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Busse vs. Mora?
- Thread starter emt1581
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I remember seeing that! Pretty awesome!
My brothers 460 elmax is sweet and he uses it for everything! I will get one when available if ever?
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What! To good to post it at the Swamp!?!
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Moras are a great knife for their intended purpose for the price. I have a couple Helle that i prefer by a long shot, though. I have a mora "installer's" knife that is perfect for heavy duty wire stripping at work.
But i would never go hiking or camping without a chopper. Usually my satin battle rat, or basic 9 or 11.
But i would never go hiking or camping without a chopper. Usually my satin battle rat, or basic 9 or 11.
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So what they are saying is their Mora can't dig, pry, baton, chop, etc . That's sort of telling isn't it?
Tell them to man up and grow some muscles. I can never understand those people that go on hikes but then worry about a knife that is a few ounces heavier. Is it really that big of an issue that you get slowed down? Maybe they need to go on more hikes.
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You can probably buy 20 washing lines for every climbing rope - does'nt mean to say you would be happy climbing with six washing lines to hold your weight instead of one proper rope - or lacing your boots with string instead of spending more on paracord.
You can get by with a Mora but it has limitations in strength of construction - a Busse buys you piece of mind that those risks are covered.:thumbup:
You can get by with a Mora but it has limitations in strength of construction - a Busse buys you piece of mind that those risks are covered.:thumbup:
Bigfattyt
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It's like comparing a tack hammer and a War Hammer with top spike and birds beak.
Both are meant to hammer things, but the tack hammer will do better with tacks, and the war hammer will do better with hammering people.
Completely different tools for completely different uses.
The real answer is get both, and use them how you see fit.
I would have no hesitiation recommending a Mora to anyone. Would I recommend a scandi, stub tang mora for combat use? Where you might need to chop? Pry? Dig? Baton? Nope.
Mora's are so light, there is no reason it should not be an "and" instead of an Or.
Both are meant to hammer things, but the tack hammer will do better with tacks, and the war hammer will do better with hammering people.
Completely different tools for completely different uses.
The real answer is get both, and use them how you see fit.
I would have no hesitiation recommending a Mora to anyone. Would I recommend a scandi, stub tang mora for combat use? Where you might need to chop? Pry? Dig? Baton? Nope.
Mora's are so light, there is no reason it should not be an "and" instead of an Or.
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- Sep 30, 2010
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There are a lot of metaphors being thrown around, but very little actual explanation. lets add some science to the mix shall we?
Thats a Mora inside and out. They come in stainless and carbon flavors. To their credit their steel is actually remarkably tough, but it does this through low carbon, low hardness, and the crux of it: low wear resistance. They are also quite thin, which makes them relatively effective slicers. Here is the crux of it though. Many bushcrafters will lay all kinds of BS on about how the scandi grind is somehow superior for bushcraft. Even poor Spyderco succumbed to the pressure from the nonsense tellers and built a scandi ground "survival" blade. What is a scandi grind? In short is is the single cheapest way to apply an edge to a flat piece of steel. Its a single grind which takes the steel stock down from full thickness to the edge. While this makes it quite easy to sharpen on a flat stone if you're grossly incompetent and have tons of time to spend taking off several times as much metal as you should have to, its advantages pretty much end there. The argument has been made that this gives them exceptional slicing ability, but in fact it doesn't. It makes the edge more delicate than it need be, because its so thin and so high angle just behind the edge, and thus it effectively makes the knife more fragile. It also does NOT have geometry benefits in terms of cutting ability, as something like a Scrapmax clearly has a higher angle primary grind, thus offering less resistance to cutting, and greater edge durability (all else being equal) due to its lower angle edge bevel. Multi-bevel geometry is actually a significant technological advancement, whether Mora fans realize it or not.
Busse and kin are a more complex comparison. Why? Because Mora only really makes one knife. Yeah ok fine they have a wide model range of colors and flavors, but the punchline is that its relatively thin flexible steel stock with a scandi grind applied. Busse on the other hand has a huge range of models to choose from encompassing a huge variety of performance attributes.
So is Mora better? Yes.... and no. Depends on the test and the knife pairing. Will a Mora do fine detail slicing better than a Battle Mistress? Absolutely, no contest. The Mora will destroy the Battle Mistress at that. But what if you needed to, oh I don't know, chop down a tree and baton through the wood to split it for whatever reason? I know which blade I'd pick for that task. I'll give you a hint, the brand name doesn't start with "M" and end with "ora."
But what if we looked at the small "bushcraft" survival ilk, where you want a small, light, tough, slicer with good durability. What is offered by Busse to compete? Well I'd throw the Scrapmax out there as a competitor. What do you get? Well from the Mora you get a fraction of the price, about a 5th of the price actually depending on which Scrapmax and how you acquire it. From the Scrapmax you get superior durability, edge retention, cutting geometry, warranty, handle comfort, and wear resistance to name a few. The Mora may edge out the Scrapmax for corrosion resistance though if you get one of the stainless models.
Actually to this point I know Scrapyard probably has their hands full, but I've been dying to see them throw out a nice thin SR101 version of the Scrapmax 340. If you're reading this, consider it. What a great blade that would be, and at a great price. It'd really turn the moss-sucking bushcrafters on their heads.
But the ultimate point is neither company can be blanket stated as "better" because you have to define the technical terms. Otherwise its a purposeless fanboy flame war with both sides throwing out equally purposeless impotent arguments for whichever brand they prefer. Ultimately both brands are good, and they fill different roles in the knife world. A friend of mine was just the head of emergency medicine on a month long research expedition to the Costa Rican rainforest. What did she take as a blade? (owning both a Busse anorexic B4 and a Mora) She took the Mora. Why? Because Busses have VERY distinctive X-ray profiles, and the TSA are a bunch of crooks. Its a perfect real-world example where you'd probably rather take the Mora when you already own a comparable Busse. The knife performed great too. Opened coconuts, went salt water diving, built a splint for a moron who decided to go bouldering about 10 miles from the nearest evac with no ropes...... It came back a bit chewed up and dull as hell too. Would the B4 have come back in better shape? No doubt.... assuming it would have come back.
And thats why the knives can both happily coexist in this world. No need for animosity. If I were talking about being in a serious survival situation with just one knife, a big Busse is the clear superior option. There is just no getting around a more durable and larger blade being the clear choice. Anyone who denies it clearly has never had serious survival training, or if they did it just didn't sink in.
Remember kids you can, with some difficulty, do a small knife's work with a big knife. You can't do a big knife's work with a small one. Break a small knife and you have a broken knife. Break a big knife and you have two small knives.
*edit*
Forgot to mention that the real strong point of Moras: they're highly stanless, pretty tough, and cost nothing. You buy them because they're so dirt cheap you stash them EVERYWHERE. Car, house, bike, snowmobile, boat, blah blah blah. Ideally if you get stranded you should have your primary knife AND at least one Mora on you. Options are great, and so are backups. You know what is better than a Mora or a Busse? A Mora AND a Busse!!!!!! 
Thats a Mora inside and out. They come in stainless and carbon flavors. To their credit their steel is actually remarkably tough, but it does this through low carbon, low hardness, and the crux of it: low wear resistance. They are also quite thin, which makes them relatively effective slicers. Here is the crux of it though. Many bushcrafters will lay all kinds of BS on about how the scandi grind is somehow superior for bushcraft. Even poor Spyderco succumbed to the pressure from the nonsense tellers and built a scandi ground "survival" blade. What is a scandi grind? In short is is the single cheapest way to apply an edge to a flat piece of steel. Its a single grind which takes the steel stock down from full thickness to the edge. While this makes it quite easy to sharpen on a flat stone if you're grossly incompetent and have tons of time to spend taking off several times as much metal as you should have to, its advantages pretty much end there. The argument has been made that this gives them exceptional slicing ability, but in fact it doesn't. It makes the edge more delicate than it need be, because its so thin and so high angle just behind the edge, and thus it effectively makes the knife more fragile. It also does NOT have geometry benefits in terms of cutting ability, as something like a Scrapmax clearly has a higher angle primary grind, thus offering less resistance to cutting, and greater edge durability (all else being equal) due to its lower angle edge bevel. Multi-bevel geometry is actually a significant technological advancement, whether Mora fans realize it or not.
Busse and kin are a more complex comparison. Why? Because Mora only really makes one knife. Yeah ok fine they have a wide model range of colors and flavors, but the punchline is that its relatively thin flexible steel stock with a scandi grind applied. Busse on the other hand has a huge range of models to choose from encompassing a huge variety of performance attributes.
So is Mora better? Yes.... and no. Depends on the test and the knife pairing. Will a Mora do fine detail slicing better than a Battle Mistress? Absolutely, no contest. The Mora will destroy the Battle Mistress at that. But what if you needed to, oh I don't know, chop down a tree and baton through the wood to split it for whatever reason? I know which blade I'd pick for that task. I'll give you a hint, the brand name doesn't start with "M" and end with "ora."
But what if we looked at the small "bushcraft" survival ilk, where you want a small, light, tough, slicer with good durability. What is offered by Busse to compete? Well I'd throw the Scrapmax out there as a competitor. What do you get? Well from the Mora you get a fraction of the price, about a 5th of the price actually depending on which Scrapmax and how you acquire it. From the Scrapmax you get superior durability, edge retention, cutting geometry, warranty, handle comfort, and wear resistance to name a few. The Mora may edge out the Scrapmax for corrosion resistance though if you get one of the stainless models.
Actually to this point I know Scrapyard probably has their hands full, but I've been dying to see them throw out a nice thin SR101 version of the Scrapmax 340. If you're reading this, consider it. What a great blade that would be, and at a great price. It'd really turn the moss-sucking bushcrafters on their heads.
But the ultimate point is neither company can be blanket stated as "better" because you have to define the technical terms. Otherwise its a purposeless fanboy flame war with both sides throwing out equally purposeless impotent arguments for whichever brand they prefer. Ultimately both brands are good, and they fill different roles in the knife world. A friend of mine was just the head of emergency medicine on a month long research expedition to the Costa Rican rainforest. What did she take as a blade? (owning both a Busse anorexic B4 and a Mora) She took the Mora. Why? Because Busses have VERY distinctive X-ray profiles, and the TSA are a bunch of crooks. Its a perfect real-world example where you'd probably rather take the Mora when you already own a comparable Busse. The knife performed great too. Opened coconuts, went salt water diving, built a splint for a moron who decided to go bouldering about 10 miles from the nearest evac with no ropes...... It came back a bit chewed up and dull as hell too. Would the B4 have come back in better shape? No doubt.... assuming it would have come back.
And thats why the knives can both happily coexist in this world. No need for animosity. If I were talking about being in a serious survival situation with just one knife, a big Busse is the clear superior option. There is just no getting around a more durable and larger blade being the clear choice. Anyone who denies it clearly has never had serious survival training, or if they did it just didn't sink in.Remember kids you can, with some difficulty, do a small knife's work with a big knife. You can't do a big knife's work with a small one. Break a small knife and you have a broken knife. Break a big knife and you have two small knives.
*edit*
Forgot to mention that the real strong point of Moras: they're highly stanless, pretty tough, and cost nothing. You buy them because they're so dirt cheap you stash them EVERYWHERE. Car, house, bike, snowmobile, boat, blah blah blah. Ideally if you get stranded you should have your primary knife AND at least one Mora on you. Options are great, and so are backups.
You know what is better than a Mora or a Busse? A Mora AND a Busse!!!!!! 
Well, yes: if Busse decided to make a $500 puuko then it probably *would* outperform a $20 Mora. What would happen is Mora decided to enter the $500 Puuko market themselves is a different matter...
For some applications a Mora will easily outperform a Busse: Busse make chunky bladed knives that combine excellent toughness with good retention of pretty good sharpness. Mora's production otoh includes thin bladed knives that can easily be sharpened and re-sharpened to the highest levels of sharpness; if you're carving wood or doing over high end slicing tasks, the best suitable Mora will beat the best Busse.
Yes, well: the problem with this thinking is that it is fantasy rather than reality based.
In real world use for chopping sharps, weight matters a lot. A Busse that can chop into a dead tree for dry wood doesn't just cost more than the alternative Mora + axe combo if you are hiking, it weighs a lot more too. And it is actually more likely to break than the axe - if an axe does break if will be the shaft, and you can improvise a replacement. And if you really need a machete for path clearing and you have a Busse, then the fates have mercy on you, because trying to swing a BM all day will be a nightmare. Or if you're in that favourite fantasy knife user scenario of "SHTF" and you need a pry bar, then you are a lot better off with the real thing than a Busse (trust: prying is much better done with blunt objects than sharp ones, especially if ERs are being over run by zombies.) The times when a Busse is actually going to be a better carry than a lighter and cheaper combination of blades are pretty rare; someone asked what knife to carry in the military recently and no recent soldier suggested a Busse, all of them ruled out heavy knives, and one suggested a Mora...
Busse make excellent knives of a particular type, but this excellence isn't - it can't be - as universal as some fans think. Because in the real world weight matters an awful lot in anything you carry, and even more in anything you have to swing with your arms for hours at a time. "Over-built" isn't a always cost-free safety margin; it can often be a crippling nuisance.
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Given that you can re-sell the Busse for more than the Mora, this is a no-brainer. But if you were told you could take a Battle Mistress or a Tramontina + Mora to trek a rainforest, then choosing the Busse would probably be the brainless option. Even more so if you to choose between the BM and a Fiskars hatchet + Mora for a Scandanavian winter trek and you got to spend the $800 saved on nicer cold weather gear - but even without the cash I'd take the weight saving and fitness-for-purpose.
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I would STILL choose the BM and buy the gear!!! If I need something to clean my finger nails I'll use a wood sliver that I busted out with the BM, OH and I live in the North Country, snowmachine, snowshoe, operate Nodwells and been out -50'F more than once...That's all I'm going to say on this matter...
No, I take that back. One of my trips up on the Yukon many years ago I sat on a river bank watching the frazil ice start to stack up and an Old Athabascan man sat down next to me. We sat there enjoying the cold having a smoke and we got to talking knives and guns. He mad a statement that I have never forgot to this day and that is, "son the futher you get from civilization the bigger the knife you need". This resonated in me and I have lived by that since. Now I'm done!!!
No, I take that back. One of my trips up on the Yukon many years ago I sat on a river bank watching the frazil ice start to stack up and an Old Athabascan man sat down next to me. We sat there enjoying the cold having a smoke and we got to talking knives and guns. He mad a statement that I have never forgot to this day and that is, "son the futher you get from civilization the bigger the knife you need". This resonated in me and I have lived by that since. Now I'm done!!!
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Wow. More than once! The entire population of Scandinavia must be in awe of you - I'm surprised there isn't a statue of you in Helsinki, in that prime spot next to that one of Moomintroll liberating Finland from the Russians...
The puukko + axe combo has been keeping people who go outdoors everyday in Arctic conditions alive for centuries. It works. There are probably individual Finns and Swedes who have chopped and feathersticked more wood with their axes "splinter removers" than the sum of all work done by every Busse ever made in these conditions. If you have a rational reason for thinking the Busse works better I'd be interested to hear it, but an argument from almost non-existent self-authority and mis-characterisation (Moras excel at making feathersticks and traps, two crucial real world wilderness survival jobs) isn't going to cut it. Axes are great at chopping, puukos/Moras are great at providing tinder and making traps. These activities equal survival. Chopping your way out of aircraft, fighting invisible aliens and zombie hordes, less so.
This isn't to say that there are not jobs where a large knife excels - limbing and clearing frozen bush spring to mind. But the idea that the best (arguably) of this type of knife is the best at everything is simplistic. And even in most of these roles, I doubt any Busse has ability to overtake a good billhook - the pattern might not attract knife fetishists, but it was a favourite of real users for centuries for good reason.
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I am not disputing the Scandinavians, there culture or anyone else for that matter. My point is personal choice, as it is my choice to use what I want, PERIOD. The axe has been around far longer and used as a tool and weapon for centuries and that is a historical fact. Again no dispute it's CHOICE and I choose Busse Combat. I have axes in my shead and use them along with draw knives, mauls and even chain saws. They all get used and more than my Busse's but if I'm picking one to go with me again, I choose Busse Combat. Your choice is the MORA/AXE, well that's good enough for you then get-er-done. It all comes down to choice.
I disagree. The entire design of the mora imo is based on easy and inexpensive, if they decided to get into the quality knife market they would inevitably change the entire design of their knife. That is ifcourse my opinion and like Russmo said, in the end it comes down to personal experience and choice.
If I ever see a mora locally ill pick it up and test it against the scrapmax. BTW not all Busse knives are over built battle mistresses.
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I agree with some of what you say but believe you are also overgeneralizing quite a bit. My anorexic boss street and anorexic Basic 4 can slice food and wood better than a brand new Mora. I will never understand how a thin Scandi edge is supposed to be a better slicer than a thin full flat ground edge. Sharpening the full flat also requires removing less material and takes less time. I also believe (I hesitate to say "know" because my personal tests are not scientific and how could I know more than an entire race of scandinavian people?) that the the thin full flat ground INFI will hold its edge longer than the Mora. Yes it heavier than the Mora. However all Busses are not thick pry bars. Some guys like thick, I do not.
As far as weight goes I also think you are not necessarily correct when you compare apples to apples.
For instance....
This:
Is lighter than this: (and that is a small 13" Wildlfe Wetterlings, the 15 incher weighs 10 oz more)
Which is equal to this:
And while I will be the first to say that a 20" axe beats my 9 inch knife. I do think that the two "choppers" pictured are equal for emergency shelter building or getting to the center of wet wood for the campfire.
As a matter of FACT a Busse Bushwhacker Mistress (not pictured) weighs 22.4 oz and the 13" Wetterlings Wildlife (pictured) weighs 23.7 . So you could carry a Mora with either one and weigh less with the "big, heavy Busse chopper."
I missed this quote the first time "And it (a Busse) is actually more likely to break than the axe" Says who? I think that is plain silly. The handle of the axe is more likely to break, get cracked, or come loose. Or we can say that neither is likely to break under proper use. Meaning I am not gonna chop a car in half with either.
As far as the field expediant handle for a hatchet and/or replacing the handle that I have heard cited before. I think that would be very hard to do and still have the same usefulness of the tool. I would go so far as to say replacing a hatchet handle without tools is darn near impossible in the field unless you throw it in the fire to burn out the wood and ruin the temper of the steel. Tomahawk rehandle yes, hatchet no. I could wrap paracord, a bandana, etc. if my Res-C handle on my knife was damaged and still use my knife.
I will close by saying that I agree with a former poster that if I was flying I would not take my Busses. I wouldn't take one with me that could be stolen because they are too hard and costly to replace on the secondary market. I also think people look at you funny if you have a 9 inch knife camping but don't think anything about a hatchet. My .02.
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Good thread! I enjoy reading about a knife users personal choices, positive or negative, argumentative or passive, its all good.
Weight? For years backpacking at Philmont I never needed an axe, I had an old Western brand fixed blade and an Old Timer pocket knife. I even got one of those wire saws once upon a time and it worked great and weighed less than the pocket knife.
Never did get into that whole plastic handled knife craze, plastic (to me) does not inspire confidence. Personal choice. I'd rather have an Old Hickory butcher knife when it comes down to it, and I do!
Its old, handle warped, but it works so well.
With all the fancy doo dads available in titanium, and all those really nice mini stoves, all a person really needs nowadays is a pocket knife to open the packaging on the coffee.
Weight? For years backpacking at Philmont I never needed an axe, I had an old Western brand fixed blade and an Old Timer pocket knife. I even got one of those wire saws once upon a time and it worked great and weighed less than the pocket knife.
Never did get into that whole plastic handled knife craze, plastic (to me) does not inspire confidence. Personal choice. I'd rather have an Old Hickory butcher knife when it comes down to it, and I do!
Its old, handle warped, but it works so well. With all the fancy doo dads available in titanium, and all those really nice mini stoves, all a person really needs nowadays is a pocket knife to open the packaging on the coffee.