the right knife

E

escape315

Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
26
i need to buy a good knife. me and 2 of my friends are really into adventures in the woods and a couple weeks ago we found a really sketchy site on the trails we hike, we've been investigating around it on weekends, leaving as early in the morning as we can and aiming to get home by dark, sometimes we stay the night just because we discover that the sun is setting and we have no clue where the hell we are. the only knife we have between the 3 of us is my butterfly knife, which is fun to play with but its not very practical. i need a decent quality folder that's not too expensive...
 
For the wilderness, I prefer a fixed blade knife. There are plenty of them available the are affordable.
 
I gotta agree on a fixed blade but for a very small amout of money(assuming that is an issue), you would have a hard time beating a Swiss Army Knife(no fakes please) and an iexpensive hatchet. I bet with good search skills one could come up with a SAK and hatchet for around $30. Of course a nice fixed blade could be had by getting a nice small kitchen knife at the local store and making a sheath at home. Sure it isn't a custom or even high end factory blade,but it will do A LOT of cutting for sure. As to other choices Kabars,Ontarios,and Camillus knives pop up on the radar as a lot of knife for the money spent. Let us know if money is a big concern as that would affect recomendations :)
 
One standard in bargain outdoor knives are MORA fixed blades. Lots of cutting ability for bery, bery few bucks. :D
 
Yeah, the range of "inexpensive" would be helpful. That being said, for less than $20 bucks I picked a Gerber Gator with a retractable saw. It's nothing great, but it's better than nothing. .
 
If you can get a Cold Steel Special Projects catalog they have factory seconds for sale for a good price. There is nother structurally wrong with the knives mostly just fit and finish problems but some times you can get a $200.00 or $300.00 knife for $40.00 or $50.00. Cold steel makes a good blade. Some of the other companies do factory seconds as well. Just look around. Also, I've found some really good stuff in Pawn shops for next to nothing. Also, Anza knives, sometimes they don't look like much but they are tuff as they come, easy to sharpen and hold an edge for a good while. I've seen some of the nicer ones up in the $100.00 to $200.00 range but most go for $25.00 to $50.00 new. http://www.anzaknives.com/ Hope this helps.

Ric
 
Like most folks here I'd recommend a fixed blade over a folder also. If you've got to have a folder for your only knife, though, I'd give some consideration to the Victorinox Trailmaster.

Fixed blades: Don't forget Beckers - for my money they're one of the best inexpensive knives around.
 
If you want a good knife I would choose one of the carbon steel moras I've had to many folders fail in the bush to think much of them and they were brand name stuff but I have never had one of the moras fail and the 3 inch will slide in your pocket to
 
Escape315, Welcome to Bladeforums!

I concur with the recommendations to go with a fixed-blade knife, as opposed to a folder. While there are sturdy folders on the market, they are NOT cheap. Very economical fixed-blade knives OTOH are easily found.

Cold Steel Bushman or Mini-Bushman are $15 and $11 respectively at the link below. I recommend the larger 7-inch bladed Bushman.
http://www.wholesalehunter.com/product/coldstee/colddes/bushman.htm

They are one-piece rolled-handle construction with no joint between the blade and handle. While I think the Mora knives are much better pure cutters by a bunch, the sturdier CS Bushman will be more forgiving of poor technique due to deteriorated motor skills (easy to do being tired and/or cold getting caught on an unexpected bivouac) or when used to dig/pry. With little imagination, the handle can be used to store emergency goodies like firestarter, Potable-Aqua water purification tablets, Ziploc bag water container, etc.

--------------
Bushman

Weight: 10.1oz
Blade Thickness: 3/32"
Blade Length: 7"
Steel: SK-5 High Carbon
Overall Length: 12 3/4"
--------------
Mini Bushman

Weight: 7.6oz
Blade Thickness: 2.5mm
Blade Length: 4 3/4"
Steel: SK-5 High Carbon
Overall Length: 9 1/8"
--------------

For dirt cheap (and I am dirt cheap! ;) ) try to find a good quality kitchen knife as Bill recommended, but at a thrift store like Salvation Army, Goodwill, Deseret Industries, St Vincent de Paul, etc. for literally a couple dollars. Garage/yard/moving/estate sales are another source for dirt cheap knives. Flea markets and auctions can be good as well.

If money is less of an issue and you simply want a more indestructible knife, there are lots of good choices among the commercial knifemakers. Check out Swamp Rat Knive Works blades (about $65-$150), Becker knives ($45-$70), Busse Combat Knives (check the secondary market for the Busse Basic modified-INFI steel models at about $120-$200 or the regular Combat Grade models in INFI steel at about $100-$1,000+ depending on size & rarity of model), Fehrman Knives ($100-$350).

For customs, have Mr Siegle make you one of his medium-size (about 8" blade) Hoodlum II knives. Super camp knife, super nice guy to deal with! :D Use the "search" button at the top of the page to find info/pics of it.

Check out the list of recommendations I made in the link below, in ascending order of price:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=247653

(edited to add) Saws: If your "secret area" demands working wood that is thick enough to need chopping beyond the CS Bushman's abilities (and it is NO kind of chopper), rather than going to a heavier chopping knife, consider the light weight combination of the Bushman and a Japanese style folding pruning saw with about a 10" blade on it. The teeth on a Japanese saw are pointing back toward the handle, so your cutting stroke is as you are pulling the saw back toward yourself. This is opposite of traditional European/American handsaws with which your cutting stroke is as you push the saw away from your body.

Be sure to get a pruning saw, not a regular woodworking saw. The shallow gullets (spaces between the teeth) and the tooth geometry of regular woodworking saws make them lousy performers on the often green or punky-surfaced wood you will work with in the forest. Pruning saws OTOH have very deep gullets and coarse teeth that have been specifically designed to handle green wood.

Folding pruning saws with blades in the 7- to 16-inch range can be easily found for about $15-$30 at Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, hardware stores, garden shops, etc. Their folding nature makes them super-easy to stick in your pack, or even in a pocket. Most of these pruning saws have large lanyard holes, so it's easy to keep them with you. Corona makes a decent pruning saw that is widely available in that $20 range. Be aware that Corona makes a couple different grades of folding pruning saws. Be sure to get ones with stainless steel blades that have the Japanese "cut on the pull stroke" teeth on them.

I recommend saws with blades in the 10" range as a good compromise between being large enough to handle any wood you will need for outdoors work and ease of carry. The wood you will typically be working will be 4" and under. You are not building a log cabin so won't need large logs and, as Cliff Stamp points out, handling long larger logs on uneven terrain is awkward and difficult. That large a log isn't needed for making shelters.

My favorite folding pruning saw is from Tashiro Hardware for about $30. While it is more expensive, it offers the valuable ability to adjust the blade-to-handle angle. Some of the comments in the links below explain why this is important.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195322
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249653
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268425
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118353
 
i'll check those out. fixed blades work too, i just wanna make sure i dont accidentally trip and stab myself with it. as far as the $$ mi hoping to find something in the $30 ish range or less
 
If you want to be well fitted out there is three different knives you can carry for less than a fifty dollar investment.

A 12 inch Ontario machete, about 15.00$
A More bladed Frosts knife from Sweden, with the carbon laminated blade-about10.00$
A Victorinox soldier-about 15.00$

All can be had from Smoky Mountain Knifeworks, contact Eknifeworks.com.

This will give you a three layer tool base that will handle any situation you find yourself in. Its worked for me for the past fourty years.
 
Get a fixed blade, and get a Mora. 9$, 60+ RC, lightweight, cuts like hell, simple design and tough enough for batoning... can't go wrong with them. Buy 3 of them.

Cheers,

David
 
I have to agree with eveyone else, for the money you cant beat the mora knives.
 
I would suggest a Victorinox One Hand Trekker (AKA Trailmaster).

If you are also looking for a low cost fixed blade, (depending on the size that you want), I would suggest a Camillus Arclite, a Cold Steel Bushman, Frosts Mora Swedish Army knife or Mora Clipper.

If you really need to clear brush or cut wood, I would recommend an Ontario D guard machete and a Gerber folding Sport saw.



- Frank
 
I have to say a benchmade from their red line. They make some nice knives and now that they arent all made in america some are in your price range, i think.
 
The machete, Mora & SAK combo referenced above would definately be your best bet. However, if you are uncomfotable with carrying 3 different implements, you could go the 'one survival knife' route...

Elsewhere on the forums, someone posted that Cheaper than dirt has the Cold Steel SRK for about $42.00. You could attach a pouch to the sheath with items such as a flashlight, matches, etc...
 
I'll second buying a japanese-style pruning saw over a hatchet. It's lighter, cheaper to buy quality (yeah, you can get a $5 hatchet, but you get what you pay for), safer to use, and frequently faster.

I've used a Silky folding saw that I've been quite happy with, and you can find them easily online.

Now, on a more "skill related" note, I would seriously advise you got get a compass and spend some time figuring out how to use the thing. You said "...sometimes we stay the night just because we discover that the sun is setting and we have no clue where the hell we are." While that does sound fun, what would happen if you were in this situation, you brought out the knife that we are recommending you get, and the first thing you did was to accidentally cut a big gash in your arm with it that needed medical attention? You've not said anything about any kind of gear you take with you into the woods, but if the only knife you've had on these adventures is a butterfly knife, you probably don't have much in the way of survival gear, nor much in the way of woods knowledge. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want you to stop going into the woods, but I also would hate to hear that you got hurt and/or dead while going into the woods unprepared. Read more here, and go to www.eqipped.org and read. In the interest of not thread-jacking too much, I'm going to start a thread on "dirt cheap survival kits" to see what the folks who know a hell of a lot more than I do can recommend. :)
 
Go to Wal Mart and get an Old Hickory butcher knife for $5.00 or so, then get a SAK and you should be set.
 
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