Survival Fixed Blade

My advice is buy Fallkniven F1 for wood carving and grunt work. Buy a Himalayan Imports Khukuri for chopping. One knife that will do both (though not as well as the two I have mentioned) is the Fallkniven A1.

YMMV
 
Hello Mikel - thanks for the warm welcome, I'm not from Spain, I'm from Romania, but Spain is my favorite football team at Euro 2008 :) Go Spain :D

Thanks for all the details, I still haven't decided yet, but I will shortly.

Between the A1 and the Bravo 1 - which is the sharpest?
 
El_Cid said:
...Between the A1 and the Bravo 1 - which is the sharpest?
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I guess that the question shouldn't be quite that. Eventually, any knife will become dull. If you lack sharpenning skills, equipment or alltogether, you should ask which is the easiest to sharpen.

Tough question because both knives have a convex grind and come shaving sharp out of the box. I guess that the BRKT are slightly softer (RC scale) than the Fallknivens.

Anyway, sharpening convex grinds is not hard at all. Get an old mouse pad, some sandpaper and get at it.
Mikel
 
El_Cid said:
So hard to choose - the BRKT sharpening compound - do they have that on knifesupply? I'd like to order all things from the same place...

So between the two: bravo and A1 - its just a matter of which I like best? Are they both equally good?
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knivesshipfree has the compound, strop, and the full line of Barkies. A very good dealer to do business with. I would consider the gameskeeper II if you want chopping capabilites.
 
that site is great - it has all the stuff but its almost 50% more expensive... :( why is that?
isn't the same knife? are the knives on knifesupply refurbished or something?
 
a1 is a proven lightweight chopper. it fared best from all stainless steel knives at www.knifetests.com (destruction test) there u can see also woods test of A1. BTW bravo 1 is made from A2, thus is not stainless if that matters for u
 
The knives at KnifeSupply are BRAND NEW.
KnifeSupply is an exclusively online dealer. (lower overhead)
Who knows how prices are set? I recently searched online for some backup batteries for my camera. I found prices for the EXACT same battery from $22. all the way up to $150. !!!

Something to consider: The Gameskeeper II is a slightly longer and heavier version of the original Gameskeeper.

The original Gameskeeper was used by the U.S. Marine Corp. as a prototype
in developing the Bravo 1.

PS. I too am rooting for Spain. (love their style of football)
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I got more than I expected, yet I am still undecided :)
I think I will start with Bark River T&K and somewhere in the near future purchase a Fallknife too. There is something about Bark River that is very hard to resist :D
 
Hmmm... I am new here, so please forgive me if this seems out of line. Why go with one knife to handle all of those chores? I live in southern California, and many of us have survival gear in our cars for when the big one hits, and everything east of the San Andreas fault falls into the ocean. In my camping supplies I have a SAK, a small multi-tool, an old hunting knife (with about a 5" blade) and a 12 inch cold steel machete. Guess which one gets all of the chopping/digging/hammering chores? I went with the barong model, but I think they come in half a dozen different flavors, so there is bound to be a shape that you like. Personally I think it is better to use a machete that is designed for something rather than trying to force a knife to do something that it is not. The machete has held up quite well so far, and was under $20US, with shipping. You might want to look into that. Besides, I know I will cry a lot less if I break that batoning or prying something up than I would if I snapped a $150 knife. Just my $.02

-Mb
 
The_Monkeyboy said:
I know I will cry a lot less if I break that batoning or prying something up than I would if I snapped a $150 knife. Just my $.02

-Mb
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If the only knife I had broke on me in a survival situation I don't think I would be worried about how much that knife cost me. Don't get me wrong I would cry but not because of that reason.
 
Again, why would you only have ONE knife? In an emergency, you want back ups. I can understand wanting to have a really good knife, but as your ONLY knife? That is too much like putting all your eggs in one basket. For that same $150, I could get one really nice knife, a machete, a good multi-tool, and probably several smaller back ups as well.

-Mb
 
The_Monkeyboy said:
Again, why would you only have ONE knife? In an emergency, you want back ups. I can understand wanting to have a really good knife, but as your ONLY knife? That is too much like putting all your eggs in one basket. For that same $150, I could get one really nice knife, a machete, a good multi-tool, and probably several smaller back ups as well.

-Mb
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When I camp I bring many knives/tools. But you don't get a heads up saying "hey I think you might find yours self in a survival situation today, better EDC a few knives". A true survival knife is normally the one you are likely to have on you (hence your EDC).
 
I carry a minimum of two blades... I can't skin small animals easily with my Scrapyard Yard Guard and I can't chop worth a damn with my Kershaw Shallot. So I carry both.

And I always have both with me.
 
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I know its big, but the Kershaw Outcast is a whopping pile of D2 for $70 or so. Its phenomenal once you thin the edge into a convex grind. It will get crazy sharp and it packs some serious chopping power. Its not as handy as a regular camp knife, but in a survival situation it would be a great tool.
 
The_Monkeyboy said:
Again, why would you only have ONE knife? In an emergency, you want back ups. I can understand wanting to have a really good knife, but as your ONLY knife? That is too much like putting all your eggs in one basket. For that same $150, I could get one really nice knife, a machete, a good multi-tool, and probably several smaller back ups as well.

-Mb
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I have the CS.12"spear point machete. It's a great tool for certain situations.
But I"m sure as hell not gonna backpack it around in the mountains.

thats my $.05 (i know it's not worth that much but you can keep the change!)
 
The_Monkeyboy said:
Hmmm... I am new here, so please forgive me if this seems out of line. Why go with one knife to handle all of those chores? I live in southern California, and many of us have survival gear in our cars for when the big one hits, and everything east of the San Andreas fault falls into the ocean. In my camping supplies I have a SAK, a small multi-tool, an old hunting knife (with about a 5" blade) and a 12 inch cold steel machete. Guess which one gets all of the chopping/digging/hammering chores? I went with the barong model, but I think they come in half a dozen different flavors, so there is bound to be a shape that you like. Personally I think it is better to use a machete that is designed for something rather than trying to force a knife to do something that it is not. The machete has held up quite well so far, and was under $20US, with shipping. You might want to look into that. Besides, I know I will cry a lot less if I break that batoning or prying something up than I would if I snapped a $150 knife. Just my $.02

-Mb
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As I have written before, this knife will be my EDC knife - along with my multitool. When I go camping/hiking etc I will also carry my hatchet and an additional knife. But the point to this survival knife - is not to find the ultimate tool so I can throw away my hatchet and knives and carry only this one, its rather something that to some extent can replace all the other tools in case of an emergency while I have only my EDC on me.

For training, I will use cheaper knives for batoning, prying, chopping and whatnot :)

Thanks for the reply
 
El_Cid said:
Which knife sharpener do you recommend for the Bravo I'm buying?
http://www.knifesupply.com/knife_sharpeners.html
Could you choose something from here ? - cause I want to order it all at once.
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For a Bravo1? None of those :D A Bravo 1 has a neat convex edge. If you want to keep it that way you need to use sandpaper over a mousepad (or anything that has a little give). You just lay the mousepad on a table with the sandpaper over it. Then you lay your knife flat on the sandpaper, raise the spine about 12-15º and drag it edge trailing over the mousepad. Once you do it in one side, do the other one. Once the sandpaper doesn't bite any more... switch to a higher grit. Do it this way from 500 to 1500 and then use a leather strop to finish polishing the edge.

Do a google search on this forum to find out about convex edge sharpenning. You will find plenty of tutorials.

Mikel
 
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