If you’re following along on Advanced Knife Bros fixed blade backyard adventure extravaganza,
this review for the Buck 119 is marks my 6th fixed blade knife review in a row.
And should finally get people to stop thinking I have a thing against Bucks- but start thinking
I have something against folding knives.
I don't have anything against Bucks, they make perfectly fine knives that I like that
your Grandpa liked.
The 119 is a design that's pretty much stayed the same since 1942 with a few changes.
The major ones happened about a decade after the introduction when they realized their
mistake and improved the design by adding a blood groove and made it bigger...
Buck always a leader who very early on anticipated the tactical revolution in the latter part
of century.
Although I am kind of disappointed no revision ever addressed the lack of a sawback.
And while we think about sawbacks, not as much as Gil Hibben thinks about them, but
let's still think about them a good amount, lets take a look at the dimensions like the
overall length and weight.
Ok we can stop thinking about saw backs now.
And now move onto other ways we might improve the 119.
Blade size and cutting edge.
Is a cutting edge just over 5 inches even tactical nowadays.
I think the Natchez bowie ruined small bowies for me.
Handle size and grip area.
The handle sure as shit can be improved with some Strider or medford style jimping.
How do you even grip it without round squared jimping.
Spine thickness and handle thickness.
And that blade stock, if they manned that up they could man up the weight too.
Tallnesses.
That blade sure as hell ain't tall enough.
Now I probably started the wrong we in my Bowie Odyssey, the Natchez, the Dogs head
utility, and now the 119.
I chose the 119 because I figured I'd do a buck it would be one that would get me a lot
of clicks.
Ok let's look at the blade.
The 119 has a hunting friendly clip point blade made from 420 HC stainless steel in
hollow grind.
It's comes pretty sharp out of the box.
Clip points are a good game knife because of the piercing tip, with a swedge.
The swedge is this section up here, while not sharpened it comes to an acute peak meaning
it it can enter the body cavity of a squirrel you killed much easier.
The rule of thumb is, depending on the type of game you hunt, your knife needs to be approximately
2/3 the size of animal.
It's an old hunting rule- look it up.
The satin finished blade is pretty good at cutting up onions and green peppers for tofu
soft taco night, a very specific task Hoyt Buck had in mind when designing fixed blade
knives in the early 20th century.
The handle.
The handle is a composite or plastic material called Phenolic.
It covers a full length that isn't full height, google 119 tang, and you'll see pictures.
The entire handle to the cross guard, the finger grooves, the rear bolster are all finished
very smooth and hotspot free.
The handle while slick is bulbous and the combination of the rear bolster, the finger
grooves, and the cross guard try to make up for a lack of traction on the smooth finish.
I don't hunt no more, and I don't often venture outside when it's raining, but it might be
taken into consideration that if you hunt, and hunt while wet, or get wet while hunting,
or any combinations of various moistures, viscous fluids and your person- Micarta, G10
and even rubberized handles might be better alternatives.
Or just get your self a good set of gloves, they could even be fingerless gloves, and
then the Buck 119 is just fine.
It wouldn't be the 119 if it didn't have a slick handle ok jerk.
The sheath.
The sheath is nice and leather.
It's thick and has a plastic insert to maintain it's shape and protect the interior of the
sheath from cuts, and probably also discourage moisture from touching your blade.
There's even a drain hold at the bottom the the sheath, almost like buck doesn't want
your knife to rust.
You got a wrap around snap and retention system that keeps in inside the sheath when closed.
Although the nature of the wrap around snap does make it slightly harder to draw- which
might actually be a big and not a feature because it could keep the knife inside the
sheath if you forgot to snap it.
One negative though, is it rides a little high, an dangler ring might make it a bit
better for my tastes.
The butt of the handle rides about 2 3.4 inches over the top of your belt.
Comparisons.
First the 119.
The two main negatives for me are the lack of a lower riding sheath, and the handle is
a bit slick.
If you could get one of those dangler loops and wear some gloves, it would make an excellent
outdoor knife.
There are arguments as to what a real useful fixed blade size is... is 6 inches too big?
In my experience and in reading there is a lot to suggest hunters prefer blade lengths
up to 4 inches and less.
What is a 6 inch blade good for, bushcraft?
Feather sticks?
When I'm camping or hiking, I generally deal with 3-4 inch folding knives.
I'd be curious for those who are active hunters, what is your favorite blade for hunting?
Now the Dogs Head Utility.
This one is more like the Buck 120 in size, so it's bigger... also uses a cheaper steel,
although it uses a carbon steel, which is why they coat it.
I like this knife, but it's mostly useful for making youtube videos.
If I were camping, and I could only take two bladed instruments I'd probably take my Kukri
and a folding spyderco.
One for firewood and one for food prep.
Now the Fallkniven S1.
I like the handle a bit better here, and the knife has a better sheath.
Also I kind of like the looks.
About $150 though, which is kind of expensive.
Now the equally expensive Helle GT at $150.
If you needed to bring a knife you could beat on, I'd pick the buck.
If you use it for normal knife stuff, pick the Helle GT.
Esee Laser Strike.
You can also beat on this knife, but it's about $100.
I would probably call this the knife mostly likely to survive an idiot in the lineup.
Replaceable comfortable handle scales, thick blade stock, has the word laser in the name
so you know it doesnt fuck around.
Alright, the 119 can't escape the review without batoning.
Can it handle it?
Let's beat it up.
I like the 119 just fine.
It's slightly smaller than big ass dimensions might be more versatile than a dogs head or
larger 7 inch fixed blades.
I know it's no Tom Brown Tracker... where's the recurve and sad back, and it needs more
than one edge grind.
As a side note, I went down the Tom Brown tacker rabbit hole- I guess it was a tangent
when reading about the hypothetical uses of large fixed blades.
I read about half of the book Tracker once.
I liked it but have a short attention span... and that knife always stuck me as uhh... busy.
I also decided to skim the 22 page instruction manual, and it notes that "Any misuse of this
knife other than to fulfill normal "knife-like" function such as those outlined in the text
will result in voiding the warranty."
Huh.
What were we doing?
Oh yeah the buck 119.
It's a good large fixed blade.
Not my favorite, but a good one.
It's cheap... if you need something for batoning, maybe buy something with a slightly longer
blade, that's full tang and with replaceable handles.
Also clip points make sense for piercing things, but not battening because it chews your blade
up.
So I guess the whole point of the review leaves me with two main questions…
first is 6 inches too big for a hunting knife?
If there’s 12 inch Bowies out there, that can’t be the case.
And second, clip points aren’t as a useful of a blade shape when processing firewood
or Bushcraft as Youtube calls it.
That’s more of a statement, I guess I could rephrase it but I’m just so so tired.
However You probably have so many knives already that you could kill 3 and still have another
dozen to play survival with.
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