It sucks, I've tried. Machetes don't do knife work very well at all, hence why any military issues field knives alongside the machetes.
If you have an axe with you, A large heavy blade is rather cumbersome. If your knife is your only wood preparing tool (not recommended) then maybe you would consider a heavy chopper/basher, otherwise a thinner FFG knife 6" or under should do you fine for any task you want, that's about all the blade you need to baton anything the axe has split. My brother and I both split wood duties between an axe and a knife, his are a Collins DB and a Benchmade 158 CSK II, mine are a Husqvarna multi-purpose and a Gravelle FK5. The last campout we went on together we managed to fell and prepare 3 small trees varying up to 12" in diameter into all the shapes and sizes we needed to start and maintain a fire. Plenty of batoning all around, but the axes did the heavy work. Knives are fine tools, not objects of force.
Mind you, the mil-spec machete opinion is
his opinion from the quote I made, not mine: I also never liked machetes. The part of his quote that I found most interesting were: "
Oddly enough, there's very little whittling to be done in most wilderness survival situations." and "
The closer they were to the environment, the bigger the blades they carried."
I think the reason you see so many machetes in "primitive" countries,
and so few axes, is that the machete is made from thinner, easier to produce and easier to sharpen metal, and the handle scales are much easier to repair: You wrap tape, rope and wood and that's it... The weight is less also... An axe will shed its handle in a way that is hard to fix, and the solid steel head is a heavy and troublesome item to produce...
Personally I don't like machetes, even fancy ones like an Al Mar Quest or Pathfinder, because there's no option of concealment: An overlooked aspect of North American "bush" (and of any industrialized country nowadays) is that sprawl and motoring means you cross path with people on a regular basis, no matter where you are... There are plenty of fancy houses/cottages in the middle of absolutely nowhere... Another thing is that machetes are not really suited for hard thick North American wood: They vibrate or, worse, get stuck.
Me, I'd rather have the traditional big sawback bowie, with the old more confortable hollow handle, rather than these newfangled "bushknives"...: The sawback can cut wood without advertising it miles around to all the nearest cottages/motorized hikers... Admittedly, the Neeley, Parrish, Martin and Lile sawbacks are the only ones I know of that work reasonably well...
Not having a big pouch on the sheath means I can stick the sheath in my pants, and nobody can even see I have a big blade... And yet the knife can still carry some fragile stuff in a completely waterproof, and best of all,
crushproof way... The round handle is also far easier on the hands for really rough work, but don't take my word for it: Try it...
The only downside of these hollow handles is that the handles are heavy, and so tend to make the knife balanced at the guard, which results a poorer chopper for a given weight... For that reason I often pick a good stick tang bowie like a Randall Model 12-9: This is more usefully blade-heavy, and its proper hollow grind and thin V-edge gives it the best all-around versatility and ease of sharpening (few hollow handles have edges that thin, unfortunately...). A Cold Steel San Mai III Trailmaster or Fallkniven Thor are a very good cheaper alternatives, but unfortunately these have seriously compromised sharpenability by being convex ground (another useless modern fad)...: The regular non-convex Trailmaster might be a better choice, but I can't vouch for its quality. I hate carbon steel knives anyway... For a really thin (0.5 mm) quality V-edge, with a proper hollow grind, the Randall Model 12-9 is basically the only available choice in that size...: The unique forged stainless of Randall is a huge performance plus, and despite the price should seal the deal...
The one cheaper alternative that has a correct hollow grind/V-edge, and that can still be of some serious use, is the SOG Super Bowie, but it falls into the inefficient 5" to 7.5" range, which is really less efficient (not sure if the bigger Tigershark is hollow ground): For its size it does seem to chop well, but I can't confirm how thin is the base of the edge bevel on that one (this, the only information that really matters, is usually not available...: If you want really thin edge bevels, with hollow grinds and V-edges on big blades, Randall is often the only available choice in factory knives)... The SOG Super Bowie looks very effective for its size, and the black finish appears quite durable. Quite a bargain too... Aus-8 is almost to 440C level, so it is essentially close to the best, and overall this knife is possibly the best value out there for someone on a budget.
Gaston
