Long knife vs Axe vs Hatchet vs Machete vs compact shovel

LSkylizard said:
In the wilderness, yes, you have no choice.
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Yes you do have a choice, in preperation, consider what people used to take and how they used to treat patients and how they do now. How much more equipment does a paramedic have on hand with him now compared to the same job just a few generations ago. They "made due" back then as well, but generally you can save people now that you could not back then.

Clearly, if you think the chance of having a less then ideally suited axe that takes three hours to cut a tree will be such a liability, take none, the same for maybe a long knife etc...
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Yes it is a liability if the axe is unsuited to the wood, it tends to glance much more readily, the much lower efficiency raises fatigue and chance for injury.

Assuming a complicated operation say... heart bypass? brain aneurysm? I again say there is no parallel.
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It was in regards to the nature of the question not the details.

You can get utility in the wilderness with the two base items alone.
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An axe geared for woods is of little value when there are none, and an axe geared for a significantly different wood type is nothing but a dangerous liability.

I apologize if somehow you believe your survival ability has been insulted by my "silly" scenario.
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You seem to be personally insulted because of the above label, I asked silly questions all the time when I first talked to Joe about knives, same with Jeff and even more with Alvin, and most of my questions to Chas are still pretty silly. But you learn and hopefully get to the point where you can ask sensible questions and eventually ask them a question they don't know but think is a reasonable one. I think it took my like six years or so with Alvin. It was at least a few years with Jeff and those guys still correct me on a fairly regular basis.

Let me not belittle how dire the consequences will be if you take too long to cut your log.
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Consider building a shelter in 5-10 minutes vs hours, in adverse conditions, this assumes you are properly prepared with the right clothing for that enviorment for that seasons (which isn't all the same gear all across canada regardless of the time of year) otherwise you won't last that long anyway. Consider the axe breaking on the tree in the first chop, consider the axe glancing badly on the first chop and going wild and hitting at best the ground or at worse you.

-Cliff
 
GB Wildlife Hatchet, 4" 1/8" thick flat ground skinning knife and a 7" folding saw with several replacement blades and special file to sharpen the blades (weighs only 1 o.z.)

Lsky, you are right about only carrying the minimum tools, try to pack around the proper gear to keep warm hunt and trap with and not exceed 45 pounds is a real problem. It's also why for me I boiled down my hunting arms to a Henry mini-bolt 22lr and a 686 357 revolver with 185 grain hard cast bullets.

If I am lucky, I can stretch a stay in the wilds to 6 to 9 months at that weight.

Geoff
 
shane justice said:
Consider Utzi...
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What is an Utzi? Do you have a link to a page?

Updated replies to my narrowed question:

19" OAL, 2#, 6" wide x 3 1/4" cutting edge SA Wetterling large hunters axe: fits in between a heavier, larger felling axe and a hatchet, a tool that I would be comfortable using as an all around tool.
pulaski axe: a combo mattock and axe. I would need a tool to do construction of shelter ...need to dig and chop... the single tool that i would expect might meet these job reqirements.
BK9: not much that knife can't or won't do...
GB brittish trade axe: It's not to big to walk long distances, big enough to cut hardwoods for permanent shelter, it & the multitool can make almost any other tool I might need...axe beats a shovel for shelter construction ...would be a formidable weapon against man or animal...has value as a trade item to people
GB Wildlife Hatchet
 
It would depend whether you are camping or hunting. I personally prefer a good knife when I’m hunting, which is A LOT. However, if I am camping for a short period of time I will go with a good hand axe. If it is for a long period of time, like I was to set up a permanent camp, and I had to pick one. I would probably go with a good utility shovel. It can chop like an axe, cut like a machete, and dig. All depends on what you want to do bud.
 
Sorry

Otzi.

Spelled it like I thought it was pronounced...

but that guy knew his sh*t.

too bad somebody put some arrows in him though...

S must have HTF.

Shane
 
The Cold Steel one chops as well as a blunt hardware store axe and an unsharpened really cheap machete.

-Cliff
 
Shane, it is my personal opinion that ol Otz was runnin around with someone else's ol lady.
They found out and caused the defication to hit the oscillation.
Hard times.
 
Cliff Stamp said:
Yes it is a liability if the axe is unsuited to the wood, it tends to glance much more readily, the much lower efficiency raises fatigue and chance for injury..........
.... and an axe geared for a significantly different wood type is nothing but a dangerous liability.... consider the axe glancing badly on the first chop and going wild and hitting at best the ground or at worse you....-Cliff
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Always leave your axe in first gear, unless you are chopping black spruce on the winter solstice under a new moon, then put 'er into second.

Cliff, how do all those non-knife knuts go and buy an Estwing from Home Hardware, slap it around with a file, cut every type of wood they come across, and manage to make it home without a pitstop at the ER?
I understand there are differences in in edge geometry, etc, that improve efficiency in different wood types, but , "nothing but a dangerous liability"? C'mon. This is foolish.
 
The Estwing is a hardwood pattern with a slim head which works fairly poorly across a broad range of woods, at most it just sticks badly in softer woods, I have seen it have to be chopped out which isn't dangerous to the user, aside from the indirect frustration and lack of efficiency. Though still yes even then a large liability if the wood was unsuited for it, just like trying to wear the wrong shoes for hiking. Sure easy enough to handle in the short term, but different with extended use.

What is more problematic is if you take something like soft wood Hults which has a head profile similar to a splitting maul, and try to use it on something like birch, oak or cedar which are not even true hardwoods. In order to prevent glancing the angle of attack needs to be really low like 25 degrees or so, about half of optimal which further lowers the already low penetration, now you have to pull back on the swing which further reduces the cut depth and the axe is also *really* heavy, the head weight is about five lbs.

Trying to cut down those trees with it is very inefficient, it is readily outperformed many times over by a GB hatchet, and we are talking survival or emergency use vs camping. If you are camping and you took that axe to that tree you would just stop and keep looking until you found a soft wood, you would not use one situation to dictate preperation for the other. Not to mention the raw efficiency alone is a fairly significant factor. If you had a pill which could increase your endurance and strength by several times over with no side effects would this not be a valuable addition to a survival kit? Picking the right tools for wood working has just this effect, and picking the wrong ones does the same in the other direction so the difference from one to the other is tremendous.

Consider simply wearing the right clothes in an extreme enviroment vs the wrong ones, this is obviously a liability because it reduces your ability to handle exposure, which means essentially the amount of time you can stand in the elements. Well if you pick the wrong axe and it takes you several times as long to get the work done, and your fatigue rate is much higher (which compounds this), which likely raises your stress level, this doesn't seem like a liability to you? It certainly does to me. Again, camping vs survival is different because there is no actual "need", you are not going to die if you don't get a camp fire going in a certain time frame, and you are not going to get frustrated and yank the Estwing the wrong way when it gets stuck in a tree due to running out of time.

Consider as well the typical experience of the people who typically ask questions lilke "ignoring the enviroment what type of XXX" do I need. Do you really want to suggest someone like that uses a vastly suboptimal tool. It is like recommending cotton over wool for cold weather because lots of people do that and they don't die either. Similar with all the other choices which come up in gear selection not just knives. What to include in survival kits for example even with such issues as plastic vs metal whistles, or matches vs ferro/mag kits. Lots of people use ordinary paper matches to start fires their whole lives, that doesn't mean they are not a liability in a survival situation.

-Cliff
 
This has been discussed several times recently with the main points of contention being that skammer proposed that betadine be used for its ability to reduce infection and Lskylizard contending strongly it was the wrong solution and went so far as to compare it to packing the wound with mud. There was also debate over if wemsi was actually promoting betadine for such use based on the description in their webpage :

http://www.wemsi.org/general.html#waterdisinfection

So I cotacted Keith Conover M.D. who is their medical contact and discussed it with him basically outlining the discussion briefly with the issues being is betadine harmful and/or does it do you any benefit. He shared his viewpoint and then I asked him for medical references to support it which he provided without hesitation in the form of a massive email with enough literature to keep me busy for quite awhile.

The interesting thing about studies about low probability outcomes (like infections) is that they tend to go either way as often you are comparing number like 4.6% vs 6.6% and you need massive numbers to know if the differences are signifiant. Most statistics decisions are also based on a 95% confidence rate which means you will be right 95% of the time according to the data, of course it means you are wrong with one out of every twenty studies as well.

I had found several very large (500+ studies) where treating wounds with betadine vs saline produced a significantly lower infection rate, Conover however countered with a bunch which showed that it had no significant effect. He also had a massive amount of other related issues like using sterlie vs clean gloves which as well had no clinical difference in infection rates.

Bottom line was that betadine treated water is fine to use to irrigate wounds however counting on it to lower your chance of infection is on shaky ground however it doesn't seem to hurt it. I can put up some of the references if there is interest, such as :

Dire, D. J. and A. P. Welsh (1990). "A comparison of wound irrigation
solutions used in the emergency department." Ann Emerg Med 19: 704-
708.

which showed no difference between saline or betadine in that regard. So since you have it and use it to purify water any way, it doesn't seem to be an issue of contention.

-Cliff
 
I'm with Jim,

Cliff, most average quality gear will work in a survival situation. It may not be optimum, but it will work just fine. Getting hung up on absolutely having to have the best or perfect tool is nothing but an academic exercise (and no I would not take an axe to the jungle, I assume everybody here would be reasonable in the tool selection they have for their general area). If you have the money, buy the best gear you can. If you are on a budget, don't worry; you can get something that works well.

The wilderness cannot be conquered; you just work you way through it. I like flat ground knives, but I can whittle with a hollow ground knife also. They all work. MOST REASONABLE SELECTIONS OF TOOLS WILL WORK AND YOU WILL LIVE.

Geoff
 
Yup. Pretty much any ol' knife will cut if made sharp.

Pretty much any ol' gear will let you survive.

Are we done?

Can we close the forums yet?

:D :D :D
 
Thomas Linton said:
Yup. Pretty much any ol' knife will cut if made sharp.

Pretty much any ol' gear will let you survive.

Are we done?

Can we close the forums yet?

:D :D :D
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I think this and other forums are useful. I am fairly certain my narrowed question is not the first time. My purpose though was to find out what people thought (or know from experience) when limited in what they carry and how much advanced info they have on what they will need it to do. We talk about survival on these forums and "preparing" for the worst. I do not generally regard survival as an excursion you "plan for". Yes, there are different levels of "survival situations". Yes, planned excursions can go bad. I think it is not difficult to survive well with common sense, advanced warning about your destination, and the ability to choose the best modern stuff in unlimited quantity. I have found it so interesting to see how unable some are to simply choose or state how they would plan for the UNKNOWN...even though many are quick to list a long laundry list of supplies and gear they would airlift into their "planned" survival expeditions. That was not the information I was seeking in this narrowed question. I can find that sort of perfect, infinite information throughout the forums.

I wanted to learn from individuals what they would feel best suited for a large, unknown scenario if they have 2 base items and could choose only ONE additional item...from a limited list of choices. I do not believe that question negates the other broad sweeping, wide open scenarios routinely posted on this and other forums.

I do encourage others that feel they can choose that third item to please respond and tell us why you think that third item would be best for you and/or others given the unknown nature facing you. I for one appreciate those that have been willing to limit their answers to the narrowed question.

thank you.
 
LS, I like this question. Straight forward and to the point.

My choice would have to my GB Small Forest axe.
Here's a link
http://www.eknifeworks.com/webapp/eCommerce/product.jsp?range=91&Mode=Cat&Cat=20&SKU=GB420

This size is a compromise - to face the "unknown". It's small enough to use one-handed when choked up on or 2 handed for more serious cutting.
It's doesn't handle smaller tasks as well, for me, as my GB mini or Wetterling Small Hunter or larger task as well as my GB Scandi or full size no-name fiberglass handled Dept store beater Axe. It does carry much better and farther that my 2 larger ones. I would also feel more comfortable going into this with it over the 2 smaller ones.

That's the whole reason I have that axe now. I use it on the days when I don't know what I'm going to be doing in the woods. It doesn't get used now as much as the others just because of this reason. It's the perfect in-between axe. If I'm just ramblings, scouting, or hunting the smaller ones see service -- if I'm going to be cutting something - the Scandi gets to go.
That's my decision. I kept it to just what I own and use also.

Hope this helps. It's not a hard question.

Jim
 
backpacker said:
If you have the money, buy the best gear you can. If you are on a budget, don't worry; you can get something that works well.
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I wasn't speaking of quality, but of suitability. None of the axes I have are of optimal quality, that runs typically in the $500 head range mainly because of the lack of quality production now so you have to go custom. What I was arguing is that instead of blindly picking gear at random you should choose suitable to the enviroment by first becoming familar with the enviroment.

There is more to this than just getting the right axe type or boots, it is also knowing your goals. While the fantasy senarios of you are suddenly dropped into the unknown after being kidnapped with only a SAK are often discussed, and entertaining and possibly educational from an extreme point of view, most survival situations come from people getting lost or stranded where they did know the enviroment and just didn't prepare.

There is no difference in choosing an axe pattern based on local woods than doing similar with clothes, or consulting with a local about which are the small animals which you can trap and how, which baits to use and which locations you should scout for dens and as well which animals are dangerous and how to avoid them. This is nothing actually preventing you from doing this right now.

I send knives off to people constantly who live in different enviroments. I do this for many reasons, one of them is to learn through them how to (a) pick the right tools for their enviroments and (b) how to adapt if you get the wrong ones. Usually the second one is harder as most people are not willing to use less optimal ones because they are not getting money to do this research for me, just normal guys spending time in the woods, so I don't demand it.

Knowing the wood type as well does a lot more than just allowing you to pick a more optimal blade or saw, it should drastically change how you do the basic tasks. For example wood working with cedar is very different than spruce because the woods are very different in behavior, this will have a significant impact on fire making, shelther construction and tool making.

Cedar for example splits really easily, both in terms of force applied and ability to do so cleanly and to very fine sheets. It also cuts really easily for forming, this allows you to make lats for shelter construction (or baskets, or snowshoes or whatever use your imagination), and you can also then laminate it for tremendous strength and flexibility.

Birch can do similar but uses the bark in a lot of cases, combining the two with a decent actual hardwood covers a very broad range very well, assuming you can actually identify the trees and know their properties.

-Cliff
 
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