I wouldn't go any smaller than a 4" length and 3/16" thickness with a full flat grind, and ideally thats in an environment where you're not going to be doing much wood splitting and shelter building (desert comes to mind).
As you get further into wetter and colder environments larger sized knives become of greater importance. I've been using a rak-6 for the last year, and it's been working well enough, but I just bought a Scrap Yard Scrapper 6 that I intend to use as a general camping knife from here on out. 6" length, .275" thickness, full flat grind made out of indestructible steel oughta sail through wood just fine.
in the coldest, wettest and harshest of environments, I wouldn't trust anything less than 9.5 inches long and .25" thick. a CS Trailmaster would see you throught (a nutnfancy favorite), but I have a Scrap Yard Dogfather on the way. Size matter when you're gonna have to baton through larger logs to get dry wood to start a fire, and when shelter building becomes a high priority and a larger more complex operation.
There's a lot to be said for machetes too I suppose. but that's not currently a part of my system... which brings me to an important point, much of this is system and environment dependent. If you're looking for the smallest knife to fit in your BOB, then you need to consider what you'll need it to do. If you're hiking through tall brush, and carving away at trees to get the grubs inside for food, packing a machete might be a worthwhile investment. but I'm not sure I'd trust it as my primary knife for batoning, chopping trees, and shelter building. If you're in the desert, there's little concern over the moisture content of the wood you find, so you won't have to worry too much about making super fine kindling. and if you have a BOB, you have firestarting tinder anyways...
It's all about what you're going to do with it. As a general, all purpose, don't go into the wilderness without it, most versatile sized blade... Go with the Scrapper 6 sized blades. 6" blade length, .25" thickness, minimum, preferably with a full flat grind.
But maybe that's just me...
As you get further into wetter and colder environments larger sized knives become of greater importance. I've been using a rak-6 for the last year, and it's been working well enough, but I just bought a Scrap Yard Scrapper 6 that I intend to use as a general camping knife from here on out. 6" length, .275" thickness, full flat grind made out of indestructible steel oughta sail through wood just fine.
in the coldest, wettest and harshest of environments, I wouldn't trust anything less than 9.5 inches long and .25" thick. a CS Trailmaster would see you throught (a nutnfancy favorite), but I have a Scrap Yard Dogfather on the way. Size matter when you're gonna have to baton through larger logs to get dry wood to start a fire, and when shelter building becomes a high priority and a larger more complex operation.
There's a lot to be said for machetes too I suppose. but that's not currently a part of my system... which brings me to an important point, much of this is system and environment dependent. If you're looking for the smallest knife to fit in your BOB, then you need to consider what you'll need it to do. If you're hiking through tall brush, and carving away at trees to get the grubs inside for food, packing a machete might be a worthwhile investment. but I'm not sure I'd trust it as my primary knife for batoning, chopping trees, and shelter building. If you're in the desert, there's little concern over the moisture content of the wood you find, so you won't have to worry too much about making super fine kindling. and if you have a BOB, you have firestarting tinder anyways...
It's all about what you're going to do with it. As a general, all purpose, don't go into the wilderness without it, most versatile sized blade... Go with the Scrapper 6 sized blades. 6" blade length, .25" thickness, minimum, preferably with a full flat grind.
But maybe that's just me...
