Survival !!

D

Doug Wilson

Joined
Jul 18, 2003
Messages
42
I am building a small, lightweight survival kit which will be based around a large knife. The kit will weigh 5 pounds max. I'm trying to pick one of the 2 following knives as the basis:

A new Gerber BMF not a sawback, complete or..
A new Kershaw sawback survival knife, complete

Which one guys??

Also, suggestions for the rest of the kit??
 
Do yourself a favor - get a good folding saw, Buck, Gerber/Fiskars, etc. And a good strong fixed blade such as one from Becker or Swamp Rat. Avoid sawbacked knives at all costs, generally they wont saw, and all they are good at is getting hung up on stuff.

Check out www.donrearic.com he has some excellent survival articles there, and also check out www.equipped.org one of the very best survival sites around.
 
Well, not to run down your choices, but I honestly wouldn't want either. The BMF isn't available any more, and I can't recall hearing much good about it. I'm not familiar with the Kershaw, but I'm also not a big fan of sawbacks in general. Have you checked out the Camillus Becker line? Having handled these I think any of them would make an excellent addition to any survival kit. Fallkniven also makes good survival knives for a reasonable price, and Swamp Rat, Ontario, Ka-Bar; the list goes on, maybe others can make more suggestions. For the rest of the kit, you definitely want a fire starter of some type, fishing line and hooks, water purification tablets, a small sharpening stone (diamond preferably), and a multi tool or a SAK. www.hoodswoods.com and www.jungletraining.com may give you some more info as well. Good luck with your kit, I hope this has been helpful.
 
Get yourself either a Camillus/Becker BK-9 Combat Bowie, or if you need something smaller; the BK-7 Combat Utility...Or get one of each. These are excellent knives, at excellent prices, and make great "survival kit knives".
 
I really appreciate your help. I guess I didn't make it clear that I already own both of them, as well as some other large fixed blade knives.

I, too, am skeptical about the sawbacks. I was sort of planning on including a heavy wire-saw in the kit. Both the knives have compasses and diamond sharpeners in them. I was also thinking about a piece of netting - maybe 5 feet by 4 feet to use for catching fish. I know it's not legal, but I think it can be justified if one's life is in danger, and it doesn't weigh much.

I'm retired and on a fixed (low) income, so I kinda need to stick with the knives I already have. Can't afford much new stuff, anymore.

Thank you,again from... Doug
 
get a cs SRK second, tough,sharp and cheap you can buy a few for the price of some BIG NAME overhyped magic steel knife :p
 
get a wire saw and a big knife. Swamp Rat or Becker like others said.
don't forget bug spray!
 
I'd go with the BMF (gotta love it) and a wire saw as well. Check out the previously mentioned survival sites. Great equipment articles. I'd ditch the net and make up a kit using expert advice. A firstarter and a bic, etc. If you're a cheap bastid like me, half the fun is streching a nickel. You have two thirds of a lifetime of ingenuity in you just waiting to be used. 5lbs should get you outta Dodge and back. Make a walking stick, just for grins...
 
If you want to use a sawback knife, use it! I own several sawback knives, all customs that actually do cut. Not all sawtooth knives are cr@p. If you don't want to go into the woods looking like a Christmas tree with all of your gadgets weighing you down, and hanging off your body, go with the sawback knife. The saws on these knives are not for cutting down trees as many people seem to think, but for working bone, wood tools, making traps, and scoring branches to be snapped. Sawback knives are no replacement for a good folding saw, but they definitely have a place.

If you are putting together a lightweight survival kit, choose items that can have more than one function. But if you're giving yourself a 5 pound limit, more like a bug out bag, have fun with it. There's tons of great advice on this forum.

Surviving in the wilderness is not a planned activity. If you read true stories, it's usually people who got lost, a plane crash, injury, or other breakdown of some sort. I don't think anyone who was lost had a saw, an axe, food, water, backpack, shelter, compass, etc. All they had on them was whatever was on their body. There was a downed pilot in the Alaskan wilderness who's plane sank in a lake. All he had on him was a lighter and a Leatherman tool. With his knowledge and what he had in his pockets, he was able to survive over a week in the bush before being rescued.

If I got myself into an accident, and I couldn't get to my bug out bag, I'd only have the knife on my belt, when you boil it down, that's it. What one thing do you want on your belt if something bad goes down?
 
Between the two knives you mentioned, I would take the old Kershaw knife.
 
I'm really glad I found this site - you guys really have a wealth of knowledge. I will turn to y'all more as I put my little kit together. I also have a big Puma Bowie with stag scales - it's super sharp and very thick bladed. I'm just not sure I'd want to hide it in a survival kit. Another big one I have is a sawback Aitor Jungle King I, but I'm not sure of its' abilities (durability) in a survival situation.

I think the idea of a Bic lighter or 2 is good, and I was thinking maybe 3 of the aluminized survival blankets and a multi-tool of some kind. Any thoughts on the brand and features needed in the multi-tool?

Thanks again from... Doug
 
Day in and day out I carry a Gerber multiplier on my belt. This thing has saved me miles of walking. Instead of seeing something that needs a screw tightened and then having to walk all the way to the other end of our very large building,to get a proper screw driver, I just whip out the multiplier and fix it up. If I was going to put a multi tool in my survival kit, a Gerber is what it would be. I have a Leatherman but it is on the shelf in the safe with a lot of other stuff that I don't use much.
 
Originally posted by PlaceKnives
If I got myself into an accident, and I couldn't get to my bug out bag, I'd only have the knife on my belt, when you boil it down, that's it. What one thing do you want on your belt if something bad goes down?
Click to expand...
Does anyone know anyone who was in a survival situation and happened to have a foot long survival knife with built-in cord, compass and fish hook? I'd love to hear of someone, but you never do. That boulder-pinned hiker in the news used a Leatherman knock-off to save his sorry self.
 
I've never heard of anyone in a survival situation that had the right equipment. I guess if you had everything you needed they'd call it "camping".

I saw a show on T.V. where this guy and his buddy went hiking in a huge forest. The one guy thought he knew where this lake was, so he went off on his own in the direction he thought the lake was. Well, he never found the lake and ended up walking in circles for hours. The hours turned into days. He ended up getting hurt trying to climb an impossibly steep hill, and for the next few days he wandered around hallucinating due to his being completely dehydrated. He almost froze to death several nights as well. In all this he lost nearly 40 pounds! This guy had a large backpack on too, must not have had anything useful in it! Rescuers found him from the air, they spotted his bright colored coat that he left lying on the ground.

The host of the show had the guts to say that this guy was an "experienced outdoorsman" and his skills and "outdoors knowledge" saved his life. Can you believe that? This is an example of a guy who basically survived by mistake.
 
regarding saws, my experience is that a good lightweight folding saw will serve you a lot better than a sawback knife (duh), but somewhat surprisingly it is much easier to use than a wire saw. I found using a much-hyped wire saw when camping to be much more tiring than I expected. Normally that's no big deal, but in an actual survival situation where you are trying to conserve calories and maintain good morale, this can be very significant. But check the practical tactical or survival forums, they might totally disagree on this.
 
Welcome to Bladeforums! We have a Wilderness & Survival Skills forum here, in the Tactics & Training section, and you might want to have a look at that forum too, especially for the non-knife items in your kit.
 
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