Survival Knives with Saw on back

Myakka

Myakka

Joined
Feb 9, 2004
Messages
1,447
I know that there gimmicky, but I have always thought Survival knives with the wood saws on the spine look really cool. :cool: Is there any maker beside Beck that is currently making this style of knife? :confused:
 
Chris Reeve's Aviator, made from one piece of A2 tool steel, is probably the most popular. Its spine is touted as an all-purpose saw, fair at cutting many materials (e.g., wood, bone, plastic, sheet metal) without excelling in any one medium. A search in the CRK forum will turn up lots of good info and pics from users.

Randall's Mod. 18 Attack/Survival knife is one that has been around for a long time -- mostly a collectable than a user these days, I believe.

On the more affordable end, at least a few Ontarios -- machetes and smaller knives -- sport sawback spines.

Probably a few others I'm missing, but these are the more familiar. There is certainly a trade-off between sawbacks and regular spines, but it isn't necessarily gimmicky. Even the original "Rambo" knives made by Jimmy Lile are considered serious designs (with strengths and limits like most other knives). The CRK Aviator is especially well regarded and proven.

My 2¢
Glen
 
Back in the 80's I almost bought a Lile Rambo knife, I think back then they were around $600-1000. Boy I sure wish I did.
 
TOPS knives (http://www.topsknives.com) makes a number of blades with sawbacks. I have the Steel Eagle 111 in Hunter's Point. It is an awesome blade to hold and use, with an 11" edge. The saw uses the opposing teeth chainsaw style serrations to make it an effective, if wide, saw. It is great for notching etc or getting chopping started, and will work well overall compared to other sawbacks, but nothing compares to a real saw.

Best,

~B.
 
Thanks Brian, I forgot about TOPS knives, I'm very curious though why TOP doesn't recieve the same recognition, and following as some other knife companies. :confused:
 
My own opinion on that...

I believe TOPS has sold mainly to military and police around the world. I also believe the only reason you don't hear about them online as much is because they don't have a web-based forum, etc. to interact with civilian customers. I've seen that, in today's knife market, having a forum can be good, but can be a double-edged sword -- the flame wars that can, and do, erupt, can be tedious. I'm guessing that they don't need one right now because business is good enough?

Since TOPS is a shop (not a factory), where the knives are mostly handmade, they are pretty darn busy cranking out knives left and right. If you look at their site, and look around, you'll see that a vast majority of TOPS military and police users are very satisfied with the performance. In fact, groups like SEAL TEAM 3 and others had a hand in directly R&D'ing blades -- not in a official "this is a SEAL knife" way, but operators were directly involved. Most of the designs were borne of direct requests by mil and police users. The owners and operators of TOPS are former SpecWar guys and SWAT guys. You got top custom knifemakers like Rob SImonich and Trace Rinaldi doing collaborations with TOPS -- and I don't think they'd put their reputations at stake for anything other than a great quality company. Their following is huge actually, just in a different market area than consumer. But they sell a heck of a lot of knives to consumers too, I'll bet.

Personally, I've beaten the crap out of TOPS knives and been very happy, in both wilderness and tactical environments.

Hope this helps!

~Brian.
 
The USAF pilots survival knife by Camillus and Ontario have a sawback and are affordable.
 
I notice that any knives with a sawback tend not to be effective on wood. The saw on the aviator's survival knife is made for aircraft aluminum and is rather ineffective on wood. If you just want it for looks, then look for a "fantasy knife".
 
JTC,
Those are cool looking knives, but $650 dollars, that is a little too pricey :eek:
 
Jensen Elite Blades makes several models with sawteeth on the back. The blades are chisel ground and available in ats 34 or d2.
 
Sig,

I have looked at Jensen Elite Blades, and liked there design, but too me it didnt look like the back of there knives had a fuctional saw blade, I though it just looked scalloped. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Thanks - Ron
 
According to Peter Jensen, it depends on what you are sawing. The saw is not for hardwood, but would work well for rope, webbing etc. This holds for the EVO survival knife. I am not sure about the saws on the tactical line.
 
I would love to find a blade that has a saw on the spine that would be good for just wood. That's all I'd need it for. Haven't found one yet.

What I've done recently is take a saw blade and drilled holes to match the hole pattern on the handles of my knife. I rigged my sheath to easily carry the saw blade. When I need a saw, I undo the screws on the knife handle and "change" to the saw blade. Works pretty well for sawing small diameter (~1inch) pieces.

S.
 
There are the Extrema Ratio knives.
Extrema Ratio Homepage
harpoon_f_miles.jpg


Mark
 
my favorit knife for a while was one I cut out of an old wood saw, the kept the teeth on the back of the blade, its temper was good for keeping and edge but the blade was very thi9n and flexible think bowie shape with filleting properties and you get the general idea
 
Hi Guys

As sig220 said our saw is mainly for webbing etc....It is actually not a saw, they are square tooth serrations. We dont class our square tooth serrations as saw teeth, If you want to cut through hardwood we reccommend using the main chopping egde. We also strongly recommend carrying a companion tool such as a SAK or leatherman that has a fine tooth saw that will out cut pretty much every saw tooth design featured on large survival blades.

The notching required for effective snare triggers needs to be fine and have smooth edges for effective release, large coarse teeth have proved ineffective in our testing.

We offer fine saw teeth as an option on our new EVO companion and J.U.S.T knives (but these are certainly not designed to saw through 4x2's)

Hope this info helps

Bel

www.JensenEliteBlades.com
 
Thanks for the reply JEBlade, I have been looking at you knives, there are no prices on your website though?
 
Yeah sorry we dont put prices on our site as the currency rate changes daily and we have alot our customers here and overseas.

If you would like a price on any knives please feel free to email me.

Thanks

Bel

www.JensenEliteBlades.com
 
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