If I had to roll it all up into one it would be my SAK Outrider.
In an ideal world I would make some changes to the Outrider, but as it stands it is just too handy for me to remove it from the top spot. There's enough about it to function as a useful gardening knife. There's often enough in it to function as a handy salvaging knife. It cuts well enough to make for a useful feeding / utility knife. It bites well enough into wood to make all the crude cuts one might ever need in a stick in respect to notches and joints, and remember it has that saw blade for that too. Yeah, despite there being some things I'd improve this would be my jack for all trades.
I also think that is a bit of a cheat answer 'cos the SAK Outrider is more than a knife. I feel it would be unfair of me to judge a knife as a knife if it came bundled with a sheath holding a saw, sewing needle, marlin spike, screwdriver, scissors and so on that gave it an unfair advantage. Where would that end, a handle in a pouch with an infinite supply of replacement blades? At what point am I judging the longevity of a broom that has had 5 new heads and 10 new handles? A SAK is a cheat that is why I have one. If I caught someone using the blade of one of my knives to dislodge shellfish from rock I'd probably want to twat 'em upside the head, yet I've used the screwdriver on the SAK for that a bunch of times. The cheat pattern repeats.
As far as pure knives go I do like a lot about the underlying design of the Svord Peasant. Sure it's made from L6 that rusts really easily if you don't tend its diaper regularly so it would be much better in a decent stainless. They aren't very hard either, and when you combine that with the simple steel they do blunt rather quickly. And I've written here before about the need to mod them so the blade can't clang into the hindmost pin. Further, as I actually find it safer to deploy the Svord Peasant with one hand rather than two, I find smoothing out the action with additional washers imperative. I want a consistent and reliable action when releasing that blade from a point of optimal retention. Just messing about with the screw head pins doesn't offer that.
What I do find great about the Peasant though is the way it cuts. Ever noticed on the noobs subforum here that when Opinel comes up you'll often see words to the effect of cheap, useful, and will out cut every other knife in your collection. And the cool kids eventually try one and it humiliates their way more expensive stuff. Well, same sort of deal with the Peasant. I've convexed lots of Opinels and probably done about a dozen Peasants now, and the Peasant gives away nothing to the Opinel in terms of cutting geometry. In fact, the Peasants actually cut better either blade up or down because of the handle. You can apply a lot mote power without even trying. You can test this easily without even leaving your kitchen. Get half a dozen butternut squashes to knock up some soup. You'll need the force with you if you use some dipshit Strider thing. You'll do better with a Buck 110. You'll be near as good as you can cut 'em with the Opinel. And you'll smile after using the Peasant.
Sure I like modern knives better for most things, not least because of the huge advantage modern materials affords us. And I do like a slick one handed deployment from a clipped on knife as much as anyone too, but in some circumstances the brutal simplicity of the Peasant wins. The handles kinda remind me of Robot Wars years ago teams were making all these uberfangled stealth bomber looking things, and one team just entered a contraption hidden under the shell of a wheelie bin lid. Dumb and ugly but the other teams couldn't kill it. The Peasant handle so reminds me of that big, dumb, cheap and ugly, but man does it work.
Another aspect I like about the Peasant it the simplicity of the tang. In addition to using bike tube rubber bands for stuff I've usually got a couple of thongs made from that stuff cut lengthways in one of my pockets. Probably a thread in itself, but it is sufficient to note here that it acts like micro-bungee cord. It's great for lashing around stuff. From knocking up quick tripods to attaching gear to racks it's great, so darn versatile. Well, if I'm to be using the Svord Peasant for any decent length of time I quickly whip a few turns of that over the handle and tang. In seconds I've added I high traction stopper for my hand and also effectively turned that into a light fixed blade. With the pivot pin at the font and that wrapped around the handle and tang I very strongly doubt I give away and strength to one of those trendy Scandis with a rat tail tang poked up a birch twig.
It might be worth mentioning that I do see Survival, Bushcraft, and Neo-Bushcraft as different things. Roughly speaking I see a great deal of salvage in Survival, and that is where I think the SAKs versatility will win out. The Neo-Bushcraft stuff is just silly. Enzo make a lovely folding Scandi for that crowd but let's face it nobody with a brain would pick it to make a wooden chain, carve a chess piece, or whittle a spoon, if you knew in advance that is what you wanted to do. You'd learn about wood carving and get a bunch of dedicated wood carving knives wouldn't you. A small set of those would piss on a folding Woodlore and pay for its taxi home, probably in a smaller lighter package. And if you are just stripping bark, making crude notches and putting a point on a marshmallow toasting stick, well you could do that with a Stanley knife more easily. Between the two extremes of Survival and playing Friar Tuck with ya itchy wool knickers and damp grizzled leathery pouch we have true bushcraft / field skills in the woods. For me, the knife for that mainly does vegetation and food. And on that one can do a lot worse than look at what knives gardeners use and why, what knives bodgers use and why, what thatchers use and why, and what cooks use and why. Apart from a limitations in materials a pattern soon emerges. If I had to incorporate as much of that as I could into a single off the shelf knife for me right now it would be the Svord Peasant.
