Best survival knife?

Come see us over in the Becker forum, if you decide to go Becker. Come see us even if you don't.

Moose
 
The best survival knife made will be the one you have on your person when you suddenly find yourself in a survival situation.
 
The best "survival" knife is the knife you have on you....

But seriously, there are tons of sizes, shapes, materials and flavors out there when it comes to knives. What ever you decide today will more than likely be sufficient. Also, you.won't know what truly works for you until you found out what doesn't.

Good luck!
 
Some great advice from some smart guys.

Get a good full tang knife (my favorite), a multi tool, or a good folding knife and get out in the woods to use them! Like any tool it depends on what task you intend to use it for.

Survival is the will to live, I have made knives from rocks and bones. :D

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The Mora gets a lot of air-time here. So does Bark River, ESEE, Busse, Survive Knives and many others. The money you spend is only limited by your imagination.
Don't overlook the custom knives, often available for about $140, on the KnifeMaker's Market, Fixed Blades on this forum. Here is the link. You will find great fixed blades here. I know that I have.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/754-For-Sale-Fixed-Blades
Sonnydaze
 
Wolf_1989 said:
The "survival knife" of the American frontier was almost always a butcher knife of some sort.
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Raymond1000 said:
The language is tricky. When people talked about Jim Bowie wearing his big butcher knife, they weren't suggesting a a man dressed in white, cutting steaks off of a primal. In those days “butcher knife” connoted a fighting knife, used to butcher men.

The original Bowie knife wasn't that far in function from the Hudson Bay Camp Knife: A heavy chopper used for building shelter, butchering animals, cutting firewood, making camp furniture, building a canoe, and occasionally butchering men. The Company was issuing Camp Knives to fur traders while America was a gaggle of colonies.
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I think this is a misnomer too but in a different way. Mountain men had horses, a few buddies, and most importantly an axe. From reading Kephart and Nessmuk I get the feeling that the pocket knife and the axe got most of the work while the belt knives were mostly for food and meat. Which is well within a butcher knife's wheel house.
 
paulsurvival said:
For start I would think at a Gerber Bear Grylls at 37 bucks will work for all your needs. I have write a review here about this one: survivalknifeguide.net/gerber-bear-grylls-ultimate-survival-knife-review/

What do you think about it?
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Welcome.

Me? I think it's a silly thing created by a marketing department to suck in casual recreational campers who have convinced themselves they are not camping but "surviving," and, in reality, one would be way better served with a Vic Farmer. Of course the Farmer doesn't have survival instructions written on it, or a whistle!

You asked. :)
 
Shotgun said:
I think this is a misnomer too but in a different way. Mountain men had horses, a few buddies, and most importantly an axe. From reading Kephart and Nessmuk I get the feeling that the pocket knife and the axe got most of the work while the belt knives were mostly for food and meat. Which is well within a butcher knife's wheel house.
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I like Kephart. I like Nessmuk. But they were writing about recreational camping late in the nineteenth century. That has little to do with the life of a voyageur for the fur trade. They weren’t describing wilderness life in the ante-bellum south. Neither of them argued that big knives were not in use. Indeed, Sears spent some ink bad mouthing them.

A WORD AS TO KNIFE, OR KNIVES. THESE ARE OF PRIME NECESSITY AND SHOULD BE OF THE BEST, BOTH AS TO SHAPE AND TEMPER. THE "BOWIES" AND "HUNTING KNIVES" USUALLY KEPT ON SALE, ARE THICK, CLUMSY AFFAIRS, WITH A SORT OF RIDGE ALONG THE MIDDLE OF THE BLADE, MURDEROUS-LOOKING, BUT OF LITTLE USE; RATHER FITTED TO ADORN A DIME NOVEL OR THE BELT OF "BILLY THE KID," THAN THE OUTFIT OF THE HUNTER.

Nessmuk was pushing his double bit hatchet as the essential chopping tool. There’s nothing wrong with that. When I was knee high to a grasshopper I worked with his system. Back then lots of guys carried a hunting knife and a hatchet on their belt. I still have a nice little double bit hatchet, much like his, that I used in camping and hunting.

Eventually I decided a trail knife was less dangerous than a hatchet. My lifelong ambition is to be buried with all my original equipment still intact. So no hatchet. No boys axe. No Hudson Bay axe. For me it’s been long knife, short knife and—in the right circumstances—full size axe ever since.
 
Dude, I just bought 2 beckers, waiting on the mail, can't wait to take them out to the beach and see if I can build a palm hut with them !!! I'll keep the "Beckerheads" posted !!!
 
marcinek said:
Welcome.

Me? I think it's a silly thing created by a marketing department to suck in casual recreational campers who have convinced themselves they are not camping but "surviving," and, in reality, one would be way better served with a Vic Farmer. Of course the Farmer doesn't have survival instructions written on it, or a whistle!

You asked. :)
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Thank you marcinek, I will look at this one in a different angle. I will make more research :).

Only the marketing department made this knife so popular?
 
paulsurvival said:
Thank you marcinek, I will look at this one in a different angle. I will make more research :).

Only the marketing department made this knife so popular?
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I look forward to seeing the results of your research. I certainly hope you base your research on using the knife yourself in the field. Also, including Bear Grylls' "review" of the knife he is selling in your review isn't a good thing. Bear's review is not a review...it is a marketing piece. A commercial.
 
Have a look at Mors Kochanski's thoughts on what a survival knife is. Definitely not in the big chopper, Rambo camp on this. And he only has, I dunno, 50 plus years of wilderness living experience!

Edit: I always forget how to embed video. Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lll-4jDAVzA
 
bodeeda said:
The best survival knife made will be the one you have on your person when you suddenly find yourself in a survival situation.
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Wot he said.

Edit: In my case, this happened to be on a day trip in a little motorboat around Vancouver Island. Prop got tangled up with some submerged nylon rope. Sunset coming in rapidly, no food or water, not suitably dressed for a cold (sub zero) night and no one within earshot. I'd just bought a Winchester Hunting knife from Wally world, but didn't take it with me on the trip in case I lost it overboard. Boat operator (who usually had a few knives aboard) couldn't find one, anywhere. After trying to attract the attention of some builders on one of the banks, without any luck, my wife found a SAK cadet (key ring knife) in one of the side pockets of her day sack. I hate SAKs, but I have to admit, that blade was the best knife ever for that survival situation
 
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Moosez45 said:
Come see us over in the Becker forum, if you decide to go Becker. Come see us even if you don't.

Moose
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I adore the spirit!
To me any knife you are very used to and had done many things with it, conventionally and UNCONVENTIONALLY.

To me a well-made parang that is easy to sharpen is a plus.
Currently working with Jim Rosa on a survival-themed Nessie and Ferrum Forge for a special Nitinol blade.
 
Unless you are actually living out in the woods, you are not surviving at all. Just call it a recreational knife. The word survival when describing a knife does not make sense to me. You can use a dang stick to survive if you have to and know what you are doing. That doesn't make it a "survival stick".
 
gwebb said:
Unless you are actually living out in the woods, you are not surviving at all. Just call it a recreational knife. The word survival when describing a knife does not make sense to me. You can use a dang stick to survive if you have to and know what you are doing. That doesn't make it a "survival stick".
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This.

This every day of the year.

Why do people come here and assume that buying some brand of knife will magically instill abilities to survive in the outdoors? If you walk into the wilderness with no skills, you'll still die if you get into trouble, no matter what knives you have strapped to yourself.
 
Anyone else notice he started this thread days ago as his first post and has nothing else to say or posted anywhere else.
I agree with Jakeboy, make your own. Then make you another with the details you forgot or didn't realize you wanted at the time. You will also have a lot more pride in it if you did the work yourself.
 
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