Cold steel sk5 Natchez Bowie as a survival knife?

[Kwon Kwang]

Don't! It's a cable tang - i.e. the blade stops at the guard and the handle is held on by a piece of tensioned wire that runs through it. The Natchez is designed as a historically accurate (in terms of weight and handling if not materials) fighter and nothing else.

This is what a Natchez used for splitting and chopping usually looks like:

Instead buy an MTech 151: they're about $20 and a very close copy of CS's general purpose bowie, the Trailmaster. Possibly a bit better unless you're a carbon steel bigot. Save your Natchez for what is meant for - duelling anyone who questions the superiority of the mint julep over all other mixed drinks. Damn yankees!

(Or ebay it abnd a buy a knife you can actually use for stuff.)

You're right that it's designed to be a fighting knife and nothing else. You're wrong about that picture.

The cable tang is designed to absorb shock. That handle broke not because of the tang, but because the owner of the knife was literally hammering on the handle like a baboon. That's part of why I think pictures of broken knives are so stupid. They don't tell the whole story, and then thick-headed people look at it and think "wow, that knife broke, it must suck".

That said, OP, no. It's not designed for that. Get a Trailmaster instead.

 

[rugercat45]

Well, gee just found out elsewhere the Laredo ALSO has a cable tang. Lovely! I have a fighting knife, that will probably fail if used for anything BUT "meat". Even Navy Seals agree that combat is 1% knife combat, and I am no Navy Seal.