Fallkniven R2 Scout

I bought my first Fallkniven fixed blade knife more than ten years ago and it was a WM1 neck knife in VG10 steel. Heinnie Haynes recently sent me their latest small knife, not as small as the WN1, and it’s not a neck knife. It’s called the R2 Scout. The WM1 was aimed at users with smaller hands or people like me, who prefer a small knife. The R2 Scout is aimed at the same crowd, however, on getting it out of the box, I was taken aback. It may pretend to be a small fixed blade knife but it is made by those Swedish Bushcraft giants, Fallkniven.

The build

Let’s start with the blade. It’s made out of Swedish powered steel, making it a cut above the rest. Elmax is the name, they harden it, cool it to minus 190 °C and then temper it for 2-hours to achieve a hardness of HRC 61/62. So, it’s sharp, tough, not brittle and is still easy to sharpen.

The handle is made out of one of Fallkniven’s trademark materials, Zytel. It shows a chequered grip pattern and is really grippy. The tang goes all the way to the hilt of the knife and beyond, extending past the Zytel so you can use it as a hammer. It also has a flared tube lanyard hole.

The sheath really grabbed my attention. It is made of glass-reinforced nylon and shows a nylon belt loop at the back and three slotted holes for alternative mounting options. The best bit is the double locking system and I noticed the side lever when I got the black sheath out of the packaging. It has a paracord toggle in the Swedish colours of yellow, blue and black. They put this on to assist the user in operating the toggle lever up and down. In the upper position, the knife can be pulled from the sheath. I say ‘pulled’ as the finger guard hooks into a cutout in the sheath, it’s forced into there by a spring, not a metal one, but part of the sheath. You can hold the knife upside down with the toggle lock off and the knife stays in the sheath. Once the toggle is down, the R2 is locked into the sheath and you will never lose it. Overall, this is by far the best sheath I’ve used.

Conclusion

The blade has a convex grind and it’s more Sabre than Scandi. At almost 5mm thick it’s very strong and being stainless steel, it will not corrode or discolour. The tag line on the box is ‘a knife for the rest of your life’ and the R2 Scout is a quality tool that will last a lifetime.

Many thanks to Richard at HH for help in the production of this article.