The Cold Steel San Mai III knives are awfully expensive to be used for things like chopping and batoning. They can do it, but in my opinion you're better off with something like the Ontario Raider Bowie, a heavy and relatively inexpensive knife that you won't feel too badly about roughing up. The Ontario is the closest thing to indestructible that I have. The Ka-Bar Large Heavy Bowie also is a decent outdoor knife, and despite its name, it's strong, light and very durable.
Actually, I have a cheap Frost knock-off of the Smith & Wesson Homeland Security that's a full tang, Chinese tanto with a heavy spine. It cost me about thirteen bucks and my wife uses it for chopping in our yard and she's even used the tip to dig up weeds. At the end of the day, it's covered with dirt, but I always clean, sharpen and oil it, and in the winter I put it in the trunk of our car and use it to break away snow and ice if we get stuck. It's a piece of garbage -- a junk knife in the strictest sense of the word, but if faced with a sudden and unforseen survival situation, this $13 knife would chop and baton, and I could give it to a person who could use it. It also can pry like a tire iron! My point is, why use a beautiful, expensive knife that your children and grandchildren could use when you can use a cheaper, super robust knife for beating a log in half?
The San Mai III knives Cold Steel makes are beautiful, but it's essentially something made for luster and beauty. VG-1 doesn't need panals of polished 420 to protect it from "the rigors of battle" (as Lynn Thompson says). A couple of years ago they were making blades solely of VG-1 and singing its praises for being tough and holding an edge. Since then, they decided to make it their premium steel.
Actually, I have a cheap Frost knock-off of the Smith & Wesson Homeland Security that's a full tang, Chinese tanto with a heavy spine. It cost me about thirteen bucks and my wife uses it for chopping in our yard and she's even used the tip to dig up weeds. At the end of the day, it's covered with dirt, but I always clean, sharpen and oil it, and in the winter I put it in the trunk of our car and use it to break away snow and ice if we get stuck. It's a piece of garbage -- a junk knife in the strictest sense of the word, but if faced with a sudden and unforseen survival situation, this $13 knife would chop and baton, and I could give it to a person who could use it. It also can pry like a tire iron! My point is, why use a beautiful, expensive knife that your children and grandchildren could use when you can use a cheaper, super robust knife for beating a log in half?
The San Mai III knives Cold Steel makes are beautiful, but it's essentially something made for luster and beauty. VG-1 doesn't need panals of polished 420 to protect it from "the rigors of battle" (as Lynn Thompson says). A couple of years ago they were making blades solely of VG-1 and singing its praises for being tough and holding an edge. Since then, they decided to make it their premium steel.
They are available in most hardware stores as far as I know. Just Google 'riggers hatchet' and they will pop up. You've seen a million of them. It is basically a 3" or so blade face with a hammer head on the other side instead of just being a block of steel. The hammer part comes in VERY handy outdoors. I built mine, due to circumstance, but you just buy em ready-made at da Wal Mart.
