(XXXX and I have exchaged E-mails per my questions above. I have reprinted a portion of my response below for comment)
Why all the questions?
As you look through many of the treads on the forum you will notice that the most productive ones start out by establishing a clear set of parameters. Posing an open ended question such as "what's the best survival knife?" will quick deteriorate to generate a long list of popular knives which may or may not be suitable for your application. The underlying issue involves a review of your strategy and tactics as much as it does any of the individual tools.
So what is survival?
Ideally, if I ever found myself in a situation which deprives me of my home or livelihood, I would like to have access to a large amount of funds, a five start hotel, and plenty of good company (or perhaps at least a Winnebago with a nice stock of goodies). My first priority would be to reestablish order: build a new home, find a new job, form a new business, join another community. I'll like to think the same is true for most of us in any "survival" situation.
Unfortunately, sometimes when we get ourselves into trouble, we do so without the benefit of all these goodies. Its precisely, for these conditions that we will need to prepare ourselves if we are going to get through with a reasonable degree of comfort and safety.
Where to begin?
Begin with a strategy. What are the conditions of the scenario? Some years ago, when I use to enjoy myself as a private pilot, I made it a point to carry a Gerber BMF knife (just happen to have one), 100M of paracord, a small flashlight, a vitorionox SAK, and a cell phone (full charged but turned off) in my flight bag. With a Spyderco knife, and another small flashlight on my person (usually on my belt). I also had a small bicycle type water bottle and a couple of candy bars, and a small first aid kit. The whole package totaled about 10 lbs including the flight stuff.
The strategy was simple, in the event of an emergency landing my best tactic would be to sit tight and wait with the aircraft. South Florida has a number of remote areas, but the area is dense enough that I am confident that help would have been on hand within a few hours. Probably the cell phone would have been the most critical item in the package; either to summon help (if I were fortunate enough to have coverage) or to help resolve the myriad of logistical and NTSB issues afterwards. The Spyderco (usually the Police model) would be there to help me get out of the plane, The SAK would provide number of miscellaneous and helpful tools, and the BMF would be there in case we needed to do some heavy cutting. Fortunately, the situation never came up.
Now if the scenario would have involved a more remote area I would probably have replaced the cellular with a fire starter and flares. Then depending on the situation I would have added other useful clothing and materials to enable me to cope with the elements for a set period of time.
So what are the key considerations?
To me this always comes down to:
1) How long are you going to be there
2) What do you need to cope with
3) How do you get out
If hiking is an element then you will need a knife that is light enough to permit you to hike with a reasonable degree of comfort; and, also a knife that includes a reasonably safe and secure sheath.
If you are going to need to build shelter such as a lean too or snow shelter, you will need a good size camp knife (about 6" + blade length) to give you a reasonable ability to cut 1" poles or work snow.
If its a short hike to safety and you are not going to need a shelter, then go with a lighter more portable folding knife.
Final thoughts
Whatever the situation, buy a reasonable knife. Spend enough money so that you don't end up with something that will fail on you; but, not so much money that you will be distracted by worrying about the new smudge on your knife (there will be far more important things to worry about).
One of Coldsteel's Ranger or SRK models, a WWII MKII, or something similar would probably work well.
[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 17 October 1999).]
