My mora's handle came off

It is not always what the knife is capable of doing or not doing. It is your capability with the knife, what can you do with it? If your mighty blade did break, what could you do with it then? I am convinced that some would sit down and cry for a few minutes first. :D

I once watched a PBS special about some tribe in South America and the one guy had a piece of an old WW2 Ontario Machete. It was easily recognizable, my Dad had one just like it. Big old barracuda looking blade on that machete. This guy in the jungle just had the tip of it, a couple of inches. What a precious tool. It was a special on how this tribe made blowguns and hunted with them, making poison, etc., I wish I could get THAT one on DVD.

Rene Belbenoit (Prisoner in French Guiana) wrote about how important it was to hide a simple razor blade anywhere you could, it was so valuable.

I'm not lobbying for people to carry Pakistani-made trash, but, you have to also be reasonable as well.
 
What an opportunity for a cool project. Now you can put a nice wood handle on it.

Nothing about stick tangs rules out batonning IMO.
 
Troop said:
Elen, Now you tell us.;)
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Well, I've always been saying it: that Moras are, while excellent knives for their very low price, vastly overrated by some people, likely because these people aren't used to knives that were designed with simply cutting efficiency in mind, instead of looking all tactical and intimidating. ;) Moras are decent knives, fantastic for the price, but they're not tough or reliable in any way, except as simple cutting instruments and disposable general work tools - baton, pry and hammer through nails at the construction yard until it breaks at the end of the day, and get a new Mora for tomorrow. That's what they're made for - not to be the be all, end all of cutting tools.


k-spar said:
Why? I really don't understand. Batoning is the only reason I carry any knife other than my victorinox huntsman. My pocket knife is sharp, and I use it for pretty much all cutting purposes, like food prep, rope and carving. Splitting and prying are the only things I use a fixed blade for.
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A lot of folks like batoning stuff. Nothing wrong with that. It's just useful to know that Moras, and small to medium sized Scandinavian knives in general, are not built for batoning or prying. They will not reliably survive such use. That type of knife is designed for cutting tasks. It's not the tang that's the "problem", it's the whole design. Relatively weak tang, rather thin blades, not a design for a tough, hard use type knife. For batoning, prying, and such use, I'd bring something much beefier than any Mora.
 
I actually prefer Cyanoacrylate GEL to epoxy for something like that. Much stronger bond. just sand the tang a bit and clean it with denatured alcohol- let dry and coat it with the gel. Let stand for 24 hrs for full bond.
 
Elen said:
Well, I've always been saying it: that Moras are, while excellent knives for their very low price, vastly overrated by some people, likely because these people aren't used to knives that were designed with simply cutting efficiency in mind, instead of looking all tactical and intimidating. ;) Moras are decent knives, fantastic for the price, but they're not tough or reliable in any way, except as simple cutting instruments and disposable general work tools - baton, pry and hammer through nails at the construction yard until it breaks at the end of the day, and get a new Mora for tomorrow. That's what they're made for - not to be the be all, end all of cutting tools.





A lot of folks like batoning stuff. Nothing wrong with that. It's just useful to know that Moras, and small to medium sized Scandinavian knives in general, are not built for batoning or prying. They will not reliably survive such use. That type of knife is designed for cutting tasks. It's not the tang that's the "problem", it's the whole design. Relatively weak tang, rather thin blades, not a design for a tough, hard use type knife. For batoning, prying, and such use, I'd bring something much beefier than any Mora.
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Indeed..A Mora is a good knife that has been developed trough many centuries.
What you have to keep in mind with this type of knife is, that the guys that designed it, hundred of years ago, also had an axe with them.
The axe was a common item back then and was used for heavier work.
It was never meant to be a "stand alone" tool.
 
I don't have a dog in the fight, I don't own a Mora. I'm interested in a couple of them, but I don't own one of them at this time, nor have I ever. I've had a RAT-3 and a Ranger Afghan for a couple/few weeks now, just received a brand new RAT-7 in the mail today with a SpecOps Brand Survival Sheath and I'm quite happy with these three knives as well as the BM FB Ritter SK that my Wife has hijacked.

This was on the other end of owning some Beckers which I never warmed to, it doesn't matter how tough they are, if they feel like crap and you feel like you are always going to lose control of them, they're hardly a survival knife, either.

That's a personal issue, however. The Camillus-made Beckers were absolutely tough as nails, excellent knives, just didn't fit my hand very well at all.

Perhaps that is the Master Thread that should be started: What would you do, what could you do, with your knife if it broke in the field and your life depended on it? Answers like, "That wouldn't happen, my knife would never break" or "I'd go to my second BMF-KNIFE COMPANY KNIFE" should be eliminated. :D
 
I don't see what the big deal is.

I don't own a Mora. I do plan on buying one for my kid, down the road. The blade did not break. If I were in a survival situation and that happened, I might be a bit pissed but I would tie some cloth around it to finish my task at hand. then set out to make a wood handle.
 
Elen and Hawkings--

Good points.

I have a couple of Moras and think they are great knives for the money but I am surprised at the number of survival/primitive skills schools and instructors who seem to think they are the "ultimate" survival knife.
 
Well, that's just the thing really, there is no such thing as an "ultimate survival knife." There are ultimate surviving people. :)
 
I guess I don't see the big deal either. The failure wasn't cataclysmic.

I'll echo Don Rearic, too. Relying on a ""ultimate survival knife" is a formula almost doomed to fail. Ultimately, you figure out how to make due with what you got. I'd like to think if most of us were in an actual survival situation, and had this happen to their knife, they we not have much trouble going on about the business of survival.
 
psy-ops said:
I don't see what the big deal is.

I don't own a Mora. I do plan on buying one for my kid, down the road. The blade did not break. If I were in a survival situation and that happened, I might be a bit pissed but I would tie some cloth around it to finish my task at hand. then set out to make a wood handle.
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You're exactly right, it wasn't a big deal at all, I just put the handle right back on. I didn't mean for this thread to put down moras. I am still gonna use it to baton, especially now with epoxy in it.
 
Don Rearic said:
Perhaps that is the Master Thread that should be started: What would you do, what could you do, with your knife if it broke in the field and your life depended on it? Answers like, "That wouldn't happen, my knife would never break" or "I'd go to my second BMF-KNIFE COMPANY KNIFE" should be eliminated. :D
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That's certainly a valid and important question. People tend to rely on tools a tad too much. Few things are as important in survival as the ability and skill to do things without the usual, comfy and effective tools - because we may end up in a situation where we have none of those tools. On the other hand, it's also important to bring any useful tools one reasonably can when going into situations that may be dangerous - no use taking a crappy gun or a crappy pair of boots into harm's way, if one can take something better. ;)

This batoning thing isn't a question of survival to me, though - it's a question of convenience. A bit like being able to drive a car to town for shopping, instead of walking there. Sometimes, it's quite nice to be able to split some wood quickly with a knife. If doing that breaks the knife, then it's pretty annoying, even if it's nothing serious. Still, for survival use, it wouldn't be a bad idea if the knife one had was strongly built, which Moras aren't, unless compared to folders of course.
 
Don Rearic said:
Well, that's just the thing really, there is no such thing as an "ultimate survival knife."
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I hope my Swamp Rat Battle Rat doesn't read this! :eek: :D

There are ultimate surviving people. :)
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Yes, great point.

I have been reading some books about this subject lately and am glad it is getting the attention it deserves. I think in the past this concept has not been emphasized nearly enough.

k-spar said:
I didn't mean for this thread to put down moras.
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I think there is a big difference between putting something down and telling the truth about it. Fortunately in these forums I see a lot of the latter and not much of the former.
 
k-spar said:
You're exactly right, it wasn't a big deal at all, I just put the handle right back on. I didn't mean for this thread to put down moras. I am still gonna use it to baton, especially now with epoxy in it.
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K, It is clear you are not flaming mora's. It is a good to talk about knife breakage. but the conversation would be more fruitful, if we discussed how one can rise above breakages and setbacks. :)

Don's example of the guy with the tip of the machete is very productive. To me that is what survivalism is all about.
 
One of these days I'm gonna buy a 510 and do a dustruction-from-batoning test on it. How long do you wager it would last? :D
 
Wabajack said:
One of these days I'm gonna buy a 510 and do a dustruction-from-batoning test on it. How long do you wager it would last? :D
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honestly it'll go forever if you make sure the wood is alright. I dunno if it's really tough knotty stuff though. I try to avoid pounding it through the nasty stuff.
 
Mora's are excellent knives. I have many and use them daily. They are very poor hatchets but thats fine with me as I have half a dozen hatchets and hawks that are made for that kind of work. One of the first things ever learned was to use the right tool for every job. It's served me well. I do have a big old Old Hickory butcher knives that I have chopped countless hundreds of branches off my walking stick blanks without a hic-up.
 
but I am surprised at the number of survival/primitive skills schools and instructors who seem to think they are the "ultimate" survival knife.
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My favorite user is a Mora. I try not to like it for whatever reason, but I keep going back. I recently had another custom made (great knife), I have thousands of dollars in Bark Rivers, Chris Reeves, Simonich, etc., but I keep going back to that red handled mora, and the reason, at least from my perspective is simple - it's that the knife itself doesn't get any simpler.

As my skills have increased, my desire (need?) for all the other stuff has waned considerably. I like the Bark Rivers and my customs a lot, but they don't do fine work any better than my Mora, in fact the Mora does a little better because it is thinner. They aren't as easy to sharpen as my Mora. They don't carry as light around my neck as my Mora. They don't feel as comfortable in my hand or wield as well as my Mora. Is my Mora as tough as my Bark River - absolutely not. Do I need a knife that is as tough as SS or A2? So far, no. And I baton when needed (which is not for firewood). The more you know, the less you need. Peace, Chris

Me and my Mora in action...
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn230/abodude/?action=view&current=P3190030.flv
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn230/abodude/?action=view&current=KnifeRockFireTwo.flv
 
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