What makes a good Survival knife ?

Alan upon reading your post I went and checked all my kitchen knives and there is not one that has a blade level with the underside of the handle without any means of stopping the hand sliding onto the blade as with the Colsteel knife you showed.
Below are my mid-small knives and with everyone of them you will also see that they are designed to stop the hand sliding.
PICT0993.jpg

By the way please don't think I am disagreeing with you for the hell of it,I am just trying to be constructive and you put your views across well !
 
pit man said:
Alan upon reading your post I went and checked all my kitchen knives and there is not one that has a blade level with the underside of the handle without any means of stopping the hand sliding onto the blade as with the Colsteel knife you showed.
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Im not sure as to the meaning of your post yet,
but be that as it may (I will read it again in a moment)
What I was saying is that for "most" knives the dropped edge is a design flaw.

However there is nothing wrong with a dropped edge on a kitchen knife, or a camp knife, or for any knife thats used for cooking.

The reason a dropped edge is fine for the kitchen knife is that much of cooking foods requires a "rocking-chopping" motion to cut the foods into smaller section for cooking. carrots etc.

However for the vast number of other knives that are used out in the field, the dropped edge is not worth the trouble it will cause when it snags everything on every cut you attempt.
 
pitman....in the photo of your knives...the dropped edge that I think is a design flaw turns up a lot.

notice how in the top 4 of your knives that if you tried to push-cut the full length of the blade that you would fall off the dropped edge and get snagged?

Now look at a better design as found in your 5th knife from the top!
Notice there is no dropped edge to snag the stuff you are cutting!
This knife design will allow you to make a full-length cut, using all of the sharpen blade.

(You paied for the full blade, you should be able to use it!)

Notice that when you do a full push-cut and you reach the end of the cut the material will just bump into the handle/molded finger guard, and alow you to start a pull-cut right away with no stopping!...
 
Alan I was answering to this comment that you had made..
Look at the most common kitchen knives.
They have no guard.
They are used in the kitchen, mostly used dripping wet, and mostly used by girls with less upper body strength.
Yet they have no guard?
 
Allan Molstad said:
pitman....in the photo of your knives...the dropped edge that I think is a design flaw turns up a lot.

notice how in the top 4 of your knives that if you tried to push-cut the full length of the blade that you would fall off the dropped edge and get snagged?

Now look at a better design as found in your 5th knife from the top!
Notice there is no dropped edge to snag the stuff you are cutting!
This knife design will allow you to make a full-length cut, using all of the sharpen blade.

(You paied for the full blade, you should be able to use it!)

Notice that when you do a full push-cut and you reach the end of the cut the material will just bump into the handle/molded finger guard, and alow you to start a pull-cut right away with no stopping!...
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Right Alan I am with you know :thumbup: and I kind of agree with what you are saying but I have still not encountered the problem.
My comments were aimed at the Coldsteel knife that you used as an example because with that blade there is no measures in place to stop the hand sliding forward as can be seen on my NRA Snody knife that you mention !
 
Another problem I have with many maker's designs is the idea that have that grinding a finger notch in front of the handle will give the owner of the knife more control of the blade.

This is wrong!

Look at such a finger notch in the photo above...look at the 4th knife down from the top with such a finger notch.
This finger notch will stop this knife from being able to make full-length cuts.
If you try to make a full length plunge-cut you can see how it would always snag.
After a few such attempts and snags, the owner would learn to always stop a cut at least an inch or more before the material he is cutting reaches the finger notch.
This means that even if the blade is sold to you with a 4 inch long blade, in reality you can only really cut with the first inch of so.
This means that the finger notch has actually forced the main cutting out more to the tip and away from the hand..

So although the knifemaker thought that a finger notch would help with control
It actually hurts control.
 
I find this problem with hatchets too. I have a hatchet with an overall length of 14" but it has only a 3 1/2" cutting edge and then it drops off and snags. All hatchets are designed wrong :rolleyes:
 
What makes a good Survival knife? NOT A FOLDER!.
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What a laugher. The majority of the world gets along just fine with small folding pocket knives, Swiss Army knives etc.

The Rambo knife phenomenom began, of course, with Rambo. The power of television is amazing. Now everyone on this board thinks that you must have a Rambo knife at least the size of a their penis. Adn you use it to make a spear and jump at pigs. OR batonning wood. At term that I've never even heard of prior to this board. Everyone thinks they need to know how to suture themselves also to be like Rambo. Whatever.

I spent a few years in army special ops. They don't issue Rambo knives. Some guys bought them, mostly the newbies or the REMF radio guys. When a warrior carries a knife, it's usually something like a double edged Randal. And it's used (theoretically) as a backup or for silent kills. I say theoretically, because I've never seen or heard of anyone actually needing it for that role. If you are to that point, things have SERIOUSLY gone wrong.

Yeah, Rambo knives look cool. They also weigh about as much as a handgun and have few uses that aren't better served by something else.

I'm lucky in that I still get paid to spend almost every day in the field under rough conditions. My first knife in my kit or on my duty belt is a leatherman, though a ;locking SAK would work too. (I use the pliers and tools more than the blades, so I like leatherman over SAK for my purpose.) I could easily get by with just this. I also carry a small sharp knife, usually a Spiderco. Precise cuts are this knife's forte. In my pack, I often carry a small hatchet. It weighs about as much as a Rambo knife and chops much better.

If you are hunting and skinning a lot, I can see the need for a fixed blade so that the cleaning is easier. Most of the Rambo knives I've seen recommended here wouldn't be able to fill this role. As far as I can tell, the role of the Rambo knife is batonning and spear making. These tasks are very low on my priority list.

When I see some 8" knife flapping around on some guys harness or leg, I think wannabe, psycho, or clown. Many other professionals feel the same way.
 
Lets look at some typical knives as shown in the photo posted by pitman.
Of the many knives we see, the one I believe is the best true "survival knife" is the KA-BAR, (2nd down from the top)
except the the dropped edge cut-out flaw i have already talked about, this knife is a great design for a survival knife.
Look at the tip, notice how it would form a great spear point!

The tang is full tang, it's this design beats the stuffing out any folder,
and the handle scales could be taken off too!

The butt end of the knife has a rather large hole for some reason. I guess this would not allow for banging the butt of the knife during hammering, but it may have a better reason that I dont know about yet.

The very top knife in the photo also has a great handle, and would be able to be used to hammer things with the butt end.
If I would own that knife I would simply re-grind the cutting edge to flow better into the handle more, and then it would be a very good survival knife.


pit man said:
PICT0993.jpg

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Allan Molstad said:
Look at such a finger notch in the photo above...look at the 4th knife down from the top with such a finger notch.
This finger notch will stop this knife from being able to make full-length cuts.
If you try to make a full length plunge-cut you can see how it would always snag.
After a few such attempts and snags, the owner would learn to always stop a cut at least an inch or more before the material he is cutting reaches the finger notch.
This means that even if the blade is sold to you with a 4 inch long blade, in reality you can only really cut with the first inch of so.
This means that the finger notch has actually forced the main cutting out more to the tip and away from the hand..

So although the knifemaker thought that a finger notch would help with control
It actually hurts control.
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Hey Pit Man, Being that knife is not quite up to par, I tell you what I am going to do. Send me that bad boy and I will pay for the shipping AND handling! Then you will be free to pursue a better knife that will fulfill all your dreams and visions.:D
 
Interesting post.
Surviving really means making do with less, untill you can get back to whatever your normal life was before you were faced with a survival situation. So in most cases,it's not specifically related to the outdoors, or wilderness, unless you say so in your quest. An all-around backwoods and urban survival knife can crack open a door frame or window frame or help you harvest saplings, build a shelter or process fish and game as well as defend you at close range if it must. An urban survival blade is really mostly a sharpened prybar- an outdoors survival blade is not mostly a sharpened prybar.
So it's the one or two blades that can accomplish the most, while being the smallest and lightest.
As always, we have to ask- surviving what ?:D

Hawkings said:
Guys correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are talking about is a camping knife :confused:
I mean you go camping in the woods, you DON'T go surviving.

A survival knife is the one you have with you, when you jump on your bike to go buy a can of paint.

It seems to me that survival situation happens other places then in the woods, right:)

When you go wood bumming, you will have put some thought into it, so you will not end up in a survival situation. And you have the proper gear with you (Good knife, fire starting stuff ect ect :thumbup: ).

So one thing that makes a good survival knife is being able to carry it with you when not in a survival situation (A good example might be the Ritters RSK MK1, light and strong, but more important is that chances, are you will have it with you when it counts. If your going walkabout in the woods you'll probably have your busse, dark ops, bat utility super knife with you anyway:) )
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Actually, I'm not laughing, although most of your comments in this thread are laughable. I've never heard this snagging angle before though, +1 on originality.
 
Moodino said:
Interesting post.
Surviving really means making do with less, untill you can get back to whatever your normal life was before you were faced with a survival situation.
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Very true, we can think of true survival as being like "Surprise Camping".

As if 5 min ago you didnt know you were about to go camping, but now here you are and your life is on the line.

The term "Survival" means "to live"
The aim of a knife maker when he designs a true survival knife is different that other designs.
It's a not a camping knife, not a hunter, not a skinner, not a cooking knife, not a kitchen knife, not an EDC.

The aim of the design for a true survival knife it to make a knife that will help a person in a very bad situation , "to live"
 
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