I finally got around to photographing my entire survival knife collection: There's not much, but I have only really restarted my interest in knives this year, the Jereboam bought in 2009 being an oddball purchase at the time. For 12 years previous to that, all I really had was a Spyderco Civilian!
What do I consider a survival knife?: At minimum a knife that has a provision to light a fire! I think a knife that carries small items is pretty much what distinguishes a survival knife: This means it does not necessarily have to be a hollow handle, as fire making can be carried in the sheath. However, an oddball requirement of mine is that the knife has to be carried inside the pants (I find concealment, protection from cold, weather and loss not to be options), and that makes the sheath carry of items troublesome: This is why the hollow handle wins in my mind! Another thing the hollow handle does better than anything else in my opinion is carry pills: No other container does this better actually, because pills are fragile, and larger containers make a lot of noises with them... I don't need pills for my health, but painkillers to help sleep are often an overlooked item...
So far my attempts to find the best survival knife has led to a lot different shapes and sizes: I'm still trying to sort out which I like best, bearing in mind that what I like and what works best are two very different things:
Note the Randall sheath is not modified to improve inside the pant carry, but does OK as is (survival items are in the pouch, in a very strong plastic box, but not waterproofed). The Reeves sheath is mostly unmodified as well, and is much more suited to inside the pants carry, thus the sharpener was added on the side and not the front for this reason (despite appearances, the sharpener mounting is fully rigid and all but indestructible)
Out of the box, the Boker Apparo was the most incredibly dull-edged knife I have ever seen, and was immediately sent to "Razoredgeknives" with the instruction to make a new blade out of this blank stock: The result was amazing, but cost me about 3/4 the price of the knife... It would be very unpleasant to send out a very expensive knife like this, but I have confidence in that company now...
The Randall was brand-new, and sharper, but the next dullest (it could barely slice paper, and not cleanly), and most of all it had the most incredibly dull point I have ever seen on any knife, even far worse than the Apparo: A rounded-tip monstrosity that would not even do cosmetic scratches on a leather jacket (not to mention anything beyond it!)... I couldn't take sending that one in, so I did the work myself: The Randall edge is extremely thin (0.5 mm), and so responds very well to sharpening: The point was quite another matter, but I got that one done without too much cosmetic damage: It took more than a little skill and effort to keep the huge point grinds level and nice-looking, and this kind of work is definitely not for everybody... As is, the knife could
not be used at all... I'm sure this is common in Randalls, because the point looked the same as that of all the others.
The TOPS Hellion was barely useable out of the box, but at 25° per side extremely inefficient at slicing, and, even for chopping, squandered all the weight advantage you carry at your own effort: It did tolerate being taken down to 12-13° per side, although the grind is now very deep (as visible), and almost level with the metal above it(!): The 5160 steel is the easiest steel to sharpen I have ever seen, and has none of the edge-rolling tendencies that cause me so much trouble with 440C (the forged 440B Randall behaves much better than regular stock-removal 440C for some reason, with far less rolling than the Apparo, despite similarly thin edges now: I think this could be due to the forging process). The main Hellion edge was done with a flat stone, but the tanto bevel point required a power tool I made with a drill: A first for me, as doing the point by hand would have been far too time consuming...
To be continued...
The Chris Reeves Jereboam Mk II was the only acceptably sharp knife out of the four, and still has its original edge despite a little bit of use: Its A-2 steel however is widely reported by several sources to hold its edge very poorly, with some edge flattening after a few hundred chops on soft wood, which really is unacceptable: This is why I adapted the sharpener to it as a makeshift solution... I have to sort out how true this poor performance is later...
In order of sharpness now: Apparo (by far): 0.34 mm edge base, Randall: 0.5 mm edge base, TOPS Hellion: 1.87 mm edge base, CR Jereboam: 1.0 mm edge base. The Hellion would desperately need a hollow grind, as I worry the thick edge base means the superb edge it now has will get worse fast with every re-sharpening: Hollow grinds are much superior on thicker-based edges, because they allow you to back into the blade when sharpening...
The Apparo has a Savage-made sheath that turned out very well, but the snaps were weak so I removed them: The leather is so thick, and the huge guard so wedged in it, that it completely tolerates snapless carry (as did the original First Blood knife). I removed the sharpening stone pocket as I felt 440C made sharpening less important: It sharpens poorly but holds an edge extremely well (it is generally much underrated in that regard).
The Hellion had its sheath shortened, and the pocket covers removed (unimportant, as they have an elastic that pinches their openings): I cut off the excess blade insert length, and wrapped the remaining nylon towards the back. It actually rides better than the Reeves now, as the sheath is softer. The two pockets are a huge help, as they allow separating fragile items from tough ones, and this allows keeping them away from the belt pressure point: With the constraints of inside the pant carry, the sheath can still carry a 4" flat diamond sharpener on top of what the capacious Apparo's handle can carry, but only four pills in a plastic bag versus 8 more securely in the handle... The Reeves handle is much longer inside, but still noticeably less capacious than the Apparo...
The Reeves Jereboam is the closest thing to a survival knife I would have designed: Ergonomically, especially including the sheath, there is not one item I would do differently (except for the steel's edge-holding properties!). The Hellion I think would be the most capable, but wastes weight with a full tang, and should have been hollow ground with a thinner edge: I think for survival it is otherwise the best design, because I found the Jereboam really marginal as a chopper, despite a very thick heavy blade, with a thin hollow grind, that boosts its pathetic 1/4 inch balance point to an identical chopping performance to a BK-9!
The Apparo is probably the most versatile knife of the four: Most confortable to carry, and the most features: The thin edge does boost its chopping abilities, but chopping is still a weakness, as its balance point is just behind the guard... I resharpened the thin "Razoredgeknives" edge after some light use, and found 440C, as always, rolls and makes sharpening difficult. I still managed to improve slightly on an amazing edge... I did not use it enough to comment on edge holding, but I think it should be good.
The Randall is a $600 knife in the sheath and handle, but feels like a dime store item in the blade... I attribute some of the uneven blade surfaces to the forging process, which sort of makes it acceptable I suppose... The blade was straight and the grinds even, so at least the basics were there, but the feeling of precision grinds you get in a cheap Seki japan blade is matched by less than 70-80% here... Even the TOPS Hellion felt somewhat more rigorous in its blade grinds, though be warned it hides for some reason a heavily pitted surfaces under that paint... Don't strip it!...
The Randall is advertized as 1/4" stock, and the tang is, but the blade is much thinner: Tang: 6 mm, base of blade: 5.69 mm, flat at start of saw: 5.17 mm, flat at the tip of saw: 4.45 mm: This robs this blade of much needed mass, and the result is a balance point that is at the guard (because of this blade-light feel, don't expect your knife to feel "expensive" when you first hold it)... I really hope this is intentional, or again due to forging, and not me paying $600 for some newbie's training knife... All Randalls are different, and while this is supposed to be "uniqueness", to me it seems more like loose tolerances: I had picked this knife on Ebay because it did look different from all the other similar Model 18 blades I had seen. The blade comes in at 7.4 inches, not 7.5, but it does fill the sheath exactly, so I suppose that is ok... That no-point point was not funny however...
For all its flaws, the Randall has an edge nearly as thin as the "re-built" Apparo, and this edge proved easier to work with despite much heavier work done on it by me, when compared to my work on the Apparo (due to the Randall's ease of edge-taking with no edge rolling): I attribute this to either the heat-treat or the forging, since they have nearly the exact same steel to start with... Whatever the case may be, this combination makes it the best edge, and thus in theory my best knife...
I should have gone for a Model 18, especially given this thread(!), but what I saw of a broken Model 18's tang, barely 3/4" with no hole, or any kind of locking feature, did not inspire confidence (neither did the silver soldering)... I did not even know the 14 could have an 18 blade, so when I saw it I decided to use the stone pouch for storage instead: The correct-size plastic box was cut out from a larger one (holding various hardware fixtures in separate compartments)...
I'll go in greater detail later on what I put in each knife. I do plan to test/use some of them, but I loathe to use edges I worked on: Edges I paid, no problem!
Gaston
