The BLADE Blogs

Throughout the month of April, you can enter for a chance to win a Kershaw Responder knife, courtesy of BLADE and Kershaw.

– Uses Kershaw’s Flipper opening system
– 8cr13mov stainless steel 3 3/4-inch blade blade with Teflon coating
– Santoprene handle
– Overall length 8 3/4 inches
– Weighs 4.8 ounces

The Responder is built to handle everything from extreme sports to rescue situations.

The Responder features a fixed blade with full-tang construction strength and a non-slip, double injection-molded Santoprene handle for a secure grip in any situation—from wet and muddy to cold and icy.

The highly visible neon-handled Responder also features a glass breaker tip. In an emergency, a sharp blow with the carbide tip can crack windshield glass, enabling trapped accident victims to escape.

The partially serrated blade and cutting hook zip through most material with ease, but the tip is rounded for safety.

The multi-function Kydex sheath offers multiple carry options and has both cord eyelets and strap slots.

Click here to enter.

Looks like man’s oldest tool just got older.

According to the journal Science, prehistoric humans were using a “highly skilled method” of making knives 75,000 years ago, about 55,000 years earlier than previously thought.

It had been assumed that the technique of “pressure-flaking”—otherwise known in the knife industry as “knapping” and practiced by Errett Callahan, Eric Bergland and others—was invented by Europeans 20,000 years ago. Basically, knapping consists of exerting pressure against the stone knife with another tool to create a sharp edge.

However, University of Colorado researchers found the same technique used in sharpening the “stone weapons” discovered in Blombos Cave in South Africa and knapped some 55,000 years earlier.

The researchers arrived at their conclusion by knapping some knives of their own and comparing the results to the stone points found in the Blombos Cave. The similarities between the results of the researchers’ knapped knives and many of the stone points from the cave led them to conclude the technique was used much earlier in the Middle Stone Age.

Information on exactly how the stone points were dated was unavailable at press time.

For more information visit http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article863181.ece

You can’t win if you don’t enter.

That’s what Larry Burton of Indiana learned. He won a Johnny Stout custom knife valued at $2,800 through the recent KnifeBroker.com/BLADE joint sweepstakes. The popular sweepstakes drew entrants from all over the world, but Larry’s entry proved to be the luckiest.

A big thank you to everyone who entered. Rest assured there will be another chance at a great prize from BLADE and its knife partners. In the meantime, be sure to check out KnifeBroker.com if you haven’t already. The innovative site allows you to bid on knives for sale, which is fun in its own right.

Buck Knives had the honor of being a supporting sponsor for the first ever Generation Next Awards Banquet in which the Boone and Crockett Club® recognized youth hunters who took record worthy animals during 2007 to 2009.

The Club® hosts an Awards banquet every three years honoring both trophies and fair chase hunters, followed by the release of its latest records book. This year, for the first time, young sportsmen and women were recognized at an Awards event. CJ Buck, President of Buck Knives, was the Master of Ceremonies for this year’s youth event.

“I was proud to be a part of this, and am pleased to see that a good number of youth hunters took trophy animals and are being taught the principals of Fair Chase,” said Buck. Buck had the honor of introducing each hunter and telling a bit of their story that led them to becoming a record holder.

Over the past three years, 73 young men and women (ages 16 and under) have taken B&C qualifying trophies. One youth took the largest non-typical mule deer recorded in 36 years. Another included a massive Alaska brown bear.

For two years now Buck Knives has been working closely with the Boone and Crockett Club to help support and promote the principals the Club was founded upon. Buck has developed a line of Limited Edition knives to honor the Club and sales from these knives help support the causes of this non-profit conservation organization.

In support of the 27th Big Game Awards, Buck created one-of-a-kind limited edition fixed blade knife featuring the 27th Big Game Awards logo on the blade and a beautiful wooden handle with a Malachite inset. The knife is worth $1,000 and was well received during the auction, raising $1,650.00 for the event.

According to information provided by the Club, the Boone and Crockett system of scoring big game trophies originated in 1906 as means of recording details on species thought to be disappearing because of rampant habitat loss and unregulated harvest. Science-based conservation efforts led and funded by license-buying hunters brought those species from vanishing to flourishing.
Scoring records remain a classic gauge of habitat and management programs. In addition to its prestigious history and tradition, the Boone and Crockett Club’s scoring system is strongly associated with the highest tenets of fair chase and hunting ethics.

The new record book will be released in the fall of 2010.