Super survival knife!!!

Busse is a infant in the world of survival. Folks did well before them and most still will. Big shock huh?
 
As far as good survival knives go, there are more choices today than ever before. You certainly will spend more for them than a knife worth less than the "fishing kit" stored in the handle, but you will get a knife you can depend on. . .

just off the top of my head. . . Busse (family), Ranger, Fallkniven, Fehrman (sp?), CR, Rat Cutlery, HI, ER, and more customs than you can count. Hollow handle knives are in general inferior to a nice full tang blade, with the exception of the CR one piece knives. If you need a tiny amount of survival stuff with your blade, get a sheath with a pouch. :thumbup:


udtjim said:
Busse is a infant in the world of survival. Folks did well before them and most still will. Big shock huh?
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Why is it when people ask for a good survival knife, some folks try to crap on other people's suggestions instead of actually trying to contribute?
 
udtjim said:
Busse is a infant in the world of survival. Folks did well before them and most still will. Big shock huh?
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Thanks for the reality check. ;)
I guess it's back to rocks then huh? :cool:

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I agree that the more skill you have the less you may need. And even more so with the thought that a great knife is even better in the hands of someone skilled.
 
I have 21 Fallkniven F1s and one cheap "Lifesaving knife". Hollow handle, fishing hooks, compass in the screw on top, sharpening stone, the works. There is ONE advantage with this over the F1. When you are flying you just take an insex/torx and remove the blade. Then you send the blade in the checked in luggage and keep the handle in the carry on :) This way you have almost all your survival crap with you if the plane crash :)

There is actually one more model with hollow handle that is good. The Hackman survival knife made about forty years ago.

I would recommend that you get a GOOD 4" fixed blad for about 100 bucks. Then you get a folding saw and a multi tool. To top this off you should get a swedish firesteel, a good whistle and a small locking folder and hang it around your neck. There is an easy and safe way to start a fire with a folder. Place the blade in the stuff you are to light (like you were to cut it) and pull the firesteel on the knife back. Totally safe.

You do not need a 8" mega knife to start a fire.
 
How does having a mega 8" blade help you to keep the fire going when you've got more windfall than you can use? Circumstances, circumstances. Even the big Sami blades, the leuku, are thin and light weight.

We don't need to be sneering at each others' favorite brands but we don't need to shout out our own favorites every time someone asks a question, whether or not our favorites are appropriate.
 
udtjim said:
Busse is a infant in the world of survival. Folks did well before them and most still will. Big shock huh?
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Television is an infant in the world of entertainment. Folks did well before them. Big shock huh?


To answer the OP's question I can suggest Fallkniven (F1, S1, A1 or A2) as good quality survival knives. For hollow handles there's only the Chris Reeve one piece line or the Randall model 18 which I find acceptable. The hollow handle is nice to store some firemaking equipment.
 
Esav Benyamin: You don't always have a ton of windfall. If you do it is usually very small and will burn up quick. You have to keep scavenging the forest floor all night or day to keep a fire going. A big knife Lets you chop bigger material in a short amount of time. Helping you keep the fire going between having to need to constantly feed the fire every 10 minuets.

One can try and jump up and down on the bigger stuff. Try and break it between 2 trees and such but this takes a lot of effort and energy to do and you can hurt yourself in the process.

Where I camp I need about 3 large piles of between 2.5" to 3" logs to keep my fire burning all night. With only a small knife say a Mora. I would have to resort to the above. or drag some heavy downed tree over and slowly feed it in the fire. Again creating a lot of work I could simply avoid with a big chopper.
 
I am a huge Scraprat fan but I rather like a emergency kit based around a Mora.
I take a mora and a firesteel and duct tape a few water purification tablets to the sheath.

A couple I wrapped some snare wire around the sheath as well. There you have a 20$ survival kit that you can stick in your truck or lifejacket etc. It takes some skill but if you know what your doing you can live for a couple weeks.

Rather than a big knife I usually pack a good 4 inch knife and a Hawk. I used to carry a SS4 but the YKCG that came today may have bumped it. If you add a CS trailhawk and a GI cup to a mora kit I could live quite well for a few days.
This picture has the GI cup on the right, all that stuff fits together.

The boreal forest where I live is better suited to a hawk than a bowie but I love my new DFLE so much I am going to use it instead of my norse Hawk next year.

I use a Norse hawk but recommend a Trailhawk because it is easier to use as a hammer with the poll on it.

Big knives are useful in the bush though. I am not one of those bushcraft snobs who thinks every blade over 4 inches is a Rambo wannabee knife.
The Fur Traders here in northern saskatchewan used these huge Hudson bay knives even though they had to carry all their gear and canoes on their backs for miles. If they could have gotten by with a smaller knife they would have!

Notice it looks a lot like the DFLE in the other photo. Big single edge with a clip point ,capable of being used like a draw knife or a hatchet. It was also a meat cleaver ,skinner ,shovel ,hammer ,lever and weapon.
The Hudson bay knife is a bit shorter than the DFLE but it is thicker and heavier.

A big knife is kind of like a pair of vise grips. It can do anything but there is usually a specific tool that can do the job better. They are really useful when you only want to carry one tool. The trappers and myself as well like to pair them with a small companion neck knife though. My satin SS4 looks pretty nice with the DFLE.
 
noss4 said:
One can try and jump up and down on the bigger stuff. Try and break it between 2 trees and such but this takes a lot of effort and energy to do and you can hurt yourself in the process.
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And how exactly does this expend more effort than hacking away at it with a chopper? I'm willing to bet you will be exhausted after chopping up enough wood to keep your fire going all night. It takes very little effort to snap a 2" - 3" round branch between two trees if you know how to do it properly. Notch your branch with your AXE every 1 foot and then snap away. I've done both and snapping a notched branch expends far less energy than beating on a log for an hour.
 
Ken C. said:
And how exactly does this expend more effort than hacking away at it with a chopper? I'm willing to bet you will be exhausted after chopping up enough wood to keep your fire going all night. It takes very little effort to snap a 2" - 3" round branch between two trees if you know how to do it properly. Notch your branch with your AXE every 1 foot and then snap away. I've done both and snapping a notched branch expends far less energy than beating on a log for an hour.
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Your assuming you have an axe. Again a chopping blade to notch a 3 inch log this is not easy to do with a small knife like a Mora. It is not always easy to snap a 3" round hard wood log between 2 trees. This takes a lot of energy to do and success is not guaranteed. It is much easier just to chop it instead. Even small sticks can be hard to break by hand depending on the wood and it's condition.

Like I said a chopper ( large fixed blade, AXE ) can help you keep a fire going
with less effort.
 
Watch my field test on The Busse FBM. I can chop a downed tree 2.5" in diameter in very little time under five minutes and have wood that lasts me for about 2 hr's leaving me time to do other things. Like drink coffee :D
 
noss4, nothing you say makes any sense until you define the environment, the season, and the mission you're on.

Jumping into the discussion knife-first eliminates the concept of survival skills, and substitutes toys instead of technique, thought, and problem-solving.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
We don't need to be sneering at each others' favorite brands but we don't need to shout out our own favorites every time someone asks a question, whether or not our favorites are appropriate.
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Essav, I totally get the first part, and so I'm not even going to respond to the two Einsteins here who chose simply to bash.

But "we don't need to shout out our own favorites every time someone asks a question"? :confused: The alternative being? Shouting out our least favorite brands when someone seeks advice? In that case, get a DORK OPS!!! They're the bestest! :D :p

Ken is on the money as far as productively breaking wood. Never chop when you can simply break. But a big knife does a pretty nice job of notching as well, and I am much more apt to have a big blade in my pack rather than a full-sized axe strapped to it. Again, it's about making the best choices with what you are willing to carry. Essav got that one right too.

Frost! Get a Frost Cultery Bowie!!! ;)

Edited to add: To clarify, my point here is that we can only really speak from our experiences. And for an individual, if certain brands/makers rise to the top of the list in that experience, those recommendations are naturally going to be the first responses. I would hesitate to take the advice of someone recommending a brand he'd never even tried. That said, I imagine some folks might recommend Busse solely on reputation, word of mouth, etc. However, in this thread, I see people who use that brand a lot.
 
yeah but by that standard every knife company is a baby. I'm not aware of any company that's been making knives for 100,000 years.

I don't have a busse and have never used one, but it's fair to say they have a very good reputation, and if they're knives weren't good quality they wouldn't have that reputation.
 
You've got some great advice here about blades and basic survival kit. I'd like to add one more thing:

Get a Spec Ops sheath, or custom nylon from Semper Paratus Tactical. Use the pouch to store your survival accessories. The result is that everything will be in one neat package that you can hang off your belt and strap to your leg.

TC
 
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