The problem with 'survival' knives

Wormil said:
I think if extra thick knives were useful they would have been the norm prior to the 19th century.
Click to expand...

Large knives often were the norm; Kukries, machetes, bolos, parangs and the like have been in use around the world for many centuries, whenever/wherever the technology and resources have made their production possible. By comparison our modern survival choppers are often rather puny. Then again, our forefathers weren't shy about bringing along real purpose made tools or weapons; their goal was to support themselves, rather than to play sport with knives and gadgets.

n2s
 
My idea of a survival scenario is an amalgamation of the guy who told his story of surviving in Bosnia when the country fell and they were trapped in an urban environment with no amenities and people killing and stealing and bartering, including their wives, just to stay alive one more day. Couple that with red dawn where you may need to run in case something like that happens and you end up ambushing others to obtain guns, ammo, and food.

So in my mind the knife you can carry everyday and be quickly accessible while not slowing you down or getting caught on everything but large enough to do most things a knife should do is my idea of a survival knife. Something 4-6 inches with a good steel and comfortable handle and I'll be good. What's more important to me in this case is a good, strong, multi carry sheath that's super comfortable. That ensures I carry my knife everyday without the knife getting in my way and becoming a pain in the ass. In a survival scenario my main goal will be to get and keep a functional firearm, not worrying about batoning wood in the middle of a jungle. I think this situation is far more likely to happen to me than getting caught in the Alaskan wilderness for weeks on end with only a knife.

http://cascadianarms.com/blogs/sitrep/15084713-interview-with-a-bosnian-survivalist
 
Last edited:
Gaston444 said:
In these days of greater leisure time and abundant off-road vehicles, parks and bike paths, I don't find this a particularly useful comment... A bike break-down dropped me in the middle of nowhere, and I wasn't even properly outside urban boundaries... It was a kind of semi-rural industrial wasteland, and temperatures suddenly dropped: I broke into some outlying shed to get out of the wind, and the Randall Model 14 I happened to be carrying meant everything for that, as the small saw I had would have been useless without that first thick plank dug out... I carried the knife strictly for fun, not imagining for a minute it would get used... The point is, you never know what can happen, and it isn't all fantasy: Here's what a sawback hollow handle did for a guy, and the handle was wisely chosen as an ALL PLASTIC design (and yes, that was the actual mystery steel Chinese-made knife used, right down to the funky handle color):

attachment.php


Oh, and if this had broken, then you would have heard of a hiker dead because of the broken knife by his side... He had his arm in the bear's mouth at one point... Good thing he had the good sense to rely on a Chinese all-plastic 6" moulded hollow handle... Gosh, I'd hate to think where a Mora would have gotten him...

Gaston
Click to expand...

Gaston,

As former bike mechanic and long time bike tourer, I would be interested to know what sort of failure you had.

I went coast/coast in the 80s long before a cell phone call for help was possible and still do the occasional remote gravel grind type tour where, again, you can get pretty remote and on your own pretty fast.

I'll be the first to concede that there are bike failures that you just can't prepare for: a tacoed wheel or a fractured frame, for instance. The same is true for cars, skis, snowshoes and lots of other modes of transportation. My approach is a) to carry enough kit to repair common failures while keeping weight under control and b) to pretty much always, always, always have my "10 Essentials" kit with me if I'm remote. I keep it in the back of my car and it goes in my bags on any adventure.

I have this climber's mindset in the frontcountry too. I always have a small backpack near at hand, not on my person all the time but at least in the car. I get some ribbing from my family sometimes but they also rely on it. We went sailing with my bro-in-law on a rented boat yesterday and somebody asked about a first kit. "Dave has one." And I did, along with a knife, multitool, knife, lighter and other basic EDC stuff I keep with me.

I stand by my statement.

IMO, there's a threshold between frontcountry and backcountry. It's hard to see, easy to cross unnoticed and closer than you think. We see it all the time in the northeast. Cyclists on logging roads. XC skiers. People taking ski lifts, trams and railroads to mountain summits and then hiking down. People on short day hikes. Skiers at Tuckermans...

What I see are people without adequate knowledge and gear. I maintain that the more interesting question to ask is, what's in your essentials kit and how does a knife integrate into that?
 
No question that many of us may tend to over think or over plan, but that is what being exposed to the wilderness/camping/hiking/survival kinds of threads does. We say.... that's a good idea. Do it. Another idea pops up, and we do that.

Prior to much exposure to BF, I seldom really paid much attention to preparation other than something to eat and drink on shorter hikes and a knife and a map. Now I carry a first aid kit, about twice the water I used to carry depending on weather, compass, disposable poncho, a stainless cup, flashlight, and of course fire making supplies in addition to camera or any other equipment I might want to have with me for a particular place. A whistle is being added to that list.

IMO, there's a threshold between frontcountry and backcountry. It's hard to see, easy to cross unnoticed and closer than you think.
Click to expand...

There is and it is very difficult to determine where that is. My guess is "cell phone coverage" and being more than an hour from a known road (as in you know the directions and where it goes).
 
My problem with survival knives is why so many are coated dark. Signalling with the sun is a tried and true survival technique.
 
not2sharp said:
Large knives often were the norm; Kukries, machetes, bolos, parangs and the like ..

n2s
Click to expand...


I see what you did there, responding to my comment about blade thickness with examples and commentary on long blades. Those examples are variations of machetes which are typically thin blades. The kukri is probably thicker, I've never owned one so I don't know how thick they are.
 
Historically large knives were the norm for the wilderness/back country. Why? My guess is that it is one of economy of tools, stronger usually (hence not likely to break when you can't replace it easily), and self defense against two and four legged predators. Times have changed a bit, but you still see large knives as the norm in third world countries where cost is a significant factor as well as versatility. One only has to go to Central and South America and see the amazing uses for machetes. But soft woods and soft vegetation tend to be the norm there. In the US, if you are limited to a single machete type blade, you probably want something a bit heavier duty than the typical latin machetes and then you make do with cutting the flexible vegetation with the same blade.
 
Wormil said:
I think if extra thick knives were useful they would have been the norm prior to the 19th century.
Click to expand...

Finding thick steel was harder then than it is today. Even 20 years ago, it wasn't easy to find thick steel pieces. Here is a thick heavy knife from the 19th century.

48206410.jpg
 
Cobalt said:
Finding thick steel was harder then than it is today. Even 20 years ago, it wasn't easy to find thick steel pieces.
Click to expand...

Since before the industrial revolution, they had no trouble cranking out chisels, files, and rasps all of which are typically 1/8-1/4", sometimes thicker. Post industrial revolution, thick steel was not a problem.

Cobalt said:
Even 20 years ago, it wasn't easy to find thick steel pieces.
Click to expand...

????

Cobalt said:
Here is a thick heavy knife from the 19th century.

48206410.jpg
Click to expand...

At 2.8 lbs for a 14" knife it seems ridiculously big. Considering the relatively small tang, the blade would need to be very thick, practically a hatchet. I never said that thick knives didn't exist before today, what I said is that extra thick blades were not the norm, and I'm talking specifically about outdoorsman, hunters, trappers, explorers, people who went into the woods and used their knives for a variety of tasks. I know that as a hunter and fisherman, an extra thick knife would be useless or at least frustrating compared to a normal knife.
 
stabman said:
But there are a bunch of those out there.
Lots of people go for a hike, planning on a three hour tour (cue Gilligan's Island music :D), and bring a couple of granola bars and a liter of water.
Many don't even bring a flashlight, because they plan on being home before dark...but then they get lost.

Most of those folks wouldn't be helped much by a "survival knife" of any sort...
However, if they were thinking about "survival knives", they'd probably also bring a "survival lighter", maybe a "survival water filter", etc.
Click to expand...

A lot of this. The problem with "survival knives" is that people think that they'll all of a sudden be trapped somewhere, and the only way out is to use their knife to pry open their car door, chop down a tree, baton the wood into presto-log-esque proportions, smash it against a flint rock until a blaze of sparks ignites the wood pile, stab an elk to death, skin and "process" said elk, dig a well, chop down more trees to make a cabin.... ad nauseum.

Last "survival" scenario in our neck of the woods:

Buddy of mine takes a fish & wildlife guy up to the headwaters of one of our fishing streams to count the salmon return. The trail through the woods is well marked, as it is used by local fishermen. The two get up to the top of the spawning beds and get the count, turn back, and run out of light.

His wife calls up to tell us that he hasn't returned. We all gather some lights and head into the woods. We find them both standing in the middle of the trail, prepared to wait until morning light to walk out. They're fine, and it's a good laugh as we all walk out.

I don't care what kind of knife they had... how long or thick it is, what kind of super steel it's made of, whether it's Boris74 approved or not... the knife wasn't getting them out of there. A flashlight or a bic lighter would have gotten them back to the truck in a heartbeat.

Never ceases to amaze me how much weight and priority people will assign to a "survival knife". There's about a .01% chance of you needing to chop your way out of a situation or split a cord of firewood. But there's a 100% chance that it will get dark tonight, and a 100% chance that your body will need to be replenished with clean water. Chances are pretty good that you may need a flashlight, a bic lighter or a bottle of water in your pack before you need 4 pounds of Gil Hibben Rambo III abomination.

Baton away, though. Hell, firewood is one of those things that DOES grow on trees.
 
not2sharp said:
Large knives often were the norm; Kukries, machetes, bolos, parangs and the like have been in use around the world for many centuries, whenever/wherever the technology and resources have made their production possible. By comparison our modern survival choppers are often rather puny. Then again, our forefathers weren't shy about bringing along real purpose made tools or weapons; their goal was to support themselves, rather than to play sport with knives and gadgets.

n2s
Click to expand...

Nice post though you forgot the seax and the Hudson Bay knife. The original Bowie was a woods knife too until Bowie realized he needed a weapon instead of a wood chopper.

If you guys hate big knives that's cool. Just don't tell me they don't work because that's just funny. ;)
 
I think there is one thing people seem to leave out of the survival situation Being able to walk in one direction without going in circles. This is real. In the USA if you get lost in the woods you're almost always within a 3 day walk to a paved road. About the only exception would be the NorthWest area, those woods are deep. Of course getting sidetracked in the desert in the middle of summer means you'll be lucky to survive a day if you don't find or have water. A big knife doesn't help. I think there should be less emphasis on knives and more on compasses. It is a reality that some people get lost in the woods and end up walking in a really big circle, if they had a compass they'd be able to keep going in one direction and wander onto a paved road which would eventually lead to a town or house or some kind individual giving them a ride. Being lost in the woods sucks, survival skills are handy, but if someone doesn't have any survival skills and happen to have a compass, they're chances of survival are very good.
 
bt93 said:
I think there is one thing people seem to leave out of the survival situation Being able to walk in one direction without going in circles. This is real. In the USA if you get lost in the woods you're almost always within a 3 day walk to a paved road. About the only exception would be the NorthWest area, those woods are deep. Of course getting sidetracked in the desert in the middle of summer means you'll be lucky to survive a day if you don't find or have water. A big knife doesn't help.
Click to expand...

A French couple and their son were hiking in the White Sands National Park in New Mexico recently. The parents perished, but the son made it after being found by a patrol.

A number of things would have been useful for them...

WATER...

More WATER...

Some extra WATER...

But not a knife, by any stretch of the imagination. A compass, signal mirror, cell phone, or even a parasol with some frilly tassels dangling from the edge would have been more use than a "survival knife" in their scenario.

And the woods are real deep up here in the Northwest, but if you can walk straight, there are a myriad of logging roads and forest service roads that you will encounter 'ere long. Or if you happen to run into Mick Dodge, he'll point you the way into town.
 
I think the large knife vs small knife debate is a bit illogical. I originally pointed out that all survival knives seemed to be assessed on their ability to baton. I then noted that a) I didn't know why you would want to baton wood and b) there were no other 'big knife' tasks in the survival knife tests. Ie no other tests that a medium or small knife had to perform but couldn't. Then, queried if the knife didn't need to baton, what did it need to do? I never said a survival knife needed to be big or small and indeed all evidence in this thread by knowledgeable people suggests it should be medium size!

All the discussion about historic big knives like machetes etc overlooks they are being used for entirely different reasons, like farming or tree felling. (Yes, they do use knnives to fell trees in Asia, they even use machetes to mow lawns, I have seen it)

Lost Vikings thread is funny and I think he nails the concepts and ironies better than my more serious attempt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top