Ninja Gear Review: TOPS Tom Brown Tracker

As a younger man, I found the books written by Tom Brown Jr. about his survival training under “Grandfather” irresistible. I’m sure that I’ve read them all at least three times each and tried to personally recreate a lot the techniques that Mr. Brown wrote about with varying degrees of success.

When I heard that Mr. Brown had licensed a knife design to TOPS Knives I was immediately interested and I purchased a blade fairly quickly after they were made available. Everything that I had ever seen from TOPS was a high quality knife and this thing was being billed as the ultimate survival tool.  As an aspiring outdoorsman and a fan of Tom Brown Jr., this was too much to resist.

When I got my hand on the Tracker I realized that I had truly purchased a tool.  The overall length is just under a foot long (11.88 in). The massive blade is only 6.38 inches long but it is a quarter of an inch thick and almost as wide as a cleaver. The 1095 tool steel and micarta handle bring the knife’s weight to 21 ounces, and if you include the kydex sheath up to 26 ounces.  It is a lot of knife.

This knife has several design features that make it pretty good at a lot of bushcraft and survival tasks.  The front heavy blade and unique handle design let it function as a pretty powerful chopper. The utility edge of the knife is big enough to serve as a hide scraper, and assist you in shaping a bowl.  The “hook” below the utility edge and above the fine cutting edge is meant to help in field dressing and skinning game animals (I’ve never even attempted this as this knife isn’t usually part of my hunting loadout).  The fine cutting edge is just that, meant for finer and more precision cutting jobs. There is a saw edge on the back that functions pretty well as a saw but does a great job notching fire boards.

I keep saying that the Tracker does a job “pretty well”. It is not meant to be a specialist tool like a stand alone saw.  As a single piece of multipurpose gear though it really does shine. If I was limited to one item for a wilderness adventure, it would be difficult to not consider this tool.  It is part of what I consider my “A-team” where I pair it with my Leatherman “Wave” so that I can bring the power and the precision with me out on the trail.

If you are looking for a piece of equipment that can do the job of a saw, a hatchet, and a large fixed blade knife, then I strongly recommend the Tracker by TOPS knives.  It is a quite imposing tool however and if your goal is to maintain a reduced “signature” be aware that this thing draws attention.