Survival v. Bushcraft - What is the difference?

Don't think many Moras have a 1/8. The Skookum does, but it's just one person's take on Kochanski's ideal knife. And even 4" is starting to push the too long category.
 
That's the Skookum though. For most of his life and in his writings he described a traditional Mora blade. As long as it stands up to being driven into a tree and stood on it's tough enough according to the definition, and he's showed that with Moras.

The more the knife is a prybar, the less well it will cut. So it's a tradeoff, the 1/8" blades are more on the prybar side of things. Getting caught up in the exact dimensions is the wrong way to interpret what Kochanski says, the survival knife for him is more of a general size within the traditional puukko range. If it's thicker then it can act as a prybar, which is good so long as it cuts nearly as well. If it is thinner it will cut better, which is fine so long as it meets the prybar requirement - which really isn't that demanding. He mentions somewhere that this thickness of the Skookum is ideal when facing more demanding survival situations, like in airplane crashes when you may have to use high prying operations.

In most cases the difference between 3/32" and 1/8" is irrelevant for strength, while the 3/32" will cut much better. Some puukkos will get up to 3/16", but the type of grind they have is quite a bit different and still works well for carving, making up for the thickness.

To bring it back to the thread question, it's a matter of what you need when you really need it. Will you really need the thickness? Or will you need the cutting ability? That's where the tradeoff and dimensions come in. If you need the cutting ability and not so much the prybar, you can go with a shorter and thinner knife, like three fingers length and 5/64". As he shows, there are always wooden wedges.
 
Chignecto Woodsman said:
there are always wooden wedges.
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Oh come on, we all know that wooden wedges don't work. That's why everyone is so obsessed with a knifes ability to be batoned. It is the one true way to split wood in a survival situation. Forget that nonsense about finding small diameter dead standing wood. You need to take large wet dead fall and split it with your belt knife. It's the one true way to get it done.

I mean look at this example of a wooden wedge hardly putting a dent in this log.

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Pathetic I know.
 
Chignecto Woodsman said:
The more the knife is a prybar, the less well it will cut. So it's a tradeoff, the 1/8" blades are more on the prybar side of things. <snip>

In most cases the difference between 3/32" and 1/8" is irrelevant for strength, while the 3/32" will cut much better. <snip>

To bring it back to the thread question, it's a matter of what you need when you really need it. Will you really need the thickness? Or will you need the cutting ability? That's where the tradeoff and dimensions come in. If you need the cutting ability and not so much the prybar, you can go with a shorter and thinner knife, like three fingers length and 5/64". As he shows, there are always wooden wedges.
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I don't consider 1/8" steel stock a prybar. But if you are comparing it to a SAK or traditional slippie, then it seems rather prybar-ish. I am not all hung up on fixed blades for outdoor use as 90% of what I cut is done with a 111mm SAK including in the woods. That paired with a "prybar" is not such a bad combination. But you have to be willing to carry it on the trail. So, the question comes down to what you are willing to carry and I lean toward the 1/8" steel stock for a fixed blade for general use as it is much stronger than a SAK but still cuts nicely.

10 years ago, the rage was 1/4" stock survival knives and people began to come to their senses.... weight, length, and so forth. I bought those things too. Most of the bushcraft knives you see now are thinner stock in general. They staddle the fence between prybar and finesse knife. But I still get big eyed with big knives, most of which I never use.

My only bushcraft styled knife (spear point) is a Condor Bushlore. I tend to prefer a trailing point for most things including hunting.
 
Well, what is an sak, 5/64" tapered down to 1/16"? Looks something like that. That still leaves two measurements until 1/8", and as far as I know 3/32" and 7/64" have been the most common Mora sizes for a long time. I think only the new Mora Survival Black, or whatever it is, is 1/8". And of course the Skookum was made in this era of thick knives, so relatively speaking 1/8" and 5/32" knives are quite thick compared to the Moras.

For Kochanski, the condition of a prybar, in terms of a survival knife, is met when you can pound the knife into a tree an inch and a half and stand on the handle. It may be an arbitrary test, but that's what it is; maybe it's based on the weight of the individual. Either way the Mora passes the test.

The idea was that it was a full-tang knife, and this concept of 'full-tang' has been bastardised as well. Full-tang simply meant all the way to the end of the handle, and a hidden tang with a peened end met this condition. Seems the Mears knife began this necessity of a full non-hidden tang, and ever since the knives have been a cross between the 1/4" wrecking bars and the 1/8" prybars. Most sacrifice finesse cutting for the durability, even though many have shown that knives under 1/8" can easily handle being used as a prybar.

It is preference, to a certain degree, I was just pointing out that the ideal survival knife in Kochanski's writings is not a set standard of lengths and thickness. It is a general set of rules, or a guide, and the Skookum is just one interpretation. The rush for the sales door when an expert issues a standardised knife is what has led to so many people swearing by knives that are mediocre at best, and their becoming a standard to follow. The Skookum was never given such publicity as the other expert knives were, but still we see how it becomes a new standard and people don't think critically about their own needs, they just buy the standard issue.

Personally, I see batonning as little more than a last resort, and in those circumstances it is only a requirement of the knife to start the split in the wood. And given the rarity of such an occurrence it seems a huge mistake to sacrifice cutting performance for a task which will only ever take up a minuscule amount of your skill and efforts. A 3" to 3-3/4" knife, 5/64" to 3/32" thick, is more than enough in my estimation, as it will do every job better apart from the few survival tasks which may never arise.

SAK and another knife is fine, but the sak can be lost much easier than a belt or neck knife. It is also a bit more of a risk in a survival situation - it can close on a finger or break.
 
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"Thick" is just an opinion, not objective reality. Hence: "I'm thinking that Mr, K's definition of a "sharpened pry bar" may be a bit different than the one the tactical crowed uses."

We have no final arbiter of correctness here.

Mors helped design the Skookem, was wearing it in the video, and used it in the video. We are all free to decide what that means in the here and now.

Lots of people get the 'job" done with a wide range of knives, Advocating for you opinion is just fine. Judging others . . . . . .

FLASH: Water is wet.
 
jdm61 said:
I had never heard of that place. It has apparently become the new home venue for Rich Whiteley, a local musician that used to work for my dad years ago. Are you playing, working the board or something more sinister? LOL
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I'll be on drums with Bobby Lee Rodgers.
 
Hacked said:
Forget that nonsense about finding small diameter dead standing wood.
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Crazy talk. Even more nonsensical would be finding wood relatively free of knots. Of course we need to brutally force our knives through the most knotty, twisted wood we can possibly find! It has become de rigueur.

Of course we go hey diddle diddle, right through the middle. It would be utterly silly to take off sections around the outside, working our way in. Yup, far too silly to even contemplate is working with the material by splitting where it most easily releases.

And who could forget the total necessity of pushing down on the handle with all of our strength?? No way that would act as force on a fulcrum that, combined with the dynamic load of a club being whacked on the tip of the knife, creates enough force to eventually break every knife so abused. Complete foolishness to think that.

Speaking of the tip, let us not forget just how vital it is to choose wood with a diameter nearly the length of our blade. Figment of people's imagination that the longer the lever the more force generated from the same input. Thus using wood with a diameter equal to or less than half the length of the blade must be another nonsensical concept. Could not possibly hold water.

[sarcasm mode off]

The real issue of batoning with a knife isn't so much that it is abuse of a tool not made for that job, nor that it encourages unnecessarily thick knives in order to withstand what knives are not meant to. (And it does do both of those.) No the real issue is that it encourages mindless, thoughtless stupidity in the selection of tools and materials and their application.

Why be the least we can be? There was a time within my lifetime when knowledge, skill and wisdom were prized. Hopefully such times will come again

I mean look at this example of a wooden wedge hardly putting a dent in this log. Pathetic I know.
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Well played sir, well played. I have made wooden wedges that lasted several years. I heated with wood so yeah, they saw some use.
 
Chignecto Woodsman said:
That's the Skookum though. For most of his life and in his writings he described a traditional Mora blade. As long as it stands up to being driven into a tree and stood on it's tough enough according to the definition, and he's showed that with Moras.

The more the knife is a prybar, the less well it will cut. So it's a tradeoff, the 1/8" blades are more on the prybar side of things. Getting caught up in the exact dimensions is the wrong way to interpret what Kochanski says, the survival knife for him is more of a general size within the traditional puukko range. If it's thicker then it can act as a prybar, which is good so long as it cuts nearly as well. If it is thinner it will cut better, which is fine so long as it meets the prybar requirement - which really isn't that demanding. He mentions somewhere that this thickness of the Skookum is ideal when facing more demanding survival situations, like in airplane crashes when you may have to use high prying operations.

In most cases the difference between 3/32" and 1/8" is irrelevant for strength, while the 3/32" will cut much better. Some puukkos will get up to 3/16", but the type of grind they have is quite a bit different and still works well for carving, making up for the thickness.

To bring it back to the thread question, it's a matter of what you need when you really need it. Will you really need the thickness? Or will you need the cutting ability? That's where the tradeoff and dimensions come in. If you need the cutting ability and not so much the prybar, you can go with a shorter and thinner knife, like three fingers length and 5/64". As he shows, there are always wooden wedges.
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Chignecto Woodsman said:
Well, what is an sak, 5/64" tapered down to 1/16"? Looks something like that. That still leaves two measurements until 1/8", and as far as I know 3/32" and 7/64" have been the most common Mora sizes for a long time. I think only the new Mora Survival Black, or whatever it is, is 1/8". And of course the Skookum was made in this era of thick knives, so relatively speaking 1/8" and 5/32" knives are quite thick compared to the Moras.

For Kochanski, the condition of a prybar, in terms of a survival knife, is met when you can pound the knife into a tree an inch and a half and stand on the handle. It may be an arbitrary test, but that's what it is; maybe it's based on the weight of the individual. Either way the Mora passes the test.

The idea was that it was a full-tang knife, and this concept of 'full-tang' has been bastardised as well. Full-tang simply meant all the way to the end of the handle, and a hidden tang with a peened end met this condition. Seems the Mears knife began this necessity of a full non-hidden tang, and ever since the knives have been a cross between the 1/4" wrecking bars and the 1/8" prybars. Most sacrifice finesse cutting for the durability, even though many have shown that knives under 1/8" can easily handle being used as a prybar.

It is preference, to a certain degree, I was just pointing out that the ideal survival knife in Kochanski's writings is not a set standard of lengths and thickness. It is a general set of rules, or a guide, and the Skookum is just one interpretation. The rush for the sales door when an expert issues a standardised knife is what has led to so many people swearing by knives that are mediocre at best, and their becoming a standard to follow. The Skookum was never given such publicity as the other expert knives were, but still we see how it becomes a new standard and people don't think critically about their own needs, they just buy the standard issue.

Personally, I see batonning as little more than a last resort, and in those circumstances it is only a requirement of the knife to start the split in the wood. And given the rarity of such an occurrence it seems a huge mistake to sacrifice cutting performance for a task which will only ever take up a minuscule amount of your skill and efforts. A 3" to 3-3/4" knife, 5/64" to 3/32" thick, is more than enough in my estimation, as it will do every job better apart from the few survival tasks which may never arise.

SAK and another knife is fine, but the sak can be lost much easier than a belt or neck knife. It is also a bit more of a risk in a survival situation - it can close on a finger or break.
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Finally someone gets it!! So much of the silliness in "bushcrafting" these days seems to come from people blindly following without any real understanding.

Mors is an especially easy one to do that with. He drops all kinds of tidbits and one liners that we can fill a winter with extrapolations from and then a summer with experimentations upon. For a lifelong instructor, he all too often haphazardly leaves whole continents of information implied, rather than stated.

Huge difference when we come from an activity such as backpacking, homesteading, etc then learn various skills in order to cover niches we need filled vs merely learning skills because we think they are cool. Most of the silliness obviously stems from the latter.
 
duxdawg said:
Huge difference when we come from an activity such as backpacking, homesteading, etc then learn various skills in order to cover niches we need filled vs merely learning skills because we think they are cool. Most of the silliness obviously stems from the latter.
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Most of the silliness stems from the internet.
And just about ALL the judgement sure does; I've never seen such nitpicking about every little thing in real life.
 
Chignecto Woodsman said:
Well, what is an sak, 5/64" tapered down to 1/16"? Looks something like that. That still leaves two measurements until 1/8", and as far as I know 3/32" and 7/64" have been the most common Mora sizes for a long time. I think only the new Mora Survival Black, or whatever it is, is 1/8". And of course the Skookum was made in this era of thick knives, so relatively speaking 1/8" and 5/32" knives are quite thick compared to the Moras.

For Kochanski, the condition of a prybar, in terms of a survival knife, is met when you can pound the knife into a tree an inch and a half and stand on the handle. It may be an arbitrary test, but that's what it is; maybe it's based on the weight of the individual. Either way the Mora passes the test.

The idea was that it was a full-tang knife, and this concept of 'full-tang' has been bastardised as well. Full-tang simply meant all the way to the end of the handle, and a hidden tang with a peened end met this condition. Seems the Mears knife began this necessity of a full non-hidden tang, and ever since the knives have been a cross between the 1/4" wrecking bars and the 1/8" prybars. Most sacrifice finesse cutting for the durability, even though many have shown that knives under 1/8" can easily handle being used as a prybar.

It is preference, to a certain degree, I was just pointing out that the ideal survival knife in Kochanski's writings is not a set standard of lengths and thickness. It is a general set of rules, or a guide, and the Skookum is just one interpretation. The rush for the sales door when an expert issues a standardised knife is what has led to so many people swearing by knives that are mediocre at best, and their becoming a standard to follow. The Skookum was never given such publicity as the other expert knives were, but still we see how it becomes a new standard and people don't think critically about their own needs, they just buy the standard issue.

Personally, I see batonning as little more than a last resort, and in those circumstances it is only a requirement of the knife to start the split in the wood. And given the rarity of such an occurrence it seems a huge mistake to sacrifice cutting performance for a task which will only ever take up a minuscule amount of your skill and efforts. A 3" to 3-3/4" knife, 5/64" to 3/32" thick, is more than enough in my estimation, as it will do every job better apart from the few survival tasks which may never arise.

SAK and another knife is fine, but the sak can be lost much easier than a belt or neck knife. It is also a bit more of a risk in a survival situation - it can close on a finger or break.
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Gee wizz, maybe I just something a little bit more substantial in the woods than a typical Mora. I m no fan of 1/4" thick knives for woods use. But my first "survival" knives were in fact 1/4" thick--namely a EK Commando bowie and Randall Model 15. They are too thick for me now. One of my favorite woods knives is a Blackjack 125 which (OMG) doesn't even have a full thickness tang. I am not a big Mora user and seldom carry one with me for anything. Don't care what Mr. K's view of a pry bar is really. I do just fine with a BK-15 or something similar with a trailing point.
 
Telling people on the other side of a matter of opinion, like Mors Kochanski, Lofty Wiseman, and Ray Mears who are on the other side of your denunciation of batoning per se, that they guilty of "mindless, thoughtless stupidity" may not be convincing to them - or many others.
 
To be clear I don't disapprove of batoning. I was simply making light of how imperative it is made out to be in so many knife reviews and so on.

12748502345_848329ca2e_k.jpg
 
Now I know that Moras are very serviceable blades at a more that fair price, but has anyone ever wondered if they chose the thickness of their steel because it is the best for the job or because they are making a very cheap knife AND some of those steels the use like 12C27 are kind hard to find in thicker stock? ;)
 
22-rimfire said:
Gee wizz, maybe I just something a little bit more substantial in the woods than a typical Mora. I m no fan of 1/4" thick knives for woods use. But my first "survival" knives were in fact 1/4" thick--namely a EK Commando bowie and Randall Model 15. They are too thick for me now. One of my favorite woods knives is a Blackjack 125 which (OMG) doesn't even have a full thickness tang. I am not a big Mora user and seldom carry one with me for anything. Don't care what Mr. K's view of a pry bar is really. I do just fine with a BK-15 or something similar with a trailing point.
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To clarify, the discussion was in regards to whether or not the Skookum has the ideal survival knife dimensions, and if these were in fact Mors Kochanski's choices. There are tradeoffs in thickness, length, and width for a blade in terms of how well it will cut.

If you're from Tennessee it's a whole other story. I won't claim to know much of anything about the woods there, other than it being hardwoods, so boreal conditions don't really apply. I have to guess that dead branches on the lower parts of trees is nowhere near that of spruce; that is how the hardwoods are here anyways. I've said before how the Southern US tends to favour the bigger knives, and I'm guessing this has something to do with needing to chop - either to get dry wood or to hack at undergrowth.

What I was saying is that thicker knives aren't always bad, just that they shouldn't be chosen based on a task one rarely performs. If you have to perform some task frequently that begs a thicker and longer blade, then it may be a mistake to go with a Mora. Similar thing with Gransfors axes, they're not the best in hardwood-dominant regions.

It can be difficult to apply theory across regions while at the same time discussing the specifics of one tool. I suppose some irregularities have even developed in knives as an attempt to be good cross-region knives.
 
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Excellent. Have you been to St Pete before? The downtown has become kind of a beer heaven. A number of microbreweries and more every day it would seem and they they just opened a branch office of the Hofbrauhaus in time for Oktoberfest.
Brian Jones said:
I'll be on drums with Bobby Lee Rodgers.
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