I want a good camp/scout knife

C

Carl64

Joined
Apr 3, 2005
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The kind with a can opener, bottle opener, large blade, and reamer thing. I want one with bolsters.

Camillus does a crummy job. Thin parts, the reamer is bent, the liners aren't parrallel, and the blade wiggles. Not like the old Camillus camper knife from decades ago in which they used thicker steel and actually ground the parts to all fit in the handle.

I bought a Case camper's knife, and it looks like they use the exact same parts (it was probably assembled whole from Camillus, jusging by the blade finish and reough backsprings). Except for the bolsters, it looks like a $3 knife, not a $30 knife. I wasn't expecting perfection from Case, but it's worse than I thought it would be.

Does ANYONE make this any more? Something along the quality of a Victorinox Soldier but with bolsters and handle inserts?
 
Both boker and Weidmanshell make very nice camp knives, as does Eye-Brand i think. But don't hold me to the last one.

Why not buy an oldie but goodie off E-bay, and put it back in action? I've seen some in good shape for reasonable cost.
 
The old Case Camper was produced by Camillus. It is discontinued now and Case has just reintroduced the Jr. Scout which is really nice.

http://www.wrcase.com/knives/search/knife.php?Family='Genuine%20Stag'&Item='5530'

Jamie
 
I think I recall AG Russell saying around here somewhere that their Scout was made by Camillus.
 
Just got a Camillus off Ebay for six bucks, late sixties era I think. I'm real happy with it, EDC for about two weeks now.:thumbup:
 
Ulster made some good ones back in the 50's and 60's. There are some real nice ones to be had in about any condition.
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Get an Ulster scout knife from the 60s on ebay for $10. If you don't care for delrin, send it to Muskrat Man to have handle scales of your choice put on it.

Those Ulsters are plentiful and well built.
 
jstewart16701 said:
The old Case Camper was produced by Camillus. It is discontinued now and Case has just reintroduced the Jr. Scout which is really nice.

http://www.wrcase.com/knives/search/knife.php?Family='Genuine%20Stag'&Item='5530'

Jamie
Click to expand...

Wow. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but it just amazes me that Case would contract out a whole knife to Camillus, of all outfits.
 
Check out a Wenger Standard Issue (if you like the lanyard bail) or a Victorinox Standard Issue (if you don't like the lanyard bail). They both have traditional scout knife features, are high quality, and have great warranties. I love mine. Just needed the edge done up out of the box. Other than that, it was good.
 
It's the exact same set of blades/liners/tools as a Camillus Boy Scout knife I passed on in a store recently.

The main annoyance is they set the awl towards the middle of the knife, not up against the liner like many other scout knives, then bend it towards the liner to make up for it, and the blade STILL has to push itself over as it closes. Slipjoint blades often touch each other, but in my opinion if you are going to go ahead and bend blades like that, it should at least result in the parts resting in place.

Here's a few things:

A: The scratching bend in the awl that I hate.
B: (hard to see here) Space next to blade, pivot pin visible.
C: Look at all of the liners/spacers - of 5 things, no two match up.
D: Famous Camillus poorly-finished backsprings and some nice gaps
E/F: if the blade tip at 'E' looks a little low, it's because an extra chunk of steel got ripped out at 'F' when that part was stamped, which just happens to be where the tang rests.​


The steel finish looks cheap too. They tumbled it until it was not-quite-polished, then left it at that. No Case mirror finish, but no classic-looking grind lines either. But I can fix that with a buffer.

This knife is priced much less than a "real" Case would be priced if they made it with all of these tools. When Camillus sold the bolster model like this, it was almost as much (more for an official BSA shield).

The only "plus" is the blade seems to sharpen up (and stay sharp) a little better than most of my Case knives.

I'm probably just going to give it to someone. I have already started polishing it up, and might just remove the offending awl. No sense sending it to Case, because they are certainly all junk.

I sure wish Victorinox would make some models with bolsters and inserts.
 
Also, thanks to everyone for the various suggestions. I sent an e-mail to AG Russell asking for a picture from the top to see how it looks. I am browsing around for some of the others that were mentioned as well.
 
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