Ray Mear's Woodlore knife vs Busse BA3?

O

OmegaA

Joined
Feb 13, 2004
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Which one do you think is the best for wilderness and survival?

I was on a walk today and decided to learn to make fire using "indian violin" (bow with string, base wood and wooden stick, get fire by friction). I did not suceed (did not have proper cord, it broke), but damaged my SAK Picnicker while batoning it through a log. This forced me to use BA3. I used it before not that often and until today I felt it was too heavy to do any work, especially delicate. However, today I felt completely different - I batoned it through the wood with ease, it chopped obstracting branches, hammered pegs into the ground and I found it very comfortable for wood carving thanks to the weight and smaller size. I concluded I had a great survival knife which I did not fully appreciate for a long time! Now it will definitely go into my PSK (the other conclusion was that SAK SwissChamp would still be in my PSK, but it is not strong enough for heavy work).

But I still wonder who will be the winner in wilderness, Woodlore of BA3?

Regards,
 
I own alot of knives, and my favorite wilderness survival blade is my Roger Linger buschcraft knife. It's very simaliar to the Woodlore.
 
You bataned a SAK?

Whichever knife you choose to go with, you will need to vary your techniques according to the design of the knife you are using. Otherwise your knife will fail.
 
If both blades are unmodified, the Woodlore would be significantly better for carving and general cutting based wood craft because the edge angle is significantly more acute. Such single bevel grinds are typically around 10 degrees per side, as compared to the BA which will be closer to 20. The advantages of the BA are the much greater blade strength and tip strength and edge durability.

However you can fairly easily take a flat ground knife like the BA and apply an edge bevel of similar angle to it and now it will cut many things better than single bevel ground blades because while both angles are the same, the edge width is more narrow and at a given angle the wider the edge the worse it will cut. You will still notice the thinner stock Woodlore knife being of benefit on thick soft vegetation, essentially on cuts as deep as the blade width.

A lot of which one is better comes down to style and physical ability of the user. You can judge the cutting and general handling ability of the Woodlore's blade style on a <$10 knife of the same style from Ragnars Forge.

-Cliff
 
S30V works great, Roger always makes the back spine of my knives nice and square just for sparking a FireSteel.
 
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