Papa Bear Knife, Powdercoat Gray/Brown/Black

What a beast!! Awesome knife and great companion for camping and any outdoor survival. Super strong and handles all tasks with ease!! I own many different large knives, including the Tom Brown Tracker (T1) and this knife is a class apart. I own a few scar blades knives and this one is no different, razor sharp and well balanced and a true workhorse. The Kydex sheath is great and holds the knife firmly in place. It offers many great ways to carry this awesome blade.

I don't own many knives, I have a tracker from tops, a primitive bush knife from condor and an esee 5. This one is my latest and favorite by a good margin. I prefer big knives as a one tool option, not because I only take a knife out with me hunting and camping but because it may be the only thing on me in any situation. I may be messing around the camp to processing down wood for a fire and cleaning fish and game. This is the best overall knife I've ever used. It's balanced perfectly in the "chopping " grip and the "choked up" grip. The powder coat is sturdy and holds up well. The handle isn't micarta it's like a phenolic type material which is more slick but also more durable.

When you hear somebody call a knife a sharpened crowbar it about sums up this chopper. I really like the knife except it is just too darn heavy and unwieldy. I'm not going to bash the design. The design is actually good with the exception of the weight. If it were a little lighter it could have replaced my Tom Brown Tracker or BK as my general all-purpose blade. Pros: The finger choil helps manage the blade for precision work. There are hundreds of knives I would use before this for any type of precision work but if this was all I had with me it would work. Tell you the truth, choked up it feels really balanced for such a big knife. The scales were nice although the finger grooves work against you sometimes. It is a beast of a chopper but it tires you out quickly. You are probably better off with a large chopper like a BK9 in this respect. While you have a lot more weight behind your swing, your chop speed is going to suffer plus you’re going to burn a lot more energy. It balances out at first but trust me you get fatigued a lot quicker doing tasks with a heavier blade. I think of a BK2 vs. a similarly sized knife like an ESEE 5. If you ever lived with both you’ll know what I mean. I'm not that big into batoning wood but I have no doubt the SCAR would perform exceptionally well. The top blade may be a plus or a minus. It is nice to have but you really have maintain awareness. I had another knife with a sharpened swedge and it nicked me here and there. Once you know it’s there it doesn’t really get in the way but I feel it does hamper your handling. Plus it beats up any baton wood a lot quicker. It also has a notch saw which is sharp enough to saw small limbs if you wanted but you're better of hacking them. It works better as a saw than the saw on the T1 which is really meant just for notching. Cons: The sheath is cheap and dangerous. It is very difficult to draw the knife out of it and shavings come out every time you draw the blade. I would say it was an isolated incident but I have heard other people had similar issues with it. I had to return my first one. The blade finish is kind of rough. Rough as in like I did it myself in my garage. The weight and balance are my biggest issues. It just doesn't work for me. I posted some photos but I just couldn’t figure out how put captions under the photos from my mobile app. The grey coating on the blade is horrendous and ugly. It is so bad it makes Becker’s coating look good. It almost seems like it’s starting to flake around the top blade. If you look at the photos the usable blade length is equivalent to the Tops T1 but the knife weighs over half a pound more. The papa bear is just a mm or so thicker and its handle is beefier. If they would have maintained the blade geometry and used a little less steel while maintaing the blade length it would have been a real winner. Not that it’s a loser by any stretch...it is just not for me. 3.5 stars. Loses a star for finish. Should have been better on a $200-$300 blade. I can forgive the sheath since very few knife manufacturers pay their knives any respect with the sheaths they sell them with but the fit and finish should have been better.

I own several premium knives including about 5 meant primarily as outdoor/camping/survival knives. These are great knives that have served me well but never really the all-in-one I'm always looking for. I was hesitant to buy this one due to its size and my doubt about its purpose flexibility. I decided to buy it and now wish I'd had this on my hip for the past 30 years from my time in the military to my current wilderness treks today. I've never handled such a perfectly designed tool that would be at home on a battlefield, preparing a campfire, or even field dressing an elk. Simply outstanding.

Big sturdy knife. Looks like it could get you thru hell and back. It's curved blade lets you do some fine carving, even though you wouldn't think so because of its size. Very tight and comfortable grip. Definitely for hunters, survivalists, and or any one needing a large knife. It could practically be used almost like a machete as well. Well made, this knife should last you a lifetime.

Great Bushcraft knife. Sometimes it's a little impractical, but you can literally cut down trees and split logs with this monstrosity.

I really like this papa bear knife! It’s solid and ready to go for whatever you throw at it. It can handle almost anything. With proper care, this knife will last a long time. When the time comes, scar blades will replace all their knives no question asked. The only downside is accuracy of amazons end.However amazon needs to update the picture to the actual color configuration. I spoke to Casey Radford at Scar Blades and he said he sent them the correct picture and description of all the knives they send amazon so that it’s accurately described. So amazon needs to make sure they update the picture in the description. The papa bear knife sold on amazon comes in only one configuration as shown in my picture. The blade has a grey gunkote finnish with brown micarta handles.

the knife itself is good however i notice my papa bear protective coating is cracking an peeling along the edges, the cracking is not part of the coating texture as the middle part of the knifes coating is smooth, also bare metal is exposed along the pummel and hand guard and this is supposedly a "new" knife. the knife had lots of black bits from the sheath and there was no Bow Drill Divot present you would see with papa bears ordered directly with scar blades this and the half price (ordering this knife from scars direct will cost you $400 with basic options, tax and shipping) tells me this is a stock they are just trying to get rid of, and i see why people hate the gray coat it makes the knife seem like a cheap Halloween toy; even my friend viewing the knife from 10 feet away said "is that real?" you get what you pay for so keep that in mind