hey gang todd helms out here with eastman's hunting journals this afternoon to bring you
another gear review this time on the buck knives 656 pursuit pro large knife and the 119 special so
i'm going to give you a rundown on each of these knives and why if you're in the market for a new
hunting knife you need to be looking at these new bucks or one new buck and one revamped buck knife
because you know buck has been around in the in the hunting knife business in the cutlery business
for a long time always making great american-made products
for american hunters and i tell you what i don't know about you but buck knives in my mind mean
heirloom quality they're a knife that you're going to buy and use and ultimately pass down to
a future generation a son a daughter a grandson a granddaughter whatever it may be in your case
these knives are going to be around and last long enough and give you years of flawless performance
so you can pass that on to your next generation coming up behind you so the 656 pursuit pro large
knife is the one with the orange handle here this is a more modern take on a piece of hunting
cutlery and it's going to retail or not going to it does retail for about 115 dollars 114.99
and you just look at the way that thing is built and it is an impressive knife heavy duty blade
very ergonomic and features a sure grip handle as you can see here it's orange it's black the black
is textured when you grab this it feels good in your hand it's not gonna slip you know as you get
you get you know blood on your hands from working with an animal as you're using this knife that
grip is secure it's grooved on top here in the back and it's just forms to your hand really well
i don't have i have short fingers but i have big fat palms i kind of everybody's like oh
you got bear paws and that's pretty much what i got dealing what to deal with here
but that knife fits my hand really really well it's not too big it's not too small
it's just right and i think buck really thought that through and made an extremely ergonomic sure
grip knife with that this knife also features if you look here you can see that metal that metal is
connect is all one piece that is called full tang this knife is full tang because it is that tang
the blade starts here it runs all the way through the handle and it ends here
this knife if you can break this knife you're either using it wrong or you're a lot tougher than
i am i tell you what because this knife is heavy duty you've got the drop point hunter style blade
that's going that i really like the drop point for a lot of reasons i like to be able to choke
up on it which buck thought through they have little index points here on the blade so i can
choke up on this knife and i can use it for more fine detail i can even flip my hand around and i
can use it for fine detail that way as well buck thought that through because when you get a knife
that's substantial this is a nine and a half inch knife when you get a knife that's this substantial
you've got to be able to manipulate it in other ways other than just
the old you know hack job you don't want to be doing that when you're taking your tenderloins out
or your back straps off or you're doing caping work with this knife you want to be able to turn
it choke up on it and use fine fine little strokes almost like a pencil or a pen as you're using this
knife and buck thought that through as they put those index points and grip points on this sys56
pursuit pro large hunting knife another thing that buck did with this is the steel that they used
is designed to hold an edge this knife is going to give you a lot of service before you're
going to have to touch it up the steel is s35vn steel and that means that not only is it sharp
and it is pretty easy to sharpen it retains an edge well it's a nice combination of a
good hardness but yet soft enough where your average joe is going to be able to put an edge
back on this after they do you know however many animals with it this knife if i was going to
classify this as a hunting knife in my terms this is your do-all this is a knife that would serve
as both you know field crafting or bushcrafting knife as well as hunting it is a nice size nice
all-around size that it's not too big you get much bigger than this and you get into the realm of
you sticking that blade in places that it doesn't belong like your leg or your hand or a part that
you don't want that knife to slip and cut on an animal like maybe the entrails or something like
that this knife's not too big that it's going to get in your way but it's substantial enough
where you have a large and long cutting surface on this blade and it's heavy and robust enough that
i could put yeah i could probably put this against ribs and chop down through
not probably ideal or intended for that and you might experience some blade some edge rolling
but overall that's gonna do it so that is the 656 pursuit pro large hunting knife
all right so moving on to an old school design that's been updated this is the 119 special
pro we've got an updated look on this as you can see these always had that cool old glossy
black handle well buck decided to spruce them up a little bit and they changed it to a green
kind of olive micarta handle updates the look on it a little bit you can still get the black
ones the old school glossy black ones they're still a high gloss finish which i kind of like
this knife is a really good balance this handle is a good balance of
i guess circumference to get be able to hold onto it really well but length where it's not
too big and it's not too little for my hand so the 119 special pro is an updated version
of the old-school 119 special that was actually invented in about 1902 by buck knife's founder
hoyt buck when he created this original design from an old file blade this is just a classic
clip point blade design the steel's been updated in it to s35vn steel which means it's going to be
a little easier for the layman like me to sharpen but it's also going to still stay extremely sharp
and hold an edge and here in a minute i'm going to take both of these knives and i'm going to show
you just how sharp they really are i personally like the updated version i like the green over the
old school black they're both cool but this just i don't know man this just looks a little more
outdoorsy to me and i really like this design this is a really cool knife it's a classic you've seen
this design pop up on hunter's backpacks and on their belts and even in certain 90s horror flicks
for those of you that are familiar with that genre of movie you know this knife you've seen
it before but i prefer to remember this knife as the stalwart classic from my northwoods
deer camp days when i was a kid it seemed like everybody had one of these things on their belt
you still see these these are a fixture in an awful lot of hunting camps out west and there's
a good reason for it this is ten and a half inches of can do right here all right so i told you these
things are scary sharp just like all buck knives out of the box man they're wicked sharp these
things will these both of these but how are they at finesse work you know you look at a knife like
this 119 special pro and you think dang man that thing's almost a foot long that's a big knife well
let's do a little fine work with them and see how they are something that's going to test
both the sharpness and the fine work we'll use the great big one first the 119.
yeah you're right gonna shave my legs here we go
look at that
it just blew away but look at that smooth patch of skin right there i got a couple that i missed
man i feel like a woman another 1990s reference
yeah that's impressive right there
that's the big dog i mean if i could do that with
it you're going to be able to do a lot of different things with that knife that are
exceptional i'm going to stick it back in there now
let's try the 656 pursuit pro large knife see how that does let's go a little bit further
down because it's almost elk season i might have to actually shave my ankles
for taping purposes but we'll see
look at that hair's just falling right off
legs are skin's a little dry i'm gonna bring it all the way up here look at that
wow
those are smoother than my wife's legs that's crazy
well anyway so here we are guys there you have it you've got the 119 special pro and the 656
pursuit pro large those things are awesome you get the quality and the sharpness that buck knives is
world famous for the warranty that they're famous for the heirloom quality of these
things getting 114.99 here 189.99 here and you can do everything from skin grizz to shave legs
hey thanks for joining us stay tuned for more we'll bring you more great stuff
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and stuff that we're doing here at eastmans until next time we'll see you in the field