Could an Endura 4 be used for survival tasks?

The Endura would handle most small camping tasks, but I would definitely pair it up with a fixed blade for sure. Hatchet and an Endura 4 works fairly well for me, but I have grown away from the hatchets and tomahawks; fixed blades seem to get the job done and I like to try different things.
 
Da Thurmanator said:
I have a random question. Would a Spyderco Endura 4 work as a survival knife? The Endura is one of my favorate EDC blades but I'm curious if it would hold up to the tasks of a survival situation.
I would like to know if the Endura would be a good choice to have as a backup knife when I go hunting and camping. I don't have much experience using a knife for survival related tasks. I don't know if the FFG blade would be too thin and if the lock would hold up. Would it be a good choice as a backup? And if that's all that I had could I get out of a tough situation?
Please share some of your wilderness wisdom!
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In all seriousness, I would like to know how this perfectly nice hunting and camping trip turns into a survival situation. Drive out to the woods, park the car, and go off into the woods. Then you have no means of getting back to the car, and all your gear (compass, knives, GPS, food, Bic, cell phone, etc etc etc) is gone?

How does one get into that kinda mess, and I can't help but wonder if any knife is going to get someone who could get into that kinda mess out of it.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
One of our members used a sig line of "the more you know, the less you need."

Whatever you're carrying, you need to know how to use it. There are obvious circumstances when an axe or a big chopper is more of a hazard to the user, who is cold, tired, hungry, and lost, than they could help him.
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I agree. One thing I've noticed for the last couple of years is that many discussions center on the knife itself, and very little about the skill of the person using it. The best tools in the world aren't magical by any means, no unicorn blood heat quenching on the Earth's core heat treat. It takes skill to make a tool work, that is not something you can buy or gain by owning a specific knife. When I read "what is a good knife for x acrivity", I cannot help but shake my head a bit and wonder if that person knows that skill is as important if not more so than the tool itself.
 
RevDevil said:
I agree. One thing I've noticed for the last couple of years is that many discussions center on the knife itself, and very little about the skill of the person using it. The best tools in the world aren't magical by any means, no unicorn blood heat quenching on the Earth's core heat treat. It takes skill to make a tool work, that is not something you can buy or gain by owning a specific knife. When I read "what is a good knife for x acrivity", I cannot help but shake my head a bit and wonder if that person knows that skill is as important if not more so than the tool itself.
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Wait just a dad gum second! :mad:

Are you saying, that, if I am so ill-prepared and unskilled that I end up lost in the middle of nowhere with only a knife...that knife's not going to save me?

What if it is a "TV survival guru approved" knife? Surely that will get me out of the predicament! :confused:
 
And furthermore.

I get the idea of going out in the woods and "practicing" survival. I'm sure it's fun and all. Load up the car with survival beers and have a great time in the woods.

What I don't get is people asking what a good knife for practicing survival is. Shouldn't one be practicing for survival with a bad knife or no knife at all?
 
I think you should take the knife that you are most comfortable using. The Endura is fine if you are comfortable with it. You don't want to take along a knife that feels foreign to you and hence you will be more likely to cut yourself with it. I am an advocate of the two knife approach in the woods with a fixed blade (4-6" full tang knife) and a folder. My folder is usually a SAK, but sometimes is a GEC slipjoint now. I would be perfectly comfortable with just the Endura or even a larger SAK. Even in a worst case situation where you beat on your knife to cut stuff and damage it, it is not like you are planning on living in the woods and "surviving". Surviving is normally a short term kind of thing... build a fire (fire stick, lighter or matches), maybe protection from the elements (hopefully you have some plastic, poncho, tent, or tarp), water, and deal with getting out the next day or the day after that. A small metal container might come in rather useful (large stainless steel cup) for collecting and boiling water in if you have to. One of those goes in my day pack on hikes these days.
 
marcinek said:
In all seriousness, I would like to know how this perfectly nice hunting and camping trip turns into a survival situation. Drive out to the woods, park the car, and go off into the woods. Then you have no means of getting back to the car, and all your gear (compass, knives, GPS, food, Bic, cell phone, etc etc etc) is gone?

How does one get into that kinda mess, and I can't help but wonder if any knife is going to get someone who could get into that kinda mess out of it.
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I don't know where you are from but I think "It depends where you go". Hiking out in the wood east of the Mississippi I would say about 90% of the time you got to be in a really messed up situation or stone cold stupid to get your lost for more than 48 hours without someone finding you or just walking in a straight line in any direction for 2 or 3 miles to the next road, house, or piece of civilization. There are some massive areas of wilderness East of the Mississippi that you can get seriously lost in and if something happens you would need to survive, but unfortunately those areas are not many.

The OP is from Idaho. Google Map Idaho and most state is Massive forest and National Parks, with some deserts and scrublands in the south. That area is no Joke.
 
theyoungone said:
The OP is from Idaho. Google Map Idaho and most state is Massive forest and National Parks, with some deserts and scrublands in the south. That area is no Joke.
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Sure. That's why you prepare. So you don't get lost in the middle of nowhere with just a backup knife.

The thing people don't seem to see is that the "survival" show scenarios are really, as you put it, "stone cold stupid" scenarios. And no knife can save one from being stupid.

That said....now that I think about it, since the "survival" and "bushcraft" knife markets are flooded, there's probably a lot of money to be made in marketing "stone cold stupid" knives. :D
 
I think it's valid to build survival skills but the whole concept of survival is teaching yourself to survive in any scenario without necessarily having anything but what you're wearing really. This is why we have our EDC gear to hopefully prepare ourselves for whatever scenarios could occur in our day-to-day lives. With that said learning how to get a fire going, build shelter, get food/water, escape to safety, etc are skills needed to learn first. Once you learn those skills any kind of knife becomes a compliment/backup to your skills.
 
theyoungone said:
The OP is from Idaho. Google Map Idaho and most state is Massive forest and National Parks, with some deserts and scrublands in the south. That area is no Joke.
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Thank you to everybody. I'm learning a lot from this discussion!
Thank you for explaining that I live in an area that has a fairly low density population. I can drive 5-10 minutes from my parent's house and be in the mountains with thousands and thousands of acres of wilderness. I just learned that Idaho has the largest contiguous area of protected wilderness in the continental United States. Living in Idaho, I can think of a lot of scenarios where were you could get stuck in a snow storm or something and only have whats in your pockets. Especially if you are with a friend who doesn't have an emergency kit in their car. I like to be prepared but its good to know that if I did get stuck in one of these situations my EDC will do just fine.
I want to get out and learn some of these skills. I get to drive home from college every weekend so hopefully I'll be able to find some time to practice!
 
theyoungone said:
I don't know where you are from but I think "It depends where you go". Hiking out in the wood east of the Mississippi I would say about 90% of the time you got to be in a really messed up situation or stone cold stupid to get your lost for more than 48 hours without someone finding you or just walking in a straight line in any direction for 2 or 3 miles to the next road, house, or piece of civilization. There are some massive areas of wilderness East of the Mississippi that you can get seriously lost in and if something happens you would need to survive, but unfortunately those areas are not many.

The OP is from Idaho. Google Map Idaho and most state is Massive forest and National Parks, with some deserts and scrublands in the south. That area is no Joke.
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Not necessarily. It's usually the benign hikes that are the most dangerous because people don't think they need to prepare for them. We have a popular hike just a half an hour outside of downtown Portland. It's a paved hike with 1000's of people on it in peak times of year. It has a hotel, a restaurant and a souvenir shop at the trail head. We have SAR get called to this spot repeatedly because people get lost and have to spend the night outside. All while being within a mile of a major interstate. This also doesn't account for people who have fallen down ledges and cannot get back up them. This happens quite a bit as well. We've even had a person in the area drive their car off the road and it wasn't discovered for days after with the driver still stuck in there. Thinking your safe because you're near "civilization" is false security. Stuff can happen.
 
Stuff can happen and that's why you keep an EDC knife and hopefully at least a minimal amount of gear that you routinely take along. With a friend... grab your day pack (call it your survival purse :) )that has some of your basic stuff in it (first aid kit, fire starting materials, poncho, small tarp perhaps, flashlight, the extra fixed blade that you don't usually carry, cup, paper towels, rope/cordage, zip lock bags, etc). The worst situation is where you're hurt and can't help yourself.
 
22-rimfire said:
Stuff can happen and that's why you keep an EDC knife and hopefully at least a minimal amount of gear that you routinely take along. With a friend... grab your day pack (call it your survival purse :) )that has some of your basic stuff in it ...
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I have one of those. I carry it everywhere. But it's an "X-Treme Survival Spec Ops Tactical Man Purse". :cool: It's got all I need to get back home to where my toys are. Sorry...not "toys"...survival gear. :D

And, as you say, if you are heading off into the woods, even for a quick hike, you gotta have that minimal amount of gear with you (whatever you feel that is).

IMHO, if you end up in a "survival" situation with just a knife and nothing else? You messed up bad. Epic fail.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, you know?
 
The older I get the more I carry with me on trails, even dayhikes. The only time I begin to scrimp on the stuff is when I am out expressly to take pictures and I am carrying a lot of camera stuff. But honestly, a few survival things are not a big problem in addition to the camera stuff since I usually switch everything into a day pack rather than a regular camera bag.

But yeah, the Spyderco Endura works. One consideration might be choosing a knife that you can sharpen more easily, but the flat ground edge certainly makes it easier to sharpen especially if you carry a little diamond stone with you on the trail.
 
It has occurred to me that while I've posted in this thread, I have not made an attempt to answer OP's question.

My short answer is yes, and it should perform admirably.

My long answer is that for anything you should be using a knife for - that is, cutting - it should serve all of your needs more than adequately. If you intend to use it for things that a knife (especially a folding knife) was never meant for (splitting wood via batoning, prying, throwing, etc.), you're going to have problems, if not on your first excursion, then sometime down the road. The Endura 4 was designed to cut. It will perform cutting chores wonderfully. It can help you make a fire, build a shelter, gather food and water, skin and dress game, and more. Coupled with an axe, it should be everything you need it to be. I'm buying my first Endura tomorrow. Why? Because it's a very popular and performance-oriented knife that has been proven to be awesome, time and again, by knife users everywhere. That's to say, I do my research before buying a knife at any price...and I trust it. I won't buy a knife that I don't think I'll be able to trust.
 
It seems that a majority of patrons here end up with the impression that a knife must do *insert random bushcraft exercise*.

Inversely, I completely agree its about knowledge and practice; skill. Your Endura would do just fine.

Plan wisely and go test your plan. If you want some solid ground rules for real testing, I'd suggest going to the Wilderness and Survival subforum.
 
theyoungone said:
I like Spyderco knives, I have a delica FFG myself. It will be fine with basic camp task, but I would not rely on a Endura/Delica FFG in a "rough use" situation. I don't want to start a flame war but other folders have a better lockup and are stronger yet heavier than the newer spydercos.
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I've used and abused my Endura Wave for many years and its handled anything thrown at it and still gets carried today. As for the lockup, that same type has been used by a number of manufacturers and used by outdoorsmen for decades now with few complaints. With a little common sense an Endura or Delica, for that matter, is more than enough to get someone through any realistic situation.
 
Personally, as a primary survival knife I carry a full tang fixed blade with G-10 handles, but I also carry a G-10 endure as a backup to my fixed blade.
 
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