- Joined
- Mar 22, 2006
- Messages
- 5,944
over the past year or so I;ve been musing alot about the classic survival knife concept... or bringing one knife only as a tool.. I experimented with this pretty extensively by using primarily a bk-7 and my edc sak for most of my outings, including camping in all conditions (rain, snow etc.)
Going into this I knew this excercise would be all about compromise
a larger tough knife capable of light chopping, and heavy splitting..will never carve like a bushcraft knife, Nor do they chop like a hatchet.. But I figured I could accept the compromise, shearly based on the convenince of only carrying 1 tool, It is extremely convenient. typically the knife was lashed horizontally under my butpack with my poncho roll over it.. Leaving it easily accesible but out of sight.
a knife in the 7 inch blade range is truly a do all knife. It; chopped trees, split wood, carved trap triggers, cleaned game, and prepped food, all adequately though never as good a a dedicated tool. In that sense i;ve been happy.
The down sides of course are equally obvious.. while they perform tasks, they do none as well as dedicated tools.. herego for the price of a bk7 and a sak
you could get a Mora a sak, and a friskar hatchet and have your bases equally covered, getting better specificity from each tool.
in additon over the past year admittedly I have realized that while chopping and splitting are certainly necessary and vital tasks (particularly int the first 24 hours of setting up a primitive camp. the most blade related actions have been the quick cuts..qucly cutting a piece of cord, trimming the stem of a harvested plant, or shaving tinder to light a fire, al of which can be done with a large knife, but are much handier with a small sharp blade.
in addition, a small fixed bad and hatchet seem to raise allot less eyebrows from strangers, than a larger survival type blade.
All this being said, I still don;t know what side of the fence I;m on. since despite all this there have only been a few times where I really felt longed for a hatchet, (both in winter)
so what about you?? where do you fall? what are your thoughts, and stories?
Going into this I knew this excercise would be all about compromise
a larger tough knife capable of light chopping, and heavy splitting..will never carve like a bushcraft knife, Nor do they chop like a hatchet.. But I figured I could accept the compromise, shearly based on the convenince of only carrying 1 tool, It is extremely convenient. typically the knife was lashed horizontally under my butpack with my poncho roll over it.. Leaving it easily accesible but out of sight.
a knife in the 7 inch blade range is truly a do all knife. It; chopped trees, split wood, carved trap triggers, cleaned game, and prepped food, all adequately though never as good a a dedicated tool. In that sense i;ve been happy.
The down sides of course are equally obvious.. while they perform tasks, they do none as well as dedicated tools.. herego for the price of a bk7 and a sak
you could get a Mora a sak, and a friskar hatchet and have your bases equally covered, getting better specificity from each tool.
in additon over the past year admittedly I have realized that while chopping and splitting are certainly necessary and vital tasks (particularly int the first 24 hours of setting up a primitive camp. the most blade related actions have been the quick cuts..qucly cutting a piece of cord, trimming the stem of a harvested plant, or shaving tinder to light a fire, al of which can be done with a large knife, but are much handier with a small sharp blade.
in addition, a small fixed bad and hatchet seem to raise allot less eyebrows from strangers, than a larger survival type blade.
All this being said, I still don;t know what side of the fence I;m on. since despite all this there have only been a few times where I really felt longed for a hatchet, (both in winter)
so what about you?? where do you fall? what are your thoughts, and stories?