How big a knife do you really need?

T

TonyC

Joined
Jul 23, 2003
Messages
89
Hi guys,

This question sprund to mind the other day. I had just taken receipt of a
Swamp Rat Battle Rat (Cheers Brendan) and I was lovingly admiring it in my front room when it occurred to me "what the hell am I gonna use this for" don't get me wrong I love the knife, hey I must have done cos I bought it didn't I.

The point I'm coming to is this, I love going out into the Wilderness although here in the United Kingdom there isn't much of it left apart from Scotland of coursse. So basically I don't need a big knife for hacking pathways through jungle as I should imagine neither do most of you. I hear alot of you say that you use a large knife for brush clearance but most of the time I'm going on a trip I head for the woods and forests where to be honest I can usually find a clear bit of ground to set up camp without having to exspend energy hacking like a mad man at the scub.

As for splitting logs well if I haven't got an axe with me I just saw up smaller branchesw for the fire instead of the large logs that would need splitting. Now I know you can batten with a large knife but again why expend the extra energy?

As to cooking come on be honest how easy is it to do the little chores such as peeling potatoes. slicing carrots, dicing meat etc come to that how easy is it to prepare small game with what looks like a Roman short sword?

Now don't think I'm taking the micky out of large knives there are certainly plenty of uses for them but if you do carry one how often do you really use it compared to the SAK in your pocket say?

I have seen peaople post on here that they take a large knife into the wilderness for protection. Well I'm sorry but give me a .357 or .44 any day. Not in the United Kingdom though as since our government made handguns illegal in this country we have to defend ouselves with nail clippers and only if we don't use them with excessive force :D .

So how much do you "really" use your BIG knife and do you "really" need it?

All the best

Tony
 
Over the past 150,000 years or so most folks have stabilized around a EDC blade of flint, volcanic glass, bronze, iron or steel around 3 to 4 inches long, or smaller. The materials and design depend on your geographic region and time period. Some how these medium size blades seem to work out best for general utility work and self defense.
I consider larger blades to be interesting but they are mostly speciality tools and/or weapons.

Recently I read about a hunting guide/survival school teacher that spends a minimum of 120 days per year under canvas either guiding hunters or teaching these schools. His EDC is a Fallkniven H1. With its four inch VG10 steel blade he performs 95% of the camp chores and demonstrations his profession requires. A few passes on a leather strop and it's sharp again!

An'it technology grand?
 
Agreed... 4 inches or less is perfect for everything, except chopping (to which a dedicated tool called a hatchet responds perfectly ;)).

Cheers,

David
 
If paired with an axe or saw,4-5inches of blade is enough for me. If it is one of the "1 knife only" scenarios, I want 9-11inches of blade to handle the chopping :)
 
3-4 inch blades are what I really prefer usually edc'ing something closer to 3 inch. A hatchet or saw is neccesary for me when out in the bush.
 
My EDC's are almost always folders at 3"-3.5". Blades over that length cause the folded knife to get in the way of other things. I have a few folders (BM710, 800, 806D2 and a Wegner as examples) that I bought as EDC's but don't carry because they are too large. The larger blades are used for specific tasks and only on occasion. Usually I will tuck one into my backpack where it's available if I need a larger folder.

Recently I bought two fixed blades; one was a Becker CU7 and the other a Dozier Pro-Guides knife. Of the two fixed blades the 4.75" Dozier is by far the more useful knife for most chores while the BK7 would be a better chopper although not as good as a Khukuri; however, the BK7 has a great price tag. I'm considering another Dozier with an even smaller blade. They are very useful.

Face it; there is no "One Knife" which will do it all. Knives are a compromise of cost, materials, length, weight thickness, blade shape, hardness and temper (et al), all of which determine its usefulness for any given task. That's why we have more than one and why I take four or five with me when I'm in a remote area. Around town I make due with my EDC and the knives which reside in my truck.

If I had to make due with a single knife in a survival situation that would be my 1984 Randall Mod 14. This knife has a great blade shape in a steel which is very tough, holds a great edge and is easy to sharpen. The knife will chop and pry, and the tip is thin enough to do small stuff okay, but not as well as a dedicated small blade. It's more or less retired now -- not really, it's in a drawer across the room, but doesn't get used much.
 
How we live, where we live and what we consider survival has a lot to do with what we would carry as our main survival tool.

First, I don't see a 9" blade as being your typical EDC in everyday life. That is, unless you're living in a part of the world where a khukuri is a necessary tool to get you through. The large blades wouldn't have been developed by man unless they were needed and you'll find them in many parts of the world being used by everyday people that are just going about their daily lives.

That said, in my part of the world, a SAK gets me by on an everyday basis. Most people get by without a knife on their person at all. However, put me into a survival do or die situation and I'm going to want a blade that will do everything that I need it to do. It will need to do the game chores, from snares to cleaning and butchering. It'll need to do the cooking chores, it'll need to do the wood chores from heavy to whittling and it will need to pull security duty, no matter what that entails. It's going to be my best friend and it better be up to the challenge or I'm looking for a new best friend. Again, in the area where I live, a 4" blade would do me fine, if I have something to seperate a piece of wood into 2 pieces or more. If I need to carry an axe or a saw to suppliment my knife, I do it, but in a do or die situation, I'd prefer to carry a knife that can do it on it's own if it has to. One that doesn't need to be batoned just to cut a dry 3" limb in half, but one that can be batoned to split a 6" piece of wood if I need to get to the dry heartwood inside. That knife for me has a 7" blade.
 
Hello,
I also live in the UK and concluded that I don’t need a large knife in Western Europe, but luckily I came to this conclusion prior to coming to live to the UK.
However, you should not forget that once you travelled around the UK you will want to travel abroad. This is where you might appreciate some strong high quality knife. But anyway I never thought that I will ever need a large knife except to show off. Therefore I bought Badger Attack III. But in comparison with SAK it loses almost all the time: Yes, it can chop, but very lightly and we don’t chop in Europe a lot, do we? To cut tree branches – my SAK cuts tree branches much faster than my Busse. Plus, Busse’s blade is too thick and short on my knife to be very comfortable, even though it is thinner than of Battle Rat. I am not talking about price comparison.
And I think it is not difficult to understand why we do not fully appreciate such good knives. Busse and Swamp Rat are military tools where you are limited by space and weight to carry. In civil life you don’t usually have this problem and toughness of the blade is also not a major issue. Moreover, in Europe you have people living around and mobile phone coverage everywhere, so it is difficult to get into a real problem when you need such a tough knife. However, I found one use for it, and for me it is very important: it is my back-up knife. And when I travel in civilised manner from one country to another it is light enough that I worried about weight. I did not do anything with it, except for a test, but it is lighter than axe and much tougher than my SAKs that I can rely on it if a problem arises. It helped me a bit to cut through small bushes when I fell down into then in Lake District and could not open my SAK, but I think any non folding knife could help me at that time.
About blades: I like 5 inch blade is the best. Maybe because I have my 5" blade Tramontina knife for 7 years and travelled with it into many countries. I would not go neither for shorter nor longer blade because you cannot comfortably cook with shorter blade and it is not comfortable to sit down when you have too long blade. The thickness, well, 2 mm is enough, but 3/16 of an inch as on my Busse is only for tough knives, not for my regular use knife.
Regards,
 
You know, the more I read threads like this, the more I'm leaning towards carrying a smaller knife along with a light hatchet (like a Fiskars, for example) when I go off into the woods. Of course, by "smaller knife" I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Busse Satin Jack or the new Swamp Rat Satin Rat. I can still use my BM AFCK for really fine tasks.
 
Hello All

If you are just talking of hiking about I prefer about a 4-5" long blade

If you are talking about my BOB I carry about 4 knives

A large bush knife
A multitool
small pocket knife
mora style knife
and maybe a few other specialty knives.

I figure you need many tools in a true survival situation

Knifesmith
 
If you take it out a few times, I bet you'll easily see the advantages of a big blade. To me large blades are a joy to use, so I use them. For those who like a small blade, that's cool too. Anyone who tells you "if you use size --- knife, you're a tenderfoot" well, that may be their opinion, but that's all it is. Use what you like.
 
It's really surprising to me that nobody has yet made the obvious comment:
"It's not how big it is; it's what you can do with it" ;) My Al Polkowski neck knife measures just a tad over 2 3/4 inches. The GB mini can generally do the rest, although my Spyderco saw tags along fairly often. EDC keychain is a Micra... :D
 
That's why I only own one large blade, and even that is a thin 12" machete used mostly for gardening work ;)

IMO, a blade 3" long is a bit short for general camp work...4-5" in just about perfect though.

Use a hatchet for chopping, a good hatchet will outchop any knife. BTW, just heard, apparently, the hatchets at ragweedforge (hatchets, not axes, forgot the make, some swedish brand) are supposedly better than GB axes (slighly) and significantly cheaper (40$~). Look into those...scandinavian hatchets and knives in general are way underrated.
 
I love big knives. Especially bowies.

Last year, I took a wilderness survival course. The instructor (a graduate of the Tom Brown Tracker School) had four criteria for an ideal survival knife. First, always carry a fixed blade knife, not a folder. (I usually carry both.) Second, the blade length should be four inches more or less. (My ideal is 7 1/4".) Third, full tang. And finally, the blade should be high carbon steel -- not stainless! I'm a big fan of stainless steel.

When I travel in the bush, I usually carry one of three knives. My favorite is the KnifeWare Blackjack GRUNT. With a 5" blade and a big belly, it works like a larger knife. Its AUS8 - my favorite stainless. Been in and out of the lake more than a few times. Not a sign of rust. Next, is the Cold Steel SRK. In my book, the best value in a survival knife. Finally, I have a Chris Reeve's MkVI - 5.5" A-1 tool steel, hollow handle in which I keep a few survival items (snare wire, fish hooks, matches etc.).

I have a Randall RAT-7 D-2 (serrated) #8607 on order. (Each week the delivery date gets pushed back by a week.) Looks really great. At 6.5", this could be my new favorite.
 
Yep. I've recently resumed camping on a regular basis. I currently carry an Entrek Companion but if I had it to do over again it would be a Dozier Pro Guides knife.

EN-COMPANION.jpg

pro-guide.jpg
 
i agree.. smaller blades are better for carrying into the woods with you.. 'cause, well, they're smaller.. so unless you need a big blade, or you're going somewhere very remote, i'd pack light..

there actually are quite a few places around here in Maine where i'd very much enjoy having a larger 7"-11"+ blade, as things can get very very thick in protected areas (like the largest protected area East of the Mississippi and the West stretch of the Appalachian Trail), but i've made due for the past 10 years with a 3" blade.. and a folder @ that..

a nice big blade for clearing a path would've prevented aloooot of gashes, scratches, and bruises..
 
Michael_Aos said:
Yep. I've recently resumed camping on a regular basis. I currently carry an Entrek Companion but if I had it to do over again it would be a Dozier Pro Guides knife.
Click to expand...
Michael got me looking at the Dozier Pro Guides knife and I thank him. It's a very nice, useful knife.
 
How big a knife do you really need?

Why, you don't "need" a knife at all? You can just live less comfortably, eat less, and die earlier. The knife adds to your ability to survive, but there is no "need" to do that either, you can just play the part of the victim and hope for rescue. If you are using the word "need" you are probably asking the wrong question. :rolleyes:

Now, if I were to find myself either out in the sticks or in a survival situation I would want and hope to have the right knife for whatever tasks were at hand. That may be a small knife to process small game, or a full sized machete or ax, to handle trail blazing, build a sturdy shelter, or feed a good size fire.

There may be better and worse choices, but those are determined by the specific situation. The best choice would be to start out with a wide selection of tools. Start with a machete, and add a strong folder, a SAK, and either a small axe or sturdy camp knife.

I will leave the personal defense aspect to the would-be-ninjas. If need be, anything that is at hand can be used as an improvised weapon; but, if there is a real expectation of attack I would prefer to either carry something that will deal with the problem at a safer distance, or perhaps simply practice avoidance. Anybody who walks into a dangerous bear infested area with only a knife just demoted themselves to a walking bag of purina bear chow. If self defense is a real risk then you should try to come up with something better then a knife.

n2s
 
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