Knife for defence against wild critters ?

Hi Druid
Do I understand it correct, that you choose knives like a kabar and a trailmaster? Both knives I have had and it's a wide range between these knives. I find the kabar not to be a really big knife and the trailmaster has a 8 mm thick blade , which I find too hefty. I had let me made some identical bowies but with around 5 mm thickness. Good knives, but from my feeling 2 or 3 cm shorter is much better to handle.
Would you think the kabar is adequate in case of an attack?
 
Smithhammer said:
Do you have a source for those stats?
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There isn't any.

I live in CA and grew up around black bears. In our state, we've only had 12 attacks since 1980 and no fatalities. We have over 38 million people in our state. It's rarer than your chances of being struck by lightning. You don't see backpacker's with lightning rods on their backs. Just in case...

Here's our numbers, granted I'm leaving out the brown bear and polar bear as well as captive bears. They just aren't any higher given they live in less populated areas, whereas blackbears are just like racoons for some of us here in north america. I lived and worked in areas that had grizzly and polar bears, but those are very different bears alltogether, requiring stronger detterents.

https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/News/Bear/Bear-Incidents

We scared this one off in the sierras and in about 20 seconds it was half way up a cliff scaling boulders the size of itself along the way.
14gVwzCl.jpg
 
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halbschaf said:
Hi Druid
Do I understand it correct, that you choose knives like a kabar and a trailmaster? Both knives I have had and it's a wide range between these knives. I find the kabar not to be a really big knife and the trailmaster has a 8 mm thick blade , which I find too hefty. I had let me made some identical bowies but with around 5 mm thickness. Good knives, but from my feeling 2 or 3 cm shorter is much better to handle.
Would you think the kabar is adequate in case of an attack?
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I have no idea if the KABAR would be adequate. What I do know is the 7" blade will dig up to 7" deep into whatever I stab it into. The trick here would be placement of the stab wound. Bear have thick hides and even thicker fat layers. To do any lethal damage, you have to get into the chest cavity and hit major organs.....or....go for the throat and hope you make it count. My blades are sharp and hopefully, will do the jobs I call them to.

Like I said....I try my hardest to avoid such incidents. I bury my own scat, I try not to leave any food traces and certainly keep a good eye out for signs. I have the luxury of being able to carry a large handgun in the field but others might not be so lucky.

Inevitably, that could all prove futile in the end because I'm in the bear's territory. They can hear me from great distances and smell me from even further. I can only hope for the best.
 
Druid, thanks again. Yes, I as well think it's possible to stab 7 inches completely into a bear, my doubts only are whether 7 inches are indeed enough to reach vitals. That's the answer I'm looking for since years without success. Of course, it depends on the correct angle and placement, but assumed it can be managed. Reason is I would want a knife as short as possible to do the job, so that it's fast enough.
 
The KaBar is too round pointed to be a good weapon. It's also not very sharp or strong in design, so I wonder what's left... The Trailmaster is of course excellent, and lightyears beyond the KaBar: These two don't even belong in the same sentence...

Gaston
 
Hi gaston444
Both knives are of big difference, but this doesn't mean they are not good enough to do the job.
The kabar is a reliable fighter for decades; regarding survival abilities you cannot compare it to the TM, that's true, as this is an extremely sturdy knife. Nevertheless you can use both knives for fighting and survival, you have to work with them in a right manner; also you can modify the knives for your purposes.
 
There is a video on Youtube where a man uses a Sharpfinger to butcher and skin his bear. Just sayin'. :)
 
Maybe you should let me answer, and not claim I cant.

My sources were WIKI on fatal bear deaths cross referenced with US CDC wonder website for searching death stats in the USA for animal attacks which roughly matched what Multiple bear websites and articles(such as Fatal Attacks by American Black Bear on People: 1900-2009 from Journal of Wildlife Managemen) about bear attacks were stating in statistics including WIKI.
I then used wiki since it seemed acceptable and was the only actual list I could find and found 3 instances of knives used, of those 3 instances 1 resulted in a brown bears death and the man dieing in hospital days later, one resulted in a black bear being driven off by a womans husband using a swiss army knife(no joke) however the female victim died from her wounds before she could get treatment, and the third the bear is assumed survived.

As I said it was an exceptionally small sample size and so means little, yet of the 3 attacks two were predatory and considering how ineffective a swiss army knifes small blade is as an actual weapon, the fact it drove off a predating brown bear during its attack suggests a large knife could very well save your life.

Something that also needs to be pointed out is all lists and data only apply to KNOWN bear attacks... people solo hiking/running etc that are attacked killed and eaten would exist and what number of missing persons lists actually apply due to predation by wild animals and of what type is impossible to calculate.

If you had done any research you also would have found that almost all bear attacks are in Canada and not the USA, as to why this is I will leave for others to speculate.

B34NS said:
There isn't any.

I live in CA and grew up around black bears. In our state, we've only had 12 attacks since 1980 and no fatalities. We have over 38 million people in our state. It's rarer than your chances of being struck by lightning. You don't see backpacker's with lightning rods on their backs. Just in case...

Here's our numbers, granted I'm leaving out the brown bear and polar bear as well as captive bears. They just aren't any higher given they live in less populated areas, whereas blackbears are just like racoons for some of us here in north america. I lived and worked in areas that had grizzly and polar bears, but those are very different bears alltogether, requiring stronger detterents.

https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/News/Bear/Bear-Incidents

We scared this one off in the sierras and in about 20 seconds it was half way up a cliff scaling boulders the size of itself along the way.
14gVwzCl.jpg
Click to expand...
 
That would most likely be due to the massive number of bears we've got up here! ;) Also the majority of their range is in Canada
 
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halbschaf said:
Druid, thanks again. Yes, I as well think it's possible to stab 7 inches completely into a bear, my doubts only are whether 7 inches are indeed enough to reach vitals. That's the answer I'm looking for since years without success. Of course, it depends on the correct angle and placement, but assumed it can be managed. Reason is I would want a knife as short as possible to do the job, so that it's fast enough.
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Well now wait a minute....it all depends on the stance of the bear. On all fours, you have a massive amount of hid, fat and muscle to try and stab through. If the bear stands up, all that 'fat' slumps down to its "waist" exposing a thinner hide/skin/meat area at its chest - but then you have bone to deal with...Here's a Grizzly bear:

Animal_Anatomy__Grizzly_Bear_by_89ravenclaw.jpg


Here's a "Walt Disney" illustration on a Grizzly. Note I used this because Disney tries to be pretty accurate with it's proportional renditions...

tumblr_m83zo2lqL71rbl6tyo4_1280.jpg


......look at the way the mouth/snout protrudes from the body....that's one Hell of a reach to even get to the chest...

image021.jpg


Here's a black bear:
BEARANATOMYPicture1.jpg


...but there's probably not much difference between species, other than size.

See now why I said I want to avoid them? LOL.

Gaston444 said:
The KaBar is too round pointed to be a good weapon. It's also not very sharp or strong in design, so I wonder what's left... The Trailmaster is of course excellent, and lightyears beyond the KaBar: These two don't even belong in the same sentence...

Gaston
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I must respectfully disagree. It was a favored military blade for decades for a reason...not to mention strength, being made from 1095. And not sharp? That would depend on the person owning it and their [in]abilities to keep it sharp. Mine shaves from tip to hilt.

And no, the two blades should not be compared to each other. I much more prefer the Cold Steel to the KABAR but for different reasons. My KABAR is my favorite "go to" knife because it can do more of the finer tasks that are impossible to do with the Trail Master. Ever try to gut and skin a squirrel with a TM? A freaking mess is what I got LOL. However...."rack" some blues or stripers on a boat? Chop or baton through an 8" green-ish up-rooted or a dead fall log? Hell yeah....TM wins by a landslide.

Codger_64 said:
There is a video on Youtube where a man uses a Sharpfinger to butcher and skin his bear. Just sayin'. :)
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Well yeah.....when the beasty is already dead and on the ground, I could probably use a finger scalpel or X-Acto hobby blade to do that....LMAO!


Point is....I don't know of anyone who could teach me knife-to-paw combat tactics against a bear where I would be 100% certain I'd win....therefore, I'd opt not to even try. I'll just have to be happy screaming like a girl and running like I just witnessed my first live Freddy vs. Jason epic final scene battle. No, there's no shame in my game - I can admit that LOL.
 
You managed to give two examples of bear defense with that link, including one with a knife(using the pommel) and one with fists... along with a perfect example of man getting ambushed who had a gun and couldn't use it. It also included what its the supposed favored tactic of a people that commonly run into bears.

Something interesting is that Mountain Lion attacks(which I ended up coming across researching Bear attacks) Have a key component where many of them are driven off by being smashed in the face with a rock or fist. Yet full body blows with branches brooms kicks and punches even by multiple other people seem to have no effect on them.

Having a knife with a solid pommel may also be consideration for blunt force trauma attacks for wild animal defense.
stabman said:
That's because other than Russians, we're the only ones tough enough to say "Bring it on!" when the bears want to fight. :D

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/punch-in-nose-saves-man-from-polar-bear-1.939732
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Phoynix said:
I then used wiki since it seemed acceptable
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Wikis aren't acceptable as proof of anything. The best way to use wikis is for quick reference on things that don't really matter. No one takes any "hard data" from a wiki seriously.

I can't believe this thread is still going. Kabar's aren't good for stabbing? I thought that's all they're good for. You guys do know where the name Kabar came from don't you? :D
 
I believe the hunting and fishing forum is above this one ;)
Shotgun said:
Wikis aren't acceptable as proof of anything. The best way to use wikis is for quick reference on things that don't really matter. No one takes any "hard data" from a wiki seriously.

I can't believe this thread is still going. Kabar's aren't good for stabbing? I thought that's all they're good for. You guys do know where the name Kabar came from don't you? :D
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