battoning your survival knife

I think that batoning with a knife is the technique of no technique. If I am in a "survival" situation, I would get the chunk of wood started with my knife and then use wedges made from the wood I intend to burn. I have done this numerous times and the end results take the same amount of time and less wear on the knife. Keep in mind, the shavings from the wedges will get used, the wedges will get used, etc.
The person that gets into a survival situation and has the attitude of "my knife is indestructible" is in for a rude surprise and possible a dirt nap. Clubbing is for seals.
 
A well built knife with a proper grind should have no trouble battoning. It doesn't put that much stress on the knife.
 
All of my fixed and a select few folders have and are capable of being used to split wood. Usually carry an alternative in my pack but its a good feeling to know they can if the pack and myself should become seperated. I really don't see it as abuse.
 
Use the appropriate size batton (not a rock if possible!) for the blade in hand and everything should be fine. It's a skill everyone needs to know to get dry tinder and wood for a warm fire on a miserable cold/wet night out.
 
Last edited:
Yorkshire Boy said:
I often see people suggesting a hypothetical survival situation of been out in the woods in poor weather conditions and without other cutting tools. Surely if a person was going far enough away from other people, and at a time of year where bad weather could be reasonably expected then they would prepare themselves accordingly?
Click to expand...

Sort of one of my pet peeves here.

There tends to be a lot of speculation about being out lost somewhere in the wilds yet when you look at the threads only a handful of people on the forum ever get out in any area where that might be a factor.
 
That's the Rambo fantasy that I have had to fight off myself. That was the factor that kept me carrying a big knife even on backpacking trips for many years. I was 10 when First Blood came out and I was gung ho from that day, I knew I need a "survival knife"! Saved money from my paper route and from mowing lawns and got a Buck 184 Buckmaster. Carried that sucker on my first 50 mile backpacking trip in Sequoia. I probably weighed all of 90 pounds with a 3 pound knife strapped to me :D
 
You know, I'm not a big fan of batoning.

But, I did do it a few times to see what the fuss was about. I used a Leuku -- thin blade of indeterminate steel -- and batoned it through some well-seasoned birch and oak. I batoned it through knots and such with no damage to the blade at all.

I suspect a lot of the breakage we see is due to a cold blade being pounded through cold, possibly frozen wood (I usually see snow in the pics of broken blades. To be honest, you'll chip out the bit of an axe if you don't warm it up first, so there's no reason to think a cold knife won't break.


That being said, I don't see what's so hard about carrying a hawk/kukri/axe or even a proper machete to do the heavy work. If people want to baton, then have at it.

Yorkshire Boy said:
My point is that if a person goes hiking then they should carry appropriate gear, clothing, food and water.
Click to expand...

IMO the man that does not do that is a fool. I don't care how high-speed (oops, that's the prac-tac term), I mean ultralight, he thinks he is.

Even the old-timey ultralighters like the much revered Nessmuk, carried an axe. And if you read his book, he goes into great detail about the axe, and barely mentions his knives.

Even Hollowdweller (who probably thinks I carry way too much) is usually seem with his Reeves Nessmuk strapped to his pack.
 
Yeah, I have a smaller khukri thats a about 3/8 thick at the spine, Id baton the crap out of that thing any time a day. Khukri with such wide angle bevel would not get stuck in a big piece of wood and is suited for splitting,where as a narrow slicing blade of a puukko can get pinched hard in bigger piece of wood or hidden knot. So if I had choice of bringing one knife it would be khukri, mind you mine is 8 inch blade so its not to big to carry around.
 
Last edited:
hollowdweller said:
Sort of one of my pet peeves here.

There tends to be a lot of speculation about being out lost somewhere in the wilds yet when you look at the threads only a handful of people on the forum ever get out in any area where that might be a factor.
Click to expand...

Statistics show that you don't have to be in some remote wilderness area to wind up in a mess. Most situations occur on routine day hikes that go wrong.
I once headed a little off trail and slipped down some rocks cutting up my arm and hurting my back ( I posted a thread on here with pics ). That situation could have left me far more injured than I was and nobody would have found me there even though only slightly off trail !
 
I can't imagine breaking an ESEE RC5 bottoning some larger pieces into smaller pieces of wood for whatever reason. But I would be much more guarded about the tasks I did if it was the "only" knife I had in a survival situation.
 
In my buckskinning days and after, I've always carried a trail hawk, longknife, and smaller trade knife wherever i went. The longknife was used now and again with the hawk to split wood when needed, but never had an issue with it breaking. I carried the trade knife, either in the sash or attached to a shooting pouch, for smaller delicate work. Its still a practice I exercise today. A large knife for more robust cutting and a small folder for the detail work. The proper tool for the job right?
 
I batoned my victorinox ranger's main blade without any problems. Granted i was careful . I cudv used the saw to facilitate ease of batoning/splitting...but it held up well, the only issue being it folds close if you dont do it properly.So u can basically baton any blade if you do it properly.

I woould rather shave the wood into shavings, and splice/peel off strips...then i have kindling at least..
 
762 shooter said:
The person that gets into a survival situation and has the attitude of "my knife is indestructible" is in for a rude surprise and possible a dirt nap. Clubbing is for seals.
Click to expand...

This is 100% true (The USAF SERE manual harps on this-correct USAGE techniques of your tool to ensure long life), although batoning is definitely not a technique of no technique-if you take the three seconds to plan out how you'd like to split the wood, so that your blade isn't going through knots or resinous deposits, you are going to save yourself alot of effort and wear and tear in the long run.
 
Anyone on here ever break a knife doing this? I've never seen a fixed blade break doing this or even hear about one. I've see a video of chips taken out of the edge choping frozen wood. The person was using a 1095 blade. That is the only fixed blade I've seen borken in any form, other than on knife test.

Watching a few of those videos might help take some of the fear out if hitting you knife with a peice of wood. He takes a hammer and beats the crap out of them, then chops bricks, etc.

After watching those I aint skert no more.

I still carry two knives though. :)
 
why is this even a debate :P

when you make knives, you learn the strengths of the steels and materials you use.. there is almost zero chance you could break a quality fixed blade knife by whacking it with wood.

crap, someone should set about trying specifically to break a blade with wood.. I would wager the only way to do it would be getting it good and stuck in a big log, then whacking the handle on the side as hard as you can with a baseball sized stick repeatedly...
 
Kenon Rain said:
why is this even a debate :P

when you make knives, you learn the strengths of the steels and materials you use.. there is almost zero chance you could break a quality fixed blade knife by whacking it with wood.

crap, someone should set about trying specifically to break a blade with wood.. I would wager the only way to do it would be getting it good and stuck in a big log, then whacking the handle on the side as hard as you can with a baseball sized stick repeatedly...
Click to expand...

Unless there's a flaw in the blade.
 
There's a few things to post about here! Lotsa fun!!!

OK, as to rapidly changing weather. Yup, change happens and FAST!!! Especially in mountainous regions. This spring i was hiking in the mountains (still lotsa old snow on the ground - like 4-7 feet of drift-over) with my co-worker scouting retreat/camp sites. Even though there was a lot of snow on the ground it was no problem, i had a g-tex shell and as always excellent footwear (almost the #1 survival tool imho). The skies were clear and clouds suggested a nice high pressure bubble. Since it was sunny and approaching 60'sF i, nor my colleague, brought hat/gloves. However, between the 2 of us we have almost 60 years of mountain experience.

As we were hikng up this little spur, we were greeted with a 180 degree change in weather. The clouds socked in, wind rocketed over the pass to howling, and snow began to fall from light flakes to whiteout. All within about 10 minutes. No joke.

It was all good fun for us! We scrambled under some spruce trees and made a nice pair of bough-seats and enjoyed our out-of-the-wind lunch. We had plenty of water and enough food to get our metabolism cranking. I was a little chilly, but all the same was warm enough. We hiked out and down - back into blue skies, no wind (OK, we were on the lee side of the mountain), and nice warm temps. There are 1,000 "what if's", but we were reasonably prepared and knew what to do.

Batonning is an essential skill in fire prep - it's not a question of "if", but rather "how" or "when". The only other questions are fuel (tinder/kindling) source and technique(s) to obtain them. Batonning is among those techniques and a long-standing one at that.

Next.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top