Camp Knife Suggestions

shane

shane

Joined
May 20, 1999
Messages
945
I am going on a family camping trip and I am looking for suggestions on a couple of good camp knives. I am looking for high quality, readily available, one small 3-4", and one large 6-8". My budget is $500.00. Any ideas?
 
Oh Mistah Shane, you done opened a pandora's box o' opinions now. ;) :D

So here's my $0.02 worth of big/little combo recommendations for commercially made bladeware.

For the "large" knife:
Busse Steel Heart
Swamp Rat Camp Tramp
Ranger Knives RD6 or preferably the RD7

For the "little" knife:
Busse Anorexic Badger Attack (from the secondary market)
Swamp Rat Howling Rat
Spyderco Moran Featherweight (either trailing- or drop-point version)

However, given your generous budget, you could easily be looking for custom-made blades. If you check out the Bladeforums Knife Maker's For Sale Forum you may find what you are looking for. Alternatively, you could check out the makers' individual websites for blades that are currently available.

A maker whose work I recommend for both its reasonable pricing and very good working geometry is Bill Siegle. Bill makes some delightfully sturdy knives with great working edge in 5160 steel, differentially hardened. In particular, for your larger knife you might look into his Green Medium Hoodlum II knife in a 7-inch blade, as shown on his webpage: http://www.geocities.com/siegleknives/

A relatively unknown blade maker (although famous as a sheath maker) is Brian Wagner of Okuden. He works in A2 tool steel with Paul Bos heat treating on it. He makes mondo-indestructo field grade knives that have seen extended field use in the sandbox by serious operators. You can see some of his blades here: http://www.okuden.net/cgi-bin/thatsanorder.cgi?cat|custom

I got a Sharp Thing II knife from him at Blade West. Very sturdy smaller blade. Of course, part of the beauty of the Okuden blades is that you get one of his extremely well-made sheaths with the knife. Given that the sheaths go for about $65 each, that places the knife itself in the $160 range, which is toward the lower end of the field grade custom knife price window.

For small custom knives a couple makers whose work gets consistently high marks for their edge are Bill Dozier and Geno Denning. Of course, this brief listing does huge disservice to the many, many other fine makers out there making very high quality blades. My apologies to all of them whose names don't jump into my mind at this moment.
 
Becker BK7 and you'll have enough left for a nice little custom small knife,although I should say I never owned or handled a Busse and have heard lots of good things said about them around here.I recommended the Becker because it is a fine knife and I have experience with it. :)
 
SOG SEAL revolver for the large one, and a bark river mini canadian for the smaller one, or the bark river omf or elk knife.
 
My personal wilderness carry knives are :
Ka-Bar impact warthog/spearpoint depending on what I'm doing.
Tom brown tracker and /or U.S.M.C. Ka-Bar.
SP-8 machete or nameless bolo machete depending on the type of bush I'm in.
 
For a first purchase it is often beneficial to start off with knives like the Deerhunter / Mora 2000 and large Bushman. These are solid working knives and after using them for awhile you will be in a much better position to know what will work best for you in the high end knives because you can ask for specific recommendations compared to those knives.

-Cliff
 
Easy. Paraphrasing what I said in another post, I'd look at Fehrman.

My first choice would be their First Strike at 7.5" and my choice in a smaller blade would be the Peace Maker -- smaller, lighter and still very tough.

$280+180=$460-- The sheaths will bring it near $500.
 
For camping trips, good butcher knives are handy. Old Hickory makes some decent ones. You just have to spend a little time getting the edges up to snuff but after that, you shouldn't have any problems cutting marshmallow sticks, slicing bread, making sandwiches, and carving tent stakes.
 
I Like my crewman, I have split alot of wood with it, shaved most of the wood into a pile then i wiped it off and it still cut a tomato clean. no moosh. I like it more than my specs plus sp8.

Little one I would go with a gerber or a leatherman multitool.

My uncle carrys around a filet knife with him when he goes out. .

buy them and youll save alot of money. Then you can buy sum good camping equipment.
 
I like the Fehrman Peace Maker -I would agree with the other Gentlemen the Peace maker is small but very strong.
 
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