Description
The tracker profile asks a single blade to chop, carve and saw. This one is ground from D2 at a quarter inch thick, wrapped in walnut, and dressed with gold-toned screws and a mosaic pin.
| Overall length | 11.88 inches |
| Blade length | 6.38 inches |
| Blade thickness | 0.25 inches |
| Steel | D2 tool steel, stone washed matte finish |
| Grind | Tom Brown tracker profile — chopping belly, straight fine-work section, sawback spine |
| Handle | Walnut wood with gold stainless steel screws and mosaic pin inlay |
| Lanyard | Drilled lanyard hole through the butt |
| Included | Black leather tracker sheath |
Where it earns its keep: shelter building, notching, splitting kindling and breaking down small game at a base camp. The tracker sheath rides horizontally across the back of a belt, which keeps nearly twelve inches of knife out of your way when you sit down.
Care: D2 carries enough chromium to shrug off humidity far better than a plain carbon blade, but it is not stainless and will spot if you leave it wet. The stone washed face helps here, since a matte surface hides the small scuffs that working use puts on it. Walnut is open grained and slowly gives up its moisture, so a thin wipe of oil once or twice a year stops the scales shrinking away from the screws. Keep the knife out of the sheath between trips. Picking the right oil matters more than most people expect.
What the tracker shape does well, and badly
The forward belly carries the weight and does the chopping. The straight section behind it is your fine-work area, used choked up with a thumb on the spine. The sawback notches green wood for traps and lashings. What the shape does badly is slice. Ask it to fillet a fish or run a long clean cut through hide and the deep belly fights you the whole way.
What a quarter inch of stock buys you
Thick stock means you can hammer the blade through a log without thinking about it. The cost is cutting efficiency, because all that steel behind the edge has to shove material aside. That trade is deliberate here. If most of your cutting is slicing rather than splitting, a thinner knife will make you happier and this one will feel like hard work.
Who should skip it
Anyone after a light knife. Anyone hoping for one blade that covers the kitchen and the woods. Anyone who wants a polished finish to stay polished. This is a tool with a matte face and it is meant to come back dirty. If you would rather have a synthetic grip that ignores weather completely, look at the G10-handled Olive Ranger instead. It is also worth reading how blade shapes change the cut before you commit to a tracker at all.
Common questions
Will the sawback really saw? It notches. The teeth are cut for grooving green wood, not for cross-cutting seasoned timber. Carry a folding saw if you need to fell anything.
Can I baton with it? Yes. A quarter inch of D2 with a full-width spine takes batoning through wrist-thick wood without complaint. Strike the spine, never the handle.
Does the sheath carry vertically? It is built around a horizontal scout draw. It will hang vertically, but the retention strap sits where the horizontal draw wants it.
Model: BMK-1108
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