Terävä jääkäripuukko review

Unfortunately, I no longer own any of my Carbon V SRK's, so I substituted one of them with a newer SRK in High Carbon SK5 steel for the comparison. 

Comparing the two, although the blade styles are different, they have a lot in common for their intended purpose of military use and survival tasks -- thick, rugged blades, beefy rubberized handles, and highly secure sheaths that are capable of safely retaining their blades in the event of a fall.

The Terava's blade is slightly shorter at 5.5" vs the SRK's 6" length.

It has a thin tip (see the comparison further below) that breaks too easyand the steel, although decent, is harder to sharpen and does not take as fine of an edge in my experience. The shape of the sheath along with the plastic liner and quality/thickness of the leather made it an excellent platform for stropping:

I was able to quickly bring the Terava back to hair shaving sharpness using this method -- pretty cool!

these dreams turned into concrete ideas. I do miss the thumb extension for unsheathing the knife that is on the Skrama sheath, though.

The knife is a 5.5" high carbon 80CrV2 Finnish military survival knife sold by military surplus outlet Varusteleka of Finland. In a military context however, such types of knives have been in use even here, going back as far as can be remembered.

Today, we are going to look at two knives from the same maker, Terävä, which fill specialized functions at opposite ends.

It managed these basic chores with ease.

So I opted the no sheath option on the website. This includes taking it with me to Rabbitstick 2022, where I assisted my friend and knife guru Lex Rule to teach a bushcraft knife sharpening course there.  

I gave the Terava to Lex to try out to see what he thought of it. Either way, it is a strong, resilient knife that is excellent at carving and has really good edge retention, so field sharpening will be a rare occurrence anyways.

Peltonen M95 and M07, in uniquely designed sheaths suitable for upside-down carrying on tactical harnesses. 

Surplus shop Varusteleka in Helsinki sold those knives, but due to a very limited production, they were always out of stock so they decided to design their own take on such knives, which were the 110 and 140mm versions of the (Terava) Jääkkäripuukko.

To honor this tradition and the heritage of past warriors, Varusteleka named their puukko as Jääkäri, because it is tradition, that every Finnish soldier carry a puukko, which can be used as a tool or weapon. Such was not the case with the Varusteleka Jääkäripuukko. Sticking to simplicity is often wise, but a surprising number of manufacturers somehow manage to botch their sheaths up completely.

Personally, and depending on what pack I am using, I carry it either in or inside of the side pockets of my backpack, or sometimes inside of the pack.

But after Lex spent some time using it and then resharpening it, he pronounced "I think this is one of the best production survival knives I've used -- great steel and edge profile!" 

I also used it during a one week camping trip in the Uinta National Forest in Utah on the way back to Colorado from Rabbitstick and it proved to be a great general purpose camp knife.

Getting it out with one hand is a bit awkward, but as I keep it hanging from the chest it is not an issue for me personally.

While the grip is a bit similar to that of the Skrama knife, with it’s slight belly, it is naturally shorter and quite comfortable regardless of whether you are holding it in regular, inverted or reversed grips.

Combined with the fairly unique differentially sharpened blade you pretty much get two knives in one, making it easy to both chop firewood and make kindling with it.

The blade comes in both carbon and stainless versions, which is fantastic. Some of you may be familiar with Varusteleka because they sell a ton of hard to find European military surplus gear to bushcrafters in the US, Canada and the UK. 

Now, I have seen a lot of destruction videos in my time, but this one took the cake.

A double fold at the top of the sheath can be fastened with a stud, and a hard-plastic inner liner prevents the blade from damaging the inside.

Specs	Metric	Imperial
Weight (w/o sheath)	190 g	6.70 oz
Total length	270 mm	10.6″
Blade length	140 mm	5.5″
Blade thickness	4.20 mm	0.17″
Edge angle	23°
Steel	80CrV2, 59 HRC

Varusteleka Ergonomics

There have been moments during my time in the military, or recreationally, when wearing gear was not the most comfortable.