What brand of bushknife is this?

Joined
Dec 23, 2021
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I've been watching this Australian YouTube outdoorsmen for a while now and was wondering what bushknife he uses. Any ideas?

I'm planning some backcountry trips and need something that can take a beating. Suggestions?

Thanks
-WD
 
If you’ll be backpacking for a few days at least, and need to sharpen in the field, I recommend:

- no holes
- no recurve
- some chrome in the steel, “semi-stainless”, like Busse Infi, 3V, Cruwear, A2, or similar. Or go for AEB-L (stainless but very tough)

Lots of robust knives like this available, depending on your budget: Bradford, BRK, Busse, CPK, etc. Also, check out the Knife Maker section in our Exchange.
 
Can you link the actual video? I'm not going to watch hours of video, especially after catching him trying to start a drill fire with his bare hands and having trouble opening a pumpkin.

Seeing that you live in WA, may I suggest that you take a look at Karamat Wilderness Ways, which teaches survival & outdoors skills in Alberta nearby. https://www.youtube.com/c/Karamat/featured?app=desktop
One of the founders, Mors Kochanski is the "real deal" in survival training, and he was one of the first, if not first to coin "bushcraft".
Plenty of real knife skills training as well.
 
Wow! Thank you so much! I don’t have a budget bc I am selling some collectibles to purchase but am looking for a fixed steel 4-6” blade and or a machete.

The larger wouldn’t be edc obviously but for wilderness training and remote backpacking it will come in clutch. The 4-6” would be my go to and hope to split tree limbs with the use of a rock on the hilt, fillet meat, protection, and cooking. In the end I’m hoping to get one utility knife because I will be pairing it with a hand saw. I live in the US so looking forward to some trekking throughout Washington state and PNW. Busse looks spot on! Thank you so much for the suggestion y’all. These all look too notch so I’ll take my time before making a decision. I wasn’t aware of the steel hardness scale so taking some time to learn about that as well. Do you all recommend AUS 8a for a something of this nature. Sorry to open so vaguely. What a cool community! Seasons greetings btw!
I would kind of let all this pass until you said you intended to "trek" through Washington state (my home) What makes you think you need a big chopping knife at all for backpacking here? With proper gear most get by with something like a swiss army. What we don't need is a green horn chopping up everything in sight around the place you will end up camping.
 
I've got some things to consider, please don't take them as criticism, more questions for you to answer for yourself.

Skill level. Not only your own but the actual level of the people on youtube. Yes there are a lot of really skilled people out there, but you also don't see the bad takes and previous tries. A lot of these skills take a lot of time to learn, and most people are actually really bad at guessing how much of their previous experience made a new thing easy. We are actually really bad at judging our own skill level. But you have to think about what you've done in the past, and what conditions you did it under. In some ways you will have more experience, and some less than the people you are comparing yourself to.

Knowledge. There is a heap of knowledge here, and the bounds of what we know is always expanding. But the materials are only as good as the day they were produced. Let's take for example one of my favorite knives, the ESEE-3 (RC-3 or RAT-3) These are made from 1095 high carbon steel, and they are generally a bit softer than what was considered the standard at the time, to make them more durable and easier to sharpen in the field. (I'd bet there are three more aspects there for you to learn about, which is good, you have to know where the knowledge holes are to fill them) However in the intervening time, even though the composition of 1095 has not changed, the methods for hardening it have gotten far better than what they were when I bought my ESEE-3, and so in comparison, its "not as good" as a different knife from a different company made from the same steel today. But that company is still making choices and compromises, these may not be the same ones you want to make. Many knives, even modern ones will not take a beating with a rock, and many people have been evacuated from an injury after a fragment of rock ended up in their eye, or their knife blade broke unexpectedly. Also, many knives have been hit with rocks, even really old ones, with no ill effect. But you need to understand what's going on to know what is safe.

Mentality. The goals and expected outcomes, the purpose and use of your tools. Deciding what is best when on the couch is the downfall of many. As well a great many have succeeded when all they had was just what was available, without thought or consideration. But in this case a simple thing of knowing when and where it's appropriate to chop branches and trees will be a large part of it.

This all adds up to what to select. Each person who gives advice will be coming from their own bias. That's not a bad thing, but not everyone has the time to explain all of why they say what they do. I'd agree with Sidehill on this one. A new camper doesn't really need a knife and or saw. Those are not talismans that will keep you safe and fed. If you want to learn skills, and cannot find someone to teach you, then you need to find a place you can learn, and some inexpensive tools (like a Mora clipper, and a Gerber saw) and you need practice. The worst way to do that is to also be learning all the aspects of distance hiking, remote camping, and the logistics and methods there. If you already have that in good stead, you will know how much extra time in a day you can spend on "new things" and how much risk you can take on based on where you will be going. I have yet to meet someone who has all the same skills and training as I do, hikes in the same areas, and carries the same knives. There is some cross-over sure, and I almost always have spent more, but some go bigger, some smaller, some go with one where I carry a couple, some specialize more to a task than I do, all my knives are for a purpose, but it has to be more than one, and some will use one for everything, cooking to digging. But I have far more overlap with people near me than anyone I've come across on youtube, some of those guys are very smart, well experienced and I think that many of them would see things my way in my conditions, but I don't do what they do, because I'm not them.

As for the actual knife advice, buy the simple things, simple tends to do one thing well, complex tends to do many things poorly. Simple tends to be cheap. Plenty of ways to spend a few thousand on knives that are then too precious to be used. Lots of good, lots of bad out there on the market, make sure you are getting the real deal product (no fake is ever worth it) and with time you will learn what works best for you, in your environment. That, and there is a lot to read around here, and the search function does work pretty well. Good luck in your adventures.
 
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but OP I will add my two cents and say that regardless of what knife, or any other tool you find, the best thing to equip yourself with is knowledge. People go missing and die everyday because they got in over their head. I’m not suggesting that you are, just adding another warning to take your time and make sure you know for a fact that you have given yourself the best odds for survival if the worst case scenario happens.

Regarding the knife, I understand wanting something to withstand potential use and abuse. But if you are practicing survival skills, I would not go into it with the mentality of “beating the blade”, as the last thing you’d want to do is risk breaking your most useful tool.
 
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