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The SNAP – a Survival Tool from Norseman-TOPS

‘Norseman', the designer-craftsman behind Survival Hardware, never seems to stop thinking and designing. Over the Summer he finished his latest blade for TOPS Knives, a survival tool called the SNAP Card (which will actually fit in an iPhone case with a credit card slot). It's an interesting little knife-hypbrid that fits the niche survival/emergency billet very nicely. I can see many outdoor lovers, hikers, backpackers and primitive campers, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts and others of a similar prepared mindset wanting to keep one handy, in a pack, a bailout bag, vehicle, etc.

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The SNAP Card (Survival Needs And Preparedness) comes as part of small kit in a container the size of an Altoids kit. Norseman (retired Marine David Williams) used his experience as a Mountain Survival and SERE Instructor and both Winter and Summer Mountain Leader to develop the tool.

Says Norseman,

“…for all the millions of designs out there I could not find a single one that fits snugly in an altoids tin and could also be used for more than skinning a sparrow…It is 1095 HC Steel with a coating of Ceracoat in canyon red. It is 1/8″ think and it has sort of a modified chisel grind on the two cutting edges…”

The tool can be used in a number of ways – as a field expedient hatchet, to truncate a small tree for shelter or tool-haft, bark or hide scraping, camp chores, fighting/defense – you can see a whole series of pictures of the SNAP card in use in this article. Unfortunately they're not available via the TOPS website – you'll have to locate a dealer with one in stock. You can do that here. I haven't located one in stock yet, but I've only spent a little time doing so. You may have better luck. Find further details of the SNAP Kit on the TOPS Knives website here.

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Survivology SNAP Card 7 - with HOGIf you're interested in more of Williams' work, check out Survival Hardware. You can see many of his knives here on a previous edition of “Saturday Night Blade Porn”. Norseman has a remarkable background and his work reflects that – over the course of his career he deployed on combat tours to Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, worked as a Scout Sniper and Combat Tracking Instructor, all the survival-related billets described above and most of all is a consummate, passionate outdoorsman. He's a staff editor for Survival Quarterly Magazine a superb metal-worker. Although it's updated very infrequently, his blog Survivology 101 is worth checking out as well.

Survival Hardware is on Facebook here.

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Survivology SNAP Card - Norseman

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