What makes a good Survival knife ?

P

pit man

Joined
Nov 2, 2005
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An age old question and here is the answer !!!
I think the new Dumpster mutt from Scrapyard knives fits the description perfectly !!!:thumbup:
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Not being a hollow-handled chineese-made piece of crap would be a great start.
The dumpster mutt is a sweet blade.Your right,it would do a good job.But the blade is only half of the survival knife.Your knowlage is what gets you through survival situations,your knife gets you dinner.:)
 
while if had a choice of what knife I'd have on me during a survival sit...that certainle may be a contender...but I'd have to go with the best knife is the one I'd have on me.... if I was in day to day life and was thrust intoa survival sit with what i had in my pocket it'd be a sak fieldmaster.... probably not perfect but adequate....if I was going out in to the boonies and it happened I'd also have a 4 inch stainless mora and a 12 machete...obviously feel better with the trio...but if i somehow got seperated from my gear any one of the 3 would serve me well
 
Savagesicslayer I couldn't agree more and the best thing about it, is that Knowledge weighs nothing !!!:thumbup: :D
 
savagesicslayer said:
Your knowlage is what gets you through survival situations,your knife gets you dinner.:)
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I partially agree, if we allow that one doesn't wait to use their knowledge until they're in a survival situation. In other words knowledge also displays itself in proper preperation, which would include selecting and carry a good, strong knife.
 
I always enjoy Dan's articles in TK. I have recently been liking slightly smaller knives for my survival knives. I still like big choppers, but they usually stay strapped to my pack. So something with a 4-6" blade, with a sheath that has a pouch on it with some basic gear is easy to carry on my belt.
 
It seems like few ever consider ease of carry to be an attribute of a survival knife since it seems to run counter to other survival knife requirements. It seems to be a given that you will have that big wilderness knife with you. I contend that that is a bad assumption. Doug Ritter's RSK Mk1 is a good survival knife because it can be carried as an EDC folder and will always be on your person, not 10' away strapped to your pack or 100 yds away at your camp -- on your person. I've recently started carrying a Fehrman Peace Maker (that's one of the smaller Fehrman Knives). I carry it horizontally just left of my belt buckle and find it extremely comfortable for a very strong knife. YMMV
 
I agree that the best survival knife is the one that you have on you. I also agree that you can have all the steel in the world, but if you don't know what to do with it, it's just so much dead weight.

I have a friend who flies small aircraft for fun and sometimes she finds herself flying over fairly remote reaches of the Sierra Nevada. I once asked her what she has for a survival bag on her plane. "Nothing," she told me. Basically, she's convinced that if she ever goes down, SAR will get to her pronto.

This is obviously a problem attitude, so I've spent a lot of time trying to convince her otherwise. Along the way, I've suggested she add a good, strong fixed blade to her flight bag. Problem is, she had absolutely no idea what she would ever do with such a thing. And so I had to agree (initially). If you don't know what to do with it, then there's no point in having it with you in the first place.

Of course, we have since spent time with me showing her how a fixed blade is a good thing to have in the woods. She's starting to get the idea, fortunately, although she isn't completely there yet. Just the other day she decided to purchase a Leatherman, which I thought was a great first step. Then I found out the reason why is because she can get a purple one.

:rolleyes:

I'm still trying.

But for me, personally, I think anytime you can have a fixed blade over a folder when you're looking at being exhausted, you're way better off. The fixed blade is a lot less likely to break and it's mechanically simpler too, which means you aren't as likely to cut yourself. So I tend to leave my folders at home when I'm going off the pavement, and instead I carry a fixed blade and a LM (for the tools, not the cutting edge). I solve the problem of the fixed blade potentially being away from my body by carrying a belt knife AND a neck knife. These are all smaller blades. I might in some environments decide to carry something bigger, but that's just for convenience; I hardly think of a blade > 6" as a survival tool because I don't rely on it being there if I find myself in a survival situation.
 
What makes a good Survival knife?

NOT A FOLDER!.
any fixed blade is better than the best folder for being a true survival knife.
There is nothing wrong with being a folding knife, they are very handy when other knives cant be carried.
But to be a true survival knife you need more ability to handle hard beatings and use than a folder can take.

I also would not design a survival knife with much of a guard on the handle.
Guards are great parts of design for hunters and users, but they might limit the things you need to do with a survival knife.

I would like a survival knife to be thick.
a very thick spine is needed in such a knife because of the life-and -death situations where you cant dare take a knife that has strength issues.

Edge-quenched....no doubt about that.
as for the tang and handle?
I might go with a full-tang and handle scales that can be taken off if needed with a screwdriver.

No dropped edge!
they are a design error that would only cause a survival knife lots of trouble.

The sheath would be the that plastic Kydex stuff.
to sharpejn the knife I would want a diamond stone attached to the sheath for fast sharpening in the field.
 
Answer : THE GUY WHO USES IT.

The knife counts for 2% of the job done. The remaining 98% are user dependant. You can't buy skill or knowledge.

Cheers ;)

David
 
Moine is absolutely correct. It's not the knife, it's the user and the skills that keep him alive.
 
Though I gotta say, this one Acents my skills Very well (and they are good, erally :) )

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Allan Molstad said:
What makes a good Survival knife?

NOT A FOLDER!.
any fixed blade is better than the best folder for being a true survival knife.
There is nothing wrong with being a folding knife, they are very handy when other knives cant be carried.
But to be a true survival knife you need more ability to handle hard beatings and use than a folder can take.. . .
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Everyone has an opinion on what makes a survival knife and necessary attributes. Doug Ritter has some opinions on what makes a good survival knife. While I agree that (all things being equal) a good fixed blade is preferable to a folder, I do not agree that any fixed blade is better than the best folder. There's a lot of crap out there that comes in the form of a fixed blade.

A knife doesn't need to be as strong as a pry-bar to be a good survival knife. Many folk consider the SAK Rucksack/Trekker/et al (locking blade and saw) to be very useful as a survival knife. Relatively cheap, the steel is nothing special, but it comes in a number of very useful formats. A small saw that actually works can be very useful in a survival situation. You don't necessarily need to beat on a knife to make it cut things. That's a useful technique if you have a knife that can handle it, but it's not a show stopper re survival.

The key is to employ techniques that work with the knife you have, rather than relying on having a heavy fixed blade knife that just about nobody carries as an EDC knife.

$.02, YMMV, mine did.
 
Fonly said:
Though I gotta say, this one Acents my skills Very well (and they are good, erally :) )

p2120047bt9.jpg
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[whistle] That's one nice pic. Could you explain the components...Wave apparent.;)

Oh and I personally don't understand 1/4 inch thick knives that small. Yeah they're tough but eh.:o Five inch knife really should be 3/16" IMO.
 
Shotgun said:
[whistle] That's one nice pic. Could you explain the components...Wave apparent.;)

Oh and I personally don't understand 1/4 inch thick knives that small. Yeah they're tough but eh.:o Five inch knife really should be 3/16" IMO.
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The grohmann? its not .25" thick. .157" (4 milimeters)

The components? Grohmann #4, Leather wave and wetterlings large hunters axe.
 
Fonly said:
The grohmann? its not .25" thick. .157" (4 milimeters)

The components? Grohmann #4, Leather wave and wetterlings large hunters axe.
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I meant the dumpster mutt. ;) Thanks I've never seen the markings on the Wetterlings.
 
XMP said:
Please explain.
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The dropped edge is an error found on most knife designs that try to use it.

While the dropped edge is fine for some knives,(such as a kitchen knife , that is best with a dropped edge) the sad fact is that the reason so many knives have a dropped edge is thats the way that are more easy to make.
And it only shows that the maker has never tried to cut anything with a dropped edge.

try to cut anything, even cardboard and you would see the error of the dropped edge design.

The dropped edge for a field knife such as a true Survival knife is a error.
The dropped edge will snag on everything each time it's used.
I think a good Survival knife would have a built-in design ability to become a spear point.
A dropped edge makes the worst spear point as it would be very hard to pull free from anything it got stuck into.

a true Survival knife needs a blade that flows from the handle into the cutting point. Nothing to snag, nothing like a guard to get in the way,,
The knife has to be able to reach into small places,

This is why i believe the "dropped edge" is always going to be a design error on a Survival knife.
 
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