Survival knife size question

RedLynx said:
For some strange reason I've always had the impression the Canadian gov't had very strict knife laws... Then I read something like this and I feel like moving to a nice cabin in the great white north. :D I don't think I could do this without raising a few eyebrows even here in the Midwest.
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Yeah, it's generally pretty relaxed around here.
Just don't do anything too weird that scares people, and they seem to be okay with things. :)

Raymond1000 said:
I thought you were a Michael Moorcock fan. His character, Elric of Melniboné, is cursed with a sword. Stormbreaker gives victory, but feeds on human souls.
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I'll have to check out his stuff. Sounds interesting. :thumbup:
 
ocnLogan said:
I'm in "somewhat" agreement with you on this, and while I'm glad you state its your opinion, its still never nice to be told that you know nothing :( (although, I am well aware that I am no Mors, or Mears).

The argument in this thread though (as I understood it), is that if you were somehow restricted to just one tool, and nothing else, what would you take with you? The OP was stating that he would prefer a larger fixed blade.

Of course, this is a fantasy argument, since there is no way that anyone would be dumped somewhere with only one item to their name (which bizarrely they could chose beforehand). I also believe that two knives are better than one for the outdoors, as well as other tools as well (folding saw is my favorite), and I don't think anyone is disputing that.

While I do enjoy the fact that my BK9 does small tasks much better than its size should indicate, I don't know if it would be my choice for this hypothetical situation. However, as I said before, I'd probably err on the larger side of the "small knife little knife" choice, perhaps with something like a BK12 (6in blade). And if I'm going hiking, I'd be taking a Mora, or a BK16, and wouldn't feel impaired in my ability to "survive" if something happened with either of those.

Anyway, hooray for opinions and all that :).

Cheers.
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I somewhat agree too.

Something you can't get across to some people, even in person let alone over the Internet is you can do small knife tasks with a large knife, you can't do large knife tasks with a small knife. the trees in my area are oak, ash and maple with a random Apple tree here and there. I seen an old apple tree bend a fallkniven F1 edge to a nice wave. You find out real quick if your blade is a dud or a stud out back around here. The hatchet comments don't work either. They are great for chopping, but suck at making a stack of fire wood by splitting and are horribly slow when you do. It falls into the specific task tool category like my little Ti knife I use only for food prep, and the hatchet is bulky and heavy with limited uses, a large knife will do what it can and much more.

Just a few examples of why a large knife is not a novices tool. Rather I use one based on a lot of experience and the quickness it gets multiple tasks done. It can do 90%+ of the tasks my mora can and so much more it can't, does everything a hatchet can and so much more that I don't own one anymore. I'm not sitting here thinking this stuff up, the kit has been modified and streamlined from years of experience. If someone thinks they can make and do more complete stuff with a mora over a BK7, they are thinking rather than doing. In my experience it don't work out that way in the woods.

My kit always includes large knife, mora, pocket knife and the Ti small neck knife. The Glock field knife is attached to the pack. If I don't take the pack the rest are still on me. Axe stays in the bed of the truck.
 
When I go in the woods, I take a folder, a fixed blade 4 - 5 inch blade AND a camp folding saw. The ones that can be used for animal bone, and wood. Axe's and hatchets are too heavy to carry, and I find the saw works well for firewood. I use my knives to cut things.
 
RedLynx said:
For some strange reason I've always had the impression the Canadian gov't had very strict knife laws... Then I read something like this and I feel like moving to a nice cabin in the great white north. :D I don't think I could do this without raising a few eyebrows even here in the Midwest.
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Yeah not many federal knife laws as long as you're using it as a tool. Some cities have bylaws. And then there are weapons laws. Nothing is very clear. Main thing to remember is that it's a tool. No laws against tools
 
I am definitely a member of the two or three blade camp when out in the woods "surviving". How many and what they are depends on how far I have to carry them and if I actually believe I need the bigger blade; really need and not just playing. Mostly I carry two knives out in the woods, a fixed blade of varying length and a folder which often tends to be a SAK or traditional. A folding saw comes in real handy too if you want to carry it. In the summer, I might have along a machete for flexible vegetation and perhaps trimming off branches along a regular trail. I tend to carry this battery when I am out tramping around taking pictures in the woods along with a small pruning shears for trimming small branches or plants around what I might be trying to take a picture of (stuff like mushrooms, fungi in general, wild flowers, and so forth).

You can do almost everything you need to do with a large and small knife and a smaller fixed blade is often all you need unless you are just playing around. I carry the fixed blade almost all the time in the woods, but I seldom need to use it for anything and leaving that one at home or just carrying an easy to carry smaller fixed works for me.

Car camping, I will have an axe or hatchet and a saw with me. I like to gather a big pile of wood when I first set up a camp site that I am going to be at for a couple of days.
 
In my area a large 10" blade is not as efficient as an Axe of any size.
My favorite setup is a 26" 2.25lbs boys axe, a 3" scadi knife, and a DIY 21" collapsible bucksaw. This set up is the most work efficient, compact set up for making big fires and shelters with 10-12 hikes a day where I live.
 
Raymond1000 said:
I thought you were a Michael Moorcock fan. His character, Elric of Melniboné, is cursed with a sword. Stormbreaker gives victory, but feeds on human souls.
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Stormbringer is Elric's sword. And it's burden on him is more than just the weight of the steel alone.

Generally, the knife I have on me in the woods is a direct result of what I want it to do. If I'm hunting, it's a "hunting knife", capable of cutting the throat and getting the guts out of a deer or elk, or getting the breast from a grouse. If I'm mushrooming or peeling cascara bark, it's a knife that's easily pulled out and put back repeatedly. Here's the rub.. I want it big enough to get the job done, but small enough so that I don't otherwise know I have it.

I've never been lost up here in the great Pacific Northwest, but I have been bewildered for a few hours here and there. I never needed to pull a knife either time, but I did walk a lot. Up hills, down hills, across creeks... and the one feature my knife had every time was that it wasn't a burden. It wasn't adding 2 pounds to my pack, or slapping my kneecap incessantly, or snagging on salmonberry bushes. I really can't tell you what knife I had on me the last time I was bewildered, but I'll bet I'd remember if it had been stabbing me in the buttocks every other step.

In the woods of the PNW, there's no need to chop stumps or baton standing timber if you find yourself needing a fire. There's generally enough wood laying around for the gathering.

Answer to OP's question, what can a small knife do that a big knife can't? Stay out of my way 'til I need it, not weigh me down, not snag on stuff. That's why I carry the small ones.
 
ocnLogan said:
The argument in this thread though (as I understood it), is that if you were somehow restricted to just one tool, and nothing else, what would you take with you? The OP was stating that he would prefer a larger fixed blade.

Of course, this is a fantasy argument, since there is no way that anyone would be dumped somewhere with only one item to their name (which bizarrely they could chose beforehand). I also believe that two knives are better than one for the outdoors, as well as other tools as well (folding saw is my favorite), and I don't think anyone is disputing that.
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Fantasy argument? Three months ago it was +10° in early March, and I went for an extended bike ride. Just for fun I had brought along my Randall Model 14 for the ride, stuck inside my waistband... My bike broke down completely very late in the day at least 15 km from home. The cell phone was home on the charger... Then the weather abruptly changed to nearly -20°C, mostly windchill, a 25-30° C difference... I was in dire straights until I found an isolated shed that was closed up and tough as nails... It took me nearly one hour with the knife to break into it... I don't think I would have died, but I did find a saw and a hammer on site... Both would have been absolutely useless to break into the shed, but the saw did do most of the work once I got that first plank out, using the blade to pry on its vertical plane, after carving an access hole...

I'll leave it to your imagination how the carving into 2" of pressure-treated wood, and then leveraging well-secured planking would have worked out with a 4" fixed blade... And by the way, the hole needed to pry out with a hammer's twin fork is about four times larger than the hole needed for a knife blade: So that's four time 40 minutes or so (assuming the small knife didn't go to pieces, as the Randall nearly did, with severe cosmetic damage)...: Prying out the plank with a hatchet head, after carving out a large enough hole for that huge hatchet's head with a small 4" blade, I figure would have been four to six hours...

Now multiply a simple bike ride with what can happen with a car... I remember a story in the 90s of a guy lost in deep woods with nothing but a laptop... You do get to chose one item sometimes...

Gaston
 
Boris74 said:
I just did this just because I could. Big blades can do some mighty fine work if you have the skill and know how to sharpen.

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You don't need a small blade to do small things. They do help to fit into tight spots. Like the finishing touches on a fishing spear are always done with my pocket folder or whatever puukko I brought out with me that day.
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Well put. I believe in the big blade.
 
Alberta Ed said:
A survival knife should be large enough to do camp chores like cutting/splitting wood and long enough to reach the bottom of the peanut butter jar.
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Good lord, Ed... you know better. Cutting/Splitting wood is for axes and hatchets...

And if you have a 3 inch knife, cut the peanut butter jar down to where the bottom is less than 3 inches from the rim. Too easy.

Because in a survival situation, your peanut butter jar is ALWAYS the plastic kind.
 
Dobe_1 said:
Well put. I believe in the big blade.
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Yeah, most people think those who carry a large knife just hack away when they hit the woods with a large thick heavy blade or never use theirs for anything other than chopping and splitting and think that's all it's good for. From what I see way too many people doing way too much thinking. That blade in the pic will chop and split for hours straight and still feather a stick like it were a mora, cut notches or make stakes or a fishing spear. Can also flip it over and pound any stakes you make into the ground. A mora won't pound anything into the ground. I find myself using a big blade for even more tasks these days and the small blades reserved for specific tasks like food prep and fish cleaning and them tight fitting areas. Other than that I can do it all with a big blade and could simplify it by modifying the style I use that day and get along just fine with one big blade. Like I said before, a big blade can do small things, but a small blade will never do big blade work. People who use a big blade as a task specific chopper/splitter would be amazed at the small things they can do with a big blade.
 
I would only use a big blade for small tasks when I don't have a small knife which is rare.
 
I usually have an Esee 6 & a 4. If I could only have one I would probably carry my Aurora ,the tweener . It's too pretty to beat up camping but if I can only have one , pretty is way down the priority list.
 
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Kephart, Nessmuk, Kreps, and other "fathers" of modern wood crafting all advocated the right tool for the job.
A fixed blade, between 3.5 to no more than 5 inches, 1/8 inch thick, somewhat flexible. Used for food prep, and dressing game.
A folding knife, generally of the Moose or Trapper pattern, for whittling, making fuzz sticks, and so on.
A small axe, or hatchet, or 'hawk for chopping and splitting firewood and building shelters.
 
It's not so much what can and can't be done with one or the other, its just different tools for different tasks... I "can" hang pictures with a 5-10 lb sledgr hammer to tap the nails, I prefer a 16-18 oz hammer though. I personally believe in "bushcraft" one should always opt for a smaller blade to accompany a larger one just for those finer things...
 
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