Schrade has had a rocky history with a lot of us, from its traditional American beginnings to the rebadged “New Schrade” owned by Taylor Brands LLC (of reformed mall ninja fame). I have always had a slightly kneejerk negative reaction to the whole thing, but after many years of seeing these inexpensive slabs of steel…

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When I heard that Jens Anso and Jesper Voxnaes were the designers behind the Spyderco Pingo, I was ecstatic. I always loved the unique minimalism that Anso and Vox brought to the table and this guaranteed that I would end up snapping this fella’ up. Sadly (for me) the Pingo fell short of the mark, but…

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Considering all the knife reviews published on this blog, it’ll be no surprise to anyone that I get asked a lot of questions about knife sharpening. Whilst I have reviewed a couple of systems in the past (the Hapstone Pro & Smith’s PP1 sharpeners) I admittedly always go back to simple Japanese Water Stones for sharpening.…

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In late 2015, I reviewed the original goTenna. It’s fair to say that, right off the bat, I was pretty smitten with the concept of this tech, but back then, I felt the goTenna was too far ahead of its time due to the inherent range issues. Communication platforms only work on a mass scale…

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I get a lot of questions from readers about my knife review methodology, how I pick the knives I review and why I won’t review x, y, and z. Elise has responded to a number of these questions in our FAQ, but there were plenty more asked that needed to be answered, so I figured…

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When it comes to family members supporting preps, I feel like I’ve heard it all. At one end, you’ve got the prepper families where each individual takes prepping seriously, and each member of the family works together toward the end goal of being more prepared. At the other end, you have individuals whose families really don’t…

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I scribble a lot about knives (and other gear) on MTJS. After so many years and so much steel accumulated, this “hobby” has brought forth some interesting conundrums. We talk a lot about value, us gear aficionados. We have this idea that value is the perfect balance between performance and price, but I found after…

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