If you disagree you are wrong.
First it should have a blade between 6"-8" long. You need a long blade for a myriad of tasks, but primarily you need it for splitting, for rapid carving with the spine braced against your knee (critical for making things like wedges), and for combat effectiveness. This puts the overall length at 10"-14", which is the maximum length for concealment/EDC, which is the whole purpose of a survival knife.
The knife shouldn't weigh more than 16 ounces. More than that and it's probably just going to be clumsy for most tasks and too redundant with a hatchet. The knife should only have enough heft to easily cut down poles 1"-3" in diameter or cut someone's fingers off. If you don't have a saw for some unfortunate reason, the way you crosscut bigger trees with the knife is to baton it across the grain like a chisel, you shouldn't be relying on chopping heft for this. The point of balance should be around the index finger in a high grip.
It must be made of carbon steel or low alloy tool steel like 01, 52100, 5160, etc. Stainless steels, especially "super steels", are useless garbage that trade every single desirable quality of steel like impact resistance and sharpenability and fine grained edge just for slightly better edge retention, which is something only inexperienced people care about. The heat treatment should be rather soft. The knife should be indestructible and easy to sharpen with anything, with edge retention being a distant priority.
The knife must have a full crossguard. This is so you can stab with it with full force without injuring yourself. Without a guard you are diverting too much strength to your grip, and thus cannot stab as effectively because you're locking your wrist. You need the gaurd to defend yourself against a machete, which is the most common weapon in the world (you can't bring a handgun outside the USA), otherwise you cannot block or parry an opponent's weapon without risking your own fingers. You also need the gaurd as a lashing point to turn the knife into a thorn and brush clearing tool or an improvised hatchet by lashing it to a stick.
The tang must be bulletproof. It should be broad and have smoothly radiused corners where it meets the blade. The best tang is just a monolithic steel grip like picrel. It doesn't really matter if it's "full tang", meaning the tang goes through the end of the grip, this doesn't actually make it stronger, all that really matters is the geometry where it meets the blade. Moras are a good example of this. Most historical knives weren't full tang, but they were nonetheless stronger than many modern knives.
The knife should have an acute and sharp point, not an obtuse shovel point like many modern survival knives have. The purpose of a point is to carve and stab, it must be acute to be good at either task, an obtuse point is therefore useless and may as well be a squared off chisel.
You’re completely deluded if you seriously think that you could parry or block machete slashes with that.
So... this or nothing.
uh dads sober i change it anyday for a stone
Nah, Ka-bar is a shit design for hard use.
Knife posted just above your post could be very good, but I don't like the false bevel on top.
It should have a full flat grind or close to it. It's primary purpose is to be sharp and cut stuff effectively, not be a fricking prybar with a decorative edge. You should be able to run a very narrow 17 degree bevel per side on it. It should be easy to grind out nicks and rolls.
It needs to have a lanyard hole for lashing and to facilitate a low choke/half grip for increased chopping power without increasing weight.
The edge should be straight, no concave gimmicks. This is best for almost everything and also the easiest to sharpen.
It should be strictly single edged, it shouldn't even have much of a swedge, that accomplishes nothing but chewing through batons faster.
Hard plastic/kydex sheath is ideal.
It shouldn't have any kind of glass breaker or sharp pommel design, this just makes it impossible to use two hands for a thrust and serves no practical purpose.
Lastly, it should be cheap so you're not afraid to actually use the thing and can store several backups.
This is the ideal survival knife. If your knife breaks any of these rules then it sucks.
>It should have a full flat grind or close to it. It's primary purpose is to be sharp and cut stuff effectively, not be a fricking prybar with a decorative edge.
Absolute moron opinion, you don't need a scalpel, toughness trumps everything.
Full flat grind is too prone to cracking and/or bending when chopping or splitting wood.
A survival knife should do all roles good enough, not be specialized for any one thing.
>Full flat grind is too prone to cracking and/or bending when chopping or splitting wood.
Only if it is heat treated too hard or made of garbage stainless steel. I have the knife in OP pic and have beaten the absolute shit out of it for years and have never damaged the edge.
Cutting power is one of the most important measures of a knife because cutting is literally what it does. Cutting is not a specialized task. It's how you turn anything into anything else. Shitty edge geometry like on TOPS knives accomplishes nothing but making the knife suck at everything.
Even if you do chip or roll the edge, with a full flat grind you can file out the damage in five minutes because you hardly have to remove any metal and the bevel is only like 1mm wide. With your shitty splitting maul knife you need a bench and C clamps and an afternoon off to establish geometry.
I'm not reading all that. But a Leatherman, unless you're too poor.
That isn't even remotely in the same category. I do carry a Leatherman, primarily because I have never found standalone pliers that were lighter or more compact. Every other feature on a Leatherman besides the pliers is useless.
The knife blade is useless. The screwdriver is useless because everything today uses hex or star keys. The can opener is useless. There's 50 random contoured steel tabs that have no conceivable purpose. In spite of this it is somehow the most practical pair of pliers I have. I will throw the Leatherman in the trash as soon as I find a better pair of pliers.
I'm not reading all that. Are you poor?
No. If you can name anything tangentially related to survival then I either own it or have owned it in the past.
I've had hundreds of knives and also multiple Leatherman models. Nobody who has ever posted on this board has more experience with outdoor tools than I do.
Don't engage with april fools shitposters anon, you're wasting your time. Thanks for the wisdom and infodump. t. lurker
Are you the one that made the thread about how Leatherman is too expensive for you.
What the frick does Leatherman have to do with anything? They don't make fixed blade survival knives.
Any non-fixed blade knife is trash for survival, including a leatherman.
Check out the Victorinox Spirit. It's slimmer and lighter than a comparable Leatherman, and built way better, and all you give up is one-handed opening on the knife blades, which it sounds like you don't need anyway.
That knife looks like it'd be pretty shit in a survival situation and it seems like you don't know much about real surviving.
It's the perfect survival knife and served me admirably when I got fired in 2021 and spent three months living in my car in the Adirondacks with no money, among other things.
>Adirondacks
Was that next to the walmart or the chilis? Which B&B did you stay at?
You had to fend off attackers with machetes during that time?
Nah, when I'm inna woods I usually have a leuku with me.
Violence is a thing that exists
>Nah, when I'm inna woods I usually have a leuku with me.
Based and pragmatic choice.
I'm thinking of getting a custom made full tang leuku made, would be the ultimate survival and PrepHole knife.
Let me guess, you either carry a Mora, or some $400 24 ounce stainless piece of shit with the worst ergonomics ever.
OP described a USMC Combat Knife. K Bar
The kabar is unsuitable because of the narrow tang that meets the blade at a nearly 90 degree angle. I've broken two of them before and you can find countless videos of people breaking them doing things that my preferred knives could handle doing every day for a lifetime. Otherwise I like the basic geometry, shallow clip point, minimalist guard, it's a great feeling knife and it's a damn shame they designed it with that ridiculous tang. Even kitchen knives from the same time period had better tangs. I got the Kabar John Ek commando which was supposed to be kind of like a kabar with a better tang, but that piece of shit had the worst heat treatment ever and lost a chip the size of a guitar pick just limbing a small spruce tree.
"Survival knives" are a meme.
I can think at least 3 or 4 items I would rather have in a survival situation
>A gps
>sleeping bag
>Grayl water filter
>Energy Bars
I would trade a "survival knife" for any of those items any day.
Good thing I can have all of those things and a survival knife
If you have no skillsets then yeah you're better off with consumable items or items that only serve one specific purpose. With skills you can take a basic cutting tool and improvise anything else you need from materials in the environment.
I have enough skillset to know that in a survival situation you want to get home as soon as posible, spending a whole day in your arts and crafts cutting and weaving grass making a blanket or whatever is just stupid.
I dont want to improvise shit, I want to get home.
"Home" could be a disaster zone
I ve been in 2 disaster zones, (1 earthquake and 1 flooding) and never needed a "survival knife"
Sure, because you always have exactly what you need when you need it. I don't.
You're a moron, your lack of experience with knives show.
Only a Ka-Bar© is good enough.
Ok OP if you're so smart, what actual knife on the market do you think meets these criteria?
>>>/k/
The whole concept of a survival knife is cringe, you obviously don't PrepHole even a little.
Hacking at things in the woods scares people and is a waste of energy, there are far more important things to carry, and injuring yourself if you're already lost might actually get you killed.
I hike for days at a time unassisted through jungle, Himalayas, deserts, you name it. That's my life. Never once can I think of a time when my knife or any other knife might have actually helped me.
You know what's great? Aqutabs, space blanket, compass, betadine, anti diorhea tablets, electrolytes, a mobile phone, Bic lighter.
A knife really doesn't do much that a rock can't do, in a survival situation you're not skinning animals or doing repetitive field work. Maybe if you're in the taiga or the Arctic.
>you're not skinning animals or doing repetitive field work
So you eat them with the skin on?
I'm talking about survival, not camping or backpacking. They're not the same thing. No specialized consumable or electronic is a substitute for a universal steel tool that can turn anything in the environment into anything else and simultaneously handle violent threats.
Idk about all those fancy requirements, I like my NCO course knife. It did well during my conscription and it still works well.
>chops
>splits
>cuts
>stabs
>Teflon coating on a carbon steel blade, easy to maintain and easy to resharpen, stays sharp as well.
>Covered with the rubber grip, yet full tang. Means that the knife is great against your bare hand even in freezing cold and it still can take a beating.
>The sheath has a special retention system that allows attaching the knife upside down on your load bearing vest or combat harness without having a risk of the knife dropping out of the sheath.
>paid 40€ for it during the group order on the NCO course, seems to cost about 85€ in stores
As a secondary tool I carry a leatherman fuse. It gives me pliers and a smaller straight blade for whittling and food processing. Also it has scissors for first aid use and a can opener for if/when the pull tab fails on the can. The few screw drivers don't weigh much so I don't mind having them on the tool as well. During my conscription they proved themselves usefull as well because they allowed me to maintain my service rifle a bit more ease instead of only using the provided sight adjustment tool.
I'd need to find a new sheath for the leatherman, the nylon sheath that came with it is giving up the ghost and the velcro can't keep the flap closed anymore. Too bad, it's been in use since 2014.
Those ranger puukkos actually look really nice, but a crossguard is a strict requirement for me and has no disadvantage other than adding an ounce or two.
>no disadvantage
wrong
A guard doesn't interfere with a single task
It interferes with some tasks that you'd use a puukko for though, (the more precise kind of work that you'd use the first 5cm of the blade for) because it prevents you from gripping the knife as close from the blade as possible. You aren't necessarily going to parry with a 15cm blade anyways either. Also you can prevent the hand from slipping on to the blade with the correct shape of the grip.
No it does not because you can choke up on the blade with your index finger above the guard, and this actually gives you MORE control and pressure than without a guard. I knew you were going to say that and it's wrong. The only thing a guard might interfere with is roll-chopping food on a cutting board like a chef knife, but most survival knives aren't broad enough to do this anyway.
Skinng/caping, also, only children's knives have guards
A guard does not interfere with any of those tasks and all serious combat knives and daggers in history have guards.
>and all serious combat knives
Absolute LARP
Length of blade does not matter, this type of grip is extremely useful for fine tasks, skinning, carving etc. A guard makes it impossible
Well somehow that's never been a problem for me in 20 years of skinning and dressing everything from trout to deer and creating thousands of different improvised camp items from wood. I guess you just suck. A much bigger problem is facing an opponent with a machete in martial arts training. In this instance you will see the need for a guard in less than five seconds.
>facing an opponent with a machete
>in this instance you will see the need for a guard
no, in that instance you will see the need for a gun
There's only like 2 countries in the world where you can carry a handgun
if you are in the situation where you are considering a knife for self defense against a person with a machete, who the frick cares about laws
People who don't have the connections to smuggle or obtain contraband weapons overseas, let alone ammunition, which tends to rapidly disappear in my house.
>I guess you just suck
Here in Finland the traditional puukko has been the go to multitool, survival knife and a close quarter weapon for centuries and the people of said times have fared really well without said crossguards on their knives. Here crossguards are only present on the dull pointed childrens "safety" puukkos. So skill issue, I figure.
>facing an opponent with a machete
Are machete wielding hostile people especially common in your country? Just start hiking with a halberd or a spear if that's a common issue, I guess. Doubles as a hiking pole.
That's great for you Fins but my preferences are based on experience and training. I can apply VASTLY more force in a stab with a guard vs without a guard because I don't have to focus so much on grip strength, which locks my wrist and prevents the proper rotation needed to achieve maximum momentum. I could stab any grown man clean through the skull or spine or rib cage with my preferred knives. You're probably not going to do that with a puukko.
Bro maybe you need to spend less time fantasizing about scenarios of stabbing people in the skull and more time going outside. I thought this thread was about outdoor survival, not survival in southside chicago.
A knife is both a weapon and a tool. A good knife is one that serves both purposes well without compromise.
Thanks for the insights chatGPT but maybe you'd feel more at home on /k/.
fricking spastic.
>Are machete wielding hostile people especially common in your country?
It's a wonder Finland has been in the EU for this long without this being a problem for you. Maybe the climate and inaccessibility has kept them out so far. But now that you're stuck in NATO with us as well, I'm sure you'll get your fair share of machete wielding hostile people like the rest of us.
They'll probably take your guns first though. That's how it usually goes.
Cool puukko though!
I use that grip all the time and a guard doesn't make much difference unless it's very large, like much larger than a kabar guard for example.
You don't skin with a giant crocodile dundee knife. People use basically razor blades these days.
This quibble is stupid because dressing/skinning/whittling knives don't weigh anything. Your primary blade doesn't have to be that great at these tasks, merely capable.
So you use it for what again? Cutting small sticks by bashing it with another stick? Allow me to introduce you to another folding blade that works better at that than a larp knife.
Well yesterday I used it to construct target backing on a hillside and then clear brush so I could my 100 yard pistol training that I try to do once a week, then I used it to fillet a fish. I guess that's not really "survival" though.
I've never liked bow saws, they never have enough tension and are far too limited in their usefulness. My Stihl PS10 is my favorite pack saw. Only weighs 4.5 ounces but I've bucked up logs over 10" in diameter with it.
You filleted a fish with that thing? You know this is what a fillet knife looks like, right? You know what a fricking mess filleting a fish is with a even remotely dull knife? But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it was a catfish and you don't care about removing all the brown dirt-fat.
There's a thing called "sharpening" that I've practiced for 20 years, and I don't carry specialized tools, only general purpose tools that give me the highest total utility for their weight and size. A fillet knife is something you use in a kitchen, not a camp.
A fillet knife should be in your tackle box anon.
I don't need one. My survival knife is adequate for any cutting task I have to perform.
The sum total of everything I own excluding my car is less than 100 pounds. That's the kind of person I am. You either get it or you don't.
So you just gut it and you don't actually fillet the fish then. That's fine but don't say you filleted it. Filleting is not something you do with the wrong tool without botching the shit out of it and leaving a bunch of meat on the thing.
The vast majority of outdoorspeople have very poor sharpening skills, and consequently a very different idea of what knives are actually capable of than I do.
I use a whetstone and actually know how to fillet fish properly which is why I know a fat ass knife like that is going to do a shit job of it. You are talking out of your ass. The thing you should do if you don't have an actual fillet knife is gut the fish, stuff it with vegetables/fruit, and then wrap it in foil or a leaf and bake it. Then just pick around the bones.
Nobody who uses the term "whetstone" has any idea how to sharpen a knife.
I've been a professional butcher for over a decade. Just letting you know so that you can decide how much further you want to embarrass yourself.
>I've been a professional butcher for over a decade
then you know you dont sharpen your knives, you send them to a guy, sure you might strop them, but sharpening? no
No, I have never paid to have anyone do anything to my knives in my life. I use diamond stones, SiC stones, Arkansas stones, and SiC paper depending on the application and geometry I'm trying to achieve, and files to establish bevels on striking tools like axes and machetes. I don't use strops much these days because I get results just as good faster and easier finishing with 10,000 grit SiC paper, that's the point of diminishing returns for pretty much anything in real life and I don't have time anymore to make toilet paper carving edges just for shits and giggles. I had a fetish for Japanese water stones for a while but think they're overrated. My pack kit is just a rectangular aluminum tube with an interrupted 3" DMT coarse stone super glued to one side, and soft Arkansas on the other (which is actually close to 1200 grit), and strips of 3000 grit SiC stored inside along with some plastic angle guides that can be secured to either end with a rubber band. It weighs less than 3 ounces and with it alone I can take the most horribly abused factory edge and produce an edge sharper than any implement you have ever held in your life with any angle or geometry I desire.
Where'd you get your whetstone? Did your grandfather give it to you?
Pics?
What did you do with all the old stones to keep your entire lifes goods under 100lbs and why does your knife look like this
?
That's not me and I just sold or threw away everything I didn't need. It's an ongoing process. My goal is 50 pounds.
>t. used a steak knife to slice ham for a sandwich once, cut his finger in the process
Nobody gives a shit if you don't like the word "whetstone"
That's like using the word "clip" to refer to a "magazine". It outs you.
What outs you is comparing people using a word you don't like to using the wrong word entirely.
Do you flatten your stones?
I do usually leave them in water until they stop bubbling yeah if I'm going to sharpen everything. I have a 1000/3000. I take it with me to my families house and sharpen their knives at thanksgiving/christmas if I see them. My boomer dad swears by his electric grinder and refuses to even let me use a honing steel if I am cooking there though. My mother in laws are all dull as frick every year.
Cool, you're me from like ten years ago.
Now neither of you will be a virgin
Yeah I'm not getting more interested in knives. I have already maxed out the 15/85 principle here.
I've maxed out at producing better results with a 2.5 ounce field kit and a vial of ballistol than any factory edge I've ever seen from any manufacturer.
Anon you aren't arguing with somebody who boughr a glorious nipponese rock for $200. Sandpaper is great. You can make lodge cast iron as smooth as any other brand in like an hour.
This is absolute horseshit, and we both know it.
If you were a professional, you'd know that the only good tool for filleting fish is an actual filleting knife.
The blade MUST to be flexible to do a good job at it.
I guess nobody in history ever cooked fish before long flexible ultrathin blades became widely available. I'm sorry you're so handicapped that you need specialized professional tools just to occasionally get a trout ready for the pan.
They didn't fillet them moron, they just gutted and then picked the meat off the bones or boiled them off the bones. Watch one (1) water to fryer catfishing video.
>I'm so bad at sharpening I need a 1mm thick blade to cut a fish in half
You can do it with the wrong tool for the job if you like wasting fish and having a poorly cut fillet.
You use the right tool for the job at work. In the woods you bring one tool and use the right technique for the job.
You aren't filleting a fish if that's what you're doing dipshit. You either gut and stuff...
Or you butterfly and roast. (Which is exactly how tribal peoples do it)
Actually I think you could get a really nice trout or even an invasive asian carp with some dried vegetables like this (with potatoes/sweet potatoes and not just onions and peppers) gut and stuffed with a nice slather of salted butter and then wrapped in foil and steam baked in your coals with minimal weight for how good that would be. Just soak the vegetables while you're fishing so they rehydrate before you stuff the fish.
gettin hungry now
might actually get a fishing license this year
I can do absolutely anything I want to any fish with any knife. I do not strictly require a specialized blade.
I use a 12" Forschner/Victorinox cimeter and 6" Frost boning knife at work. That's not because I require these knives to break down inside rounds or chuck rolls or sirloins. It's because I'm doing it all day long and I have to get it done as quickly as possible. I don't bring specialized tools into the field where I'm doing hundreds of different tasks on my own terms where each individual task is only done occasionally.
Breaking joints and following the seams between muscles and removing silverskin are completely different tasks to filleting a fish.
You simply have poor sharpening skills. I have met men before who were experienced hunters who thought it was nearly impossible to dress deer with a knife and believed that disposable razors were essential. I had to actually show them in order for them to grasp how their complete lack of sharpening skills warped their perception of what tools are capable. You are one of those people.
Filleting a fish has absolutely nothing to do with seperating muscle groups. They are nothing alike at all. Butchers do not generally work with fish.
You're right. I generally only work with fish on my own time. And I have never seen the need for a specialized fish knife. I have never even looked at fillet knives on knifecenter or bladehq out of curiosity. It doesn't solve any problem that I have.
Who the frick fillets a fish inna woods and why?
Because that's where I'm living if I'm fishing.
Why not prepare it some other way?
What you need to do is get a bunch of dirt cheap carbon steel blades like short south American machetes (Tramontina, Imacasa) and use those to practice the basics of sharpening. Sharpening is an extremely nuanced skill that requires a level body-intuition most people never use, just like archery, it requires thousands of hours of practice and dozens of ruined blades to get good, but once you're there you can basically take any knife and do anything you want with it, you will have no desire to carry specialized blades anywhere.
How are you cooking your fillet when you couldn't even bring a tacklebox? Are you going to go for a white wine and cream sauce with some shallots? Or maybe you brought some lard to fry it in with a nice eggwhite wash and cornmeal and breadcrumbs mixed together. Just help me understand what situation we are in where you can't being a fillet knife and a cuttingboard because you have packed so lightly but you still are neding to fillet the fish to cook it.
Tacklebox? My fishing kit is the size of a wallet. I'm a survivalist, not a sportsman.
If I catch something big enough for me to bother filleting it I MAKE a cutting board by splitting a small log and if I'm going to be eating it in the field I make either a rack or skewers from saplings and roast it over a fire and just add salt.
"Tacklebox" lol. What, do you fish 50 yards from your house?
So you aren't filleting a fish ever and you never catch any fish. You eat freeze dried goyslop.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using a fillet knife. Probably doesn't weigh much or take up much pack space. But I have never owned a fillet knife and have never seen the need for one. That is probably because I have had an obsession with sharpening since I was a child. I have never met a single person in my entire life, not even in the various butcher shops and markets I've worked at, who could sharpen anywhere near as well as I can, I know for a fact they aren't getting the same performance from their blades as I do. Not even the Japanese sushi guys have edges as good as mine. If I needed a fillet knife to process fish then I would have one.
Who are you people who are telling me you are cooking a fish while backpack camping? Literally nobody does that. You would have to sit around fishing which defeats the purpose. You either go fishing and actually fish or you go backpacking and actually backpack. This idea of compromising between the two is ridiculous.
Ah, so you're one of those people who go backpacking to just walk around and do nothing instead of practice survival/subsistence skills. Not my idea of a productive nor enjoyable use of time, but you do you.
So you go backpacking to go sit around in one place halfway through and then rely on a billy mays pocket fisherman to catch fish to eat while sitting around fishing in the middle of your 20 mile hike where you worry about packweight? Are you doing this in a videogame or real life? Are you going out bushcrafting, backpacking, fishing, or camping?
I go out in the woods to practice living in the woods. It's incredible how mysterious this concept is to people on this board. You don't get to have access to 800 pounds of specialized gear when you're nomadic and don't have a car. Backpacking, fishing, hunting, trapping, creating shelter and bedding and fire, crafting, these are all a single activity called "living".
Pics or it didn't happen.
And what do you do? Rely on REI freeze dried meals? Go into towns to buy food at stores? What is the point of backpacking if you're not practicing survival skills? If you want to see nature just take a scenic drive.
>lituruhhly
>nobody does the thing I don't like
I'm sure everyone will change how they do shit to accomodate your zoomer sensibilities
Pics or it didn't happen.
>everyone has to document their activities so that I can continue to deny that they did them in the first place
lol, no
Go back to playing minecraft
This is the most moronic post I have ever read.
I bacpack to either fish or hunt mostly, because I go remote places for that, there are no hotels there, and it's too far for day trips.
It's the only reason I own a tent and a big backpack.
I don't fillet fish in the field, I just spit out the bones, which is what everyone did for thousands of years.
>muh larp
>muh amazon
It's a great fricking saw but I am afraid I must put your opinion in the trash where it belongs
>can only split wood that is already cut
>is shittier than a $40 skinning knife
>is shittier than a $25 fillet knife
>can't actually cut a branch into logs so it's useless compared to a saw
Remind me the purpose of it again?
With my preferred survival knives I can turn any tree or log over 8" in diameter into anything that I want it to be. However I always carry a folding saw as well. The two together nearly make a hatchet obsolete, but I still bring a hatchet too if I know ahead of time that going to be relying heavily on firewood.
Just from that pic and what you typed I know you've never been camping where you weren't provided an electrical outlet and bagged firewood.
I agree that he's dumb but the Agawa saws are pretty nice
In your photo a guard might be annoying only because the blade is so short.
Moreover a dedicated fine work knife need not weigh more than 2 ounces, so you could just carry that as a bonus knife if you feel the need to. No need to compromise the capabilities of your primary combat/survival knife just for a small ergonomics improvement for a couple specialized tasks.
>fat guy hand
Opinion discarded
Best comprise I've used is the Glock, where the top guard is bent
>fat guy hand
Lol what
Okay so we actually agree on that. The G78l81 knives are actually my favorite "backup" blades or concealed carry blades for certain situations. It's everything I require in a combat/survival knife compressed into the lightest and most compact package possible. I really hope the rumors of them being discontinued are false but thankfully I have two of them.
Maybe I just have l long thumbs, but I've very rarely found any guard to be a problem when using the grip you posted earlier.
>the rumors of them being discontinued
I think it's part mistranslation and half conjecture, from what I know, it is that the m81(sawback) won't be issued in the military anymore, what they are also discontuing is colors, so, going just straight glock black from now on, but I might be wrong
Covid unlocked a new phobia for me, the fear of shit I like being discontinued and the pathological tendency to buy 7 of anything even vaguely useful.
Whats the point of the jagged edge? Doesnt that just stop you from using it for splitting?
I dislike glock knives, their blade material is way too soft for my liking. Otherwise a nice knife. I also wish that I had bought the M78 version instead of the M81, because the sawblade on the back does no good in my opinion.
>M78 version instead of the M81
yea me too, but i could only get m78 in blaack and i wanted the green, because im gay like that
The blade steel is perfect, something like 1055 tempered to 55 HRC I think, just like a machete or a hatchet. Virtually indestructible, likely to bend rather than break if terribly abused, fast and easy to sharpen with any type of stone or even a rock or piece of ceramic if necessary, more than enough edge retention for real life. I wish all knives were used the same steel and heat treatment.
>More than enough edge retention
Idk man, I found out that the M81 dullened up so quickly that making basic feathersticks became more or less cumbersome. I mean yes, you could abuse the hell out of that knife but it tends to function poorly for whittling and such even when properly sharpened the blade geometry is more or less badly designed. For batoning and other meme usage it was okay, but it needs a sharp and better designed companion knife to go with it. I'd rather treat it as a bayonet (which is one of the dedicated purposes of it anyways) than a serious knife that you could trust your life on.
You can't sharpen it the Western way by microbeveling it out of impatience. You need to maintain the factory 17-18 degree edge to get good cutting performance. The edge retention is as good as any drop forged striking tool.
>you need to maintain the factory 17-18 degree edge for good cutting performance
But in previous messages people claimed that you can sharpen it with just about anything on the field? Sounds kind of contradictory to me. How do you make sure you have the correct degree edge for the tool with the make shift sharpening equipment?
Anyways, what are some good knife sharpening tools that I could actually make sure that the edge is correct? I have several knives and they apparently are supposed to have different degree edges. Is something like Work Sharp precision adjust sharpener good?
>How do you make sure you have the correct degree edge for the tool with the make shift sharpening equipment?
A basic level of practice and skill
>Anyways, what are some good knife sharpening tools that I could actually make sure that the edge is correct?
Plastic angle guides combined with any stone you want.
>Is something like Work Sharp precision adjust sharpener good?
No. Overpriced garbage that breaks and is a crutch to avoid learning how to use sharpening stones. Just use fricking sharpening stones. Diamond, silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, Arkansas, Japanese water stones, etc. I pretty much only use 3" pocket stones now.
Are Mora classics any good as hunting knives? Small belly and scandi grinds aren't usually used on hunting knives as far as I know.
Works fine for gutting and parting out, but almost impossible to skin with, the geometry simply isn't suited to that.
Mora is the only "small fixed blade" that anyone need concern themselves with. Just grind down the spine if you want a really sharp tip for carving.
havuhonor
Trigger discipline!
Plebs.
That book was like the Bible to me growing up.
I disagree with him about knives though. He lived in a dark age of bladesmithing, even iron age specimens of large blades, the "seax" or "sax"for example for which the Saxon people are named, were superior to what he probably had available. He suggested that the "Bowie" knives of his day had very bad heat treatments as a rule, and I'm sure they did. He also didn't have light pruning saws like we have today (Silky, Bahco, etc), which can duplicate the sheer crosscutting effectiveness of a hatchet 7-8 times their own weight, albeit with certain disadvantages. A strong fixed blade paired with a light saw is the way to go for survival and 3 season camping/backpacking in my opinion. I wouldn't want to live off the land full time without a good axe though.
Cold steel bushman would be probably the best survival blade if only it was 1mm thicker
I like Cold Steel overall but my Bushman was a piece of shit that chipped horribly. I'll give them a pass because that was their cheapest budget product and it was over a decade ago. Their Drop Forged Survivalist (OP pic) is the greatest survival knife ever made even if price weren't a factor.
Except the weight and that gay knife in picture, you are mostly correct.
It SHOULD make a hatchet redundant, that's what you need in a survival knife, that means scandi grind and thick spine.
Toughness over hardness is super important for steel choice, a somewhat dull knife still functions well enough, a broken blade leaves you stranded without a very important tool.
What's the better knife then? I've probably owned it before and I'll tell you what I don't like about it.
Leuku or similar if you had to survive with only the clothes you are wearing and one knife for a month or more.
If you're carrying a thick spined scandi grind knife that's suitable for manufacturing firewood, you might as well be carrying a hatchet, especially if your survival depends on it. If you're backtracking 40 miles of mostly treeless desert 4x4 trail because your moto broke down and you need to find help, a smaller and lighter knife will make it easier. I love my big knives but they're not the only ones I carry when things can go wrong.
That's not the point, the point is you CAN do every knife thing with it AND hatchet things, not to be the best at any single thing.
You don't need surgical accuracy for gutting fish for food, you don't need a dedicated splitting axe for a little firewood to keep yourself warm.
The whole point is that it's one knife that can do most things 'good enough', and the blade geometry is by nature very resistant to chipping and bending, so less chance of leaving you stranded with a fricked knife.
I must agree with you on this; if for some reason I was limited to carrying only one knife or a very light load then yes I'd carry a knife that I could ruthlessly baton across the grain with... but if I knew before heading out that I'd have to manufacture enough firewood for a week long camp (a fairly common occurrence) or if my survival truly depended on using fire to stay warm enough, I'd carry an axe (and probably a saw) in addition to a knife. I'd carry a tent and warm sleeping bag too.
It's those in-between adventures in which carrying a large knife might save your bacon -- fast and light cross country travel but with a possibility of an unplanned bivouac -- but this is also when I'm most likely to adhere to the "light is right" principle and carry only a razor blade.
I can see that, though I don't care terribly much about weight, but prefer simple, I want to carry only what I need, no luxuries, no duplicates, if that makes sense.
There are cases where i will bring a smaller knife, for example when hunting or fishing, and I will take a folding saw if I camp in a tent in late fall or winter.
Have tried bringing a hatchet, but I don't think it brings enough to the table for me to carry it over a leuku, if I really need something beefier to chop with, I'll bring a real axe or even a chainsaw.
When my pack weighs 45lbs, saving 80 grams in my knife is roughly meaningless.
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I'll just leave this here.
I follow that channel and can do anything in that video with any combat/survival fixed blade I own.
I can do it with my bayonet still attached to my gun. We are not the same.
My collection
There's no such thing as a survival knife because a knife that suits one job or environment well won't suit other jobs or environments as well. If you're an Alaskan bush pilot you won't carry a machete, and a Appalachian Trail through hiker will need something entirely different. For every region there will be a knife most suitable to create a shelter or procure and store water (and maybe to build a fire to boil water). Furthermore, any serious survival situation will be best dealt with by having at least two different knives or cutting tools -- this is survival 101, going back 150,000 years.
I think it would be better to say that there is no one-size-fits-all survival knife. Just because different environments have different needs doesn't mean a knife can't help you.
Yes, that's what I should've said.
I don't carry a knife or a gun or a hatchet or a saw and I go camping in forests for over a week I don't understand this board
No one who actually goes PrepHole understands this board.
Plenty of people on this board go out. It's just a thing to periodically check out and contribute to.
Kabar Dogshead
simple as
Hmm, I have a KA-BAR, just the cheap $100 model with a plastic handle and sheath. I like the weight and balance -- it's perfect for cutting blackberry vines across the trail with a whip-snap motion. I had to look up the dog's head KA-BAR and found a thoroughly entertaining review by LostViking on bushcraftusa.com. He was gentle with it, as I am with mine, for there are many stories about exploding KA-BARs while batoning. Ironically, I bought mine after watching JOE-X destroy one -- it took a hell of a beating before snapping. I love everything about the knife, and if I ever break or lose it I'll immediately buy another. It's not a survival knife insofar as you shouldn't baton with it.
Can anyone recommend something for under 50 CAD? Also purchasable in Canuckistan?
Shout out to Opinel, I paid less than 20 CAD for mine, and 10 years later it still works great. I dont really use it for splitting though.
where does the scandi grind come into all this, is there such thing as a scandi chopper
Scandi grind is just a good grind for working with wood, particularly soft wood like fir. If we assume that a knife that is carried for a survival situation will primarily be used to create shelter and manufacture firewood, and will be carried in an area with abundant trees, then a scandi grind will work better than say a delicate hollow grind. However, in my opinion, the grind of the knife is maybe the least important thing about a survival knife. I've put hollow grind knives through the wringer with no complaints.
>through the wringer
Good on you for not spelling it "ringer" like a fricking boomer
Yeah, but the second you try to pry on something with a hollow ground, or even flat grind, you run the risk of fricking up the balde to a point no amount of grinding will ever fix (bending)
looks like a boring version of the Gerber StrongArm
I'm questioning purchasing a strong arm.
would you recommend?
it's shit steel, but shit steel can be comfy, if you want to mistreat your knife and occasionally sharpen an edge very quickly when you need it, it works great, it's pretty much indestructible. if you need something that holds an edge a for long time it's not great, better get harder steel. it's very thick too so not good for fine work
any recommendations?
I was planning on getting the strong arm for anything and everything so I can buy one knife and never worry again.
if you are only going to do bushcraft stuff, the Gerber Strongarm is fine, but take a sharpening stone
if you are going to do hunting or cleaning fish as well as bushcrafting, get some better steel blade, maybe a RUIKE F118 JAGER
Does this count? Lol. This is such a a shitty Friday.
go back to /k/
you dont bend the spoon but the spoon bends you 😀 what do you want with this toys did you ever heard of stones? 😀
besieds wikies lies i triangulated you hat regions, i lick you 😀