressure against your hand I often find with narrower handles when feathersticking. The curve at the end of the handle means your 3rd and 4th fingers get lots of leverage when making power cuts.
2. The length of the blade seems perfect. I find that I have a lot of control over the tip at 10cm where slightly longer blades start to feel a little unwieldy when carving. The 4mm stock means it batons extremely well.
3. The steel is great. The grind comes with a 30 degree sharpening angle and I reprofiled it to 25 degrees. (I always make my scandis 25 degrees because I like how aggressive this angle is). I’ve found the 14c28n steel is still tough enough that I have had no edge problems at this low angle even at a zero grind. It holds an edge well and I can’t tell the difference in edge holding between this and sleipner while it’s very easy to get a razor edge.
I own several knives from Fallkniven, Lionsteel, Helle, Brisa and Mora but this knife is consistently the one I find myself picking up every time I go on a bushcraft trip.
I have dozens of knives, some very expensive (£400+) and some very cheap(£12+) and they're all good at what they were designed for but I have to admit that the Field Dresser is my favourite. It is small, lightweight, easy to use and even easier to sharpen. It takes a bit of getting used to, being basically an upside down cutting edge but what a great idea! I used it for the first time last weekend on 3 Roe deer that I'd shot and it was flawless..without being too graphic, it processed all 3 deer perfectly up until a more dedicated butchering knife was needed.. 10/10 from me.
Straight off a big thank you to the team at Casstrom for delivering me a real gem of a knife . love the design the Bog Oak handle and the red liners they really go well together something you notice straight away , out of the box the knife is razor sharp and having the Limited Edition number i picked etched on the blade makes it that little bit more special as always the sheath is of amazing quality a lovely bit of kit ,would i but another Limited Edition Knife ? Yes.
Big shout out to Leo for the updates and helping me with the purchase.