Gerber BG Compact & Ultra Compact

The two items from the Gerber Bear Grylls range featured here are the Ultra Compact Fine Edge Knife and the Compact Part Serrated Knife. Both are manufactured from Titanium Nitrade coated Stainless Steel, both have full tangs, lanyard holes and come with toughened lightweight locking sheaths. They differ mainly as their names suggest and that’s overall length plus the handle designs. Gerber state: “The Ultra is designed to be strapped to a boot, clipped to a belt or hung around your neck with the length of black paracord that is supplied.”

Personally, I find the Ultra a bit special in both design and its unique sheath. Measuring 6 3/8-inches in overall length with a 31⁄4-inch fine- edge blade with two separate textured glass-filled nylon handle grip plates, its slim-line moulded sheath suits the 440CM Stainless Steel blade it holds perfectly and actually ‘locks’ the knife safely into place with lugs that engage into recesses in the knife handle. It can be stored in the sheath from the right or left, so when hung around the neck, if you’re right- or left-handed you can easily take hold of the handle to draw it free. Complete with removable belt clip, multiple lashing holes for use with the paracord and slots to accommodate standard size webbing. The Ultra also features a finger choil and is ridged along the spine.

Compact Part Serrated

This knife is obviously designed to be a smaller, ‘bare-bones’ survival knife, with a durable rubber handle that’s ergonomically shaped for a comfortable grip in all types of weather. Measuring 7.8-inches with a blade length of 3.4-inches I rate this as very useful small- to medium-sized sheath knife with a very clever design to the rear section of the full tang knife blade. In contrast to the Ultra, the rear spine of the blade has thumb ridging but runs back straight from the top edge of the relatively thick knife blade. The handle on this model wraps all the way around and is very grippy. Though weighing only 3.7oz it feels heavier when in use. Gerber say this particular model is manufactured from 7Cr17MOV steel. It includes a lightweight plastic sheath that clips to a belt or backpack.

The Gerber BG Ultra Compact Fixed Blade Knife is priced at £39.99 while the BG Compact Part Serrated Fixed Blade Knife costs £29.99.