Mora Knives and batoning wood

ShelterMe

ShelterMe

Joined
Jul 11, 2010
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This may get bumped back to general knife discussion, however the question is more related to bushcrafting...

I have a few Mora knives and have seen videos of people batoning (word?) small to medium sized wooden boughs on the www-- chopping as well as splitting. I use my Becker BK2 for this activity, and seeing that the knife is designed with this purpose in mind, it performs admirably. Even though the Moras are not designed for this particular activity, I'm sure some of you have at least tried it with them. The Moras I have (911 Carbon, 731 Carbon and Frosts Clipper stainless) are all amazingly sharp, fairly thick (all are .098 but for the Clipper which is .079) but they all have the modern Mora rubber wrapped plastic handles and none have a full, thick tang. I don't as of yet have any Moras with the traditional wood handle.

1. Has anyone here used any of the Mora models I have (or any other Moras) to chop or split wood by using the baton method where the eventual result was a broken plastic handle?

2. Has anyone here used any Moras with the traditional wooden handle to chop or split wood by using the baton method where the eventual result was a split wooden handle?

3. With these questions in mind, which design is more durable for batoning, plastic handle or wood handle?

(I personally would rather have neither a wood handle or a plastic handle, but most of the Moras limit you to plastic or wood). The rubber grip on the plastic handle is great, but I suspect the plastic will not hold up well to batoning. The durability of a wood handle is great, but finished wood is very slippy (moreso when wet) and wood in general splits easily when it's cold out.

Any opinions here on this?

Cheers,

:confused:
 
So do I. Never done anything too big with it. 2" or 3" or so out in the woods. I get bored and use it to split old chunks of scrap lumber in the garage sometimes. :o No problems at all.
 
I think that the plastic handles are a hell of alot more shock-resistance then people give them credit for.

I have baton'd a good deal with the clipper which only have a tang of 1-2 inches.
I think that the plastic handles is more durable then the wood handle, and over all holds up better then the wood handle knives.
 
I broke the blade on my Clipper before I broke the handle. I still have the pieces around here somewhere.
 
I've batoned a few times with my Frost Mora 740 and 780 knives, but honestly, I think your asking for trouble with a hidden tang plastic handle knife.
 
In my experience the handle is very robust.



..but I broke the blade battoning the knife through some very gnarly Gorse. I was abusing the knife at the time - just seeing what it would take.
The Clipper batons well, but if you meet excessive resistance, stop!

 
For some reason a lot of people on here think I have a strong dislike for Mora's.......Ok no beating about the bush I ain't their biggest fan.:D

Anyway I did borrow my sons Clipper the other week and ended up splitting some wood with it because I was too lazy to fetch a more appropriate tool. This section of wood was a pretty big piece and had a few decent knots running through it.
Due to the Mora's thin blade it really has to work when battoning through wood, it's not like a big fat 1/4" prybar of a knife that acts like a wedge. I was quite suprised to see the Mora came through totally unharmed.
I still don't like em but they are suprisingly tough little buggers !;):thumbup:
 
I have a red handle clipper, a 510, and mora 2000. I purposely beat the snot out of every single one of them and they keep on going. I like to carry and use the mora 2k the most. Easy to sharpen, comfortable handle, and I like the different grinds. The 510 is my oldest one that I have in moras. Great carbon steel, I like the sheath for a neck knife, and holds a edge pretty good.
One thing I love about Mora they are cheap and they seem to a quality knife. If you happen to break or loose one it won't hurt the piggy bank on replacing it with a new one.
 
Mora knives are a study in true value. Have to hand it to the Swedes. They set out to make good knives that everyone can afford. And they nailed it. They don't even have to market their products. The knives just sell themselves.

I have never broken any of my moras, though I keep spares just in case.
 
GEC's mora 2000 did take a beating the one day we were out camping with my kids, we first used my ontario marine combat and then he used his mora and that knife worked just as good as mine did.
 
RR is right. When you don't try to take it to the extreme every time you go out it will handle just about anything you can throw at it.
 
I was on my way out the door this morning so I posted in a hurry..so I figured I'd add something. Eveyone knows I love me a mora.. I use them all the time...I've battoned with them and will continue to do so without concern or incidence of failure.. But I keep my battoning tasks relatively modest... I'm not going to baton through an arm thick piece of knotted ironwood with one.. but for splitting kindling to make finer kindling, or for splitting down a limb for a fire board, I wouldn't think twice.
To me a razor sharp scalpel of a blade is an invaluable resource across a broad spectrum of uses.. and that's what a mora is.... if your style is adapted..it can be used to perform most tasks within reason .....For the super heavy work I'd go with a heavier tool... but the question is after foraging your land scape is to determine if heavy work is actually necessary based on you're given situation... in other words.. if there;s lot's of dry kindling to be found in the area is it necessary to be splitting wood? true survivalism imho is about conerving energy and calories, and about protecting your assets.. ( in this case your knife) so if I can snap some dead limbs of the bottom of a Hemock tree, maybe I don;t need to split wood after all.
 
RescueRiley said:
I was on my way out the door this morning so I posted in a hurry..so I figured I'd add something. Eveyone knows I love me a mora.. I use them all the time...I've battoned with them and will continue to do so without concern or incidence of failure.. But I keep my battoning tasks relatively modest... I'm not going to baton through an arm thick piece of knotted ironwood with one.. but for splitting kindling to make finer kindling, or for splitting down a limb for a fire board, I wouldn't think twice.
To me a razor sharp scalpel of a blade is an invaluable resource across a broad spectrum of uses.. and that's what a mora is.... if your style is adapted..it can be used to perform most tasks within reason .....For the super heavy work I'd go with a heavier tool... but the question is after foraging your land scape is to determine if heavy work is actually necessary based on you're given situation... in other words.. if there;s lot's of dry kindling to be found in the area is it necessary to be splitting wood? true survivalism imho is about conerving energy and calories, and about protecting your assets.. ( in this case your knife) so if I can snap some dead limbs of the bottom of a Hemock tree, maybe I don;t need to split wood after all.
Click to expand...

Correct and EXTREMELY well written

Bravo
 
RescueRiley said:
I was on my way out the door this morning so I posted in a hurry..so I figured I'd add something. Eveyone knows I love me a mora.. I use them all the time...I've battoned with them and will continue to do so without concern or incidence of failure.. But I keep my battoning tasks relatively modest... I'm not going to baton through an arm thick piece of knotted ironwood with one.. but for splitting kindling to make finer kindling, or for splitting down a limb for a fire board, I wouldn't think twice.
To me a razor sharp scalpel of a blade is an invaluable resource across a broad spectrum of uses.. and that's what a mora is.... if your style is adapted..it can be used to perform most tasks within reason .....For the super heavy work I'd go with a heavier tool... but the question is after foraging your land scape is to determine if heavy work is actually necessary based on you're given situation... in other words.. if there;s lot's of dry kindling to be found in the area is it necessary to be splitting wood? true survivalism imho is about conerving energy and calories, and about protecting your assets.. ( in this case your knife) so if I can snap some dead limbs of the bottom of a Hemock tree, maybe I don;t need to split wood after all.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your post Riley, I think your last point is lost on a lot of knife people.
 
stingray4540 said:
Thank you for your post Riley, I think your last point is lost on a lot of knife people.
Click to expand...

Well we ain't all going to the woods to practice survival, where every calorie counts and you need to make fire and shelter to survive.

Some of us( meaning me) would be better of burning ever calorie we can in the woods to loose a few pounds, instead of trying to conserve energy
When going to the woods and making a fire, I will often leave perfectly good kindling alone and start to baton wood to get kindling, because I prefer to work with my knife and I like to split wood with it.

This is not survival training or bush craft, it's enjoying playing with a knife.
:rolleyes:
 
whatever dude....it is ina survival subforum..forgive my literal interpretation
edited to add:
if you want to go out and play with knives have fun with it, noone said otherwise.. but the idea of "smoothing it" and taking a slow methodical approach to the outdoors is more appealing and enriching to me on a personal level.
I enjoy knives quite a bit..and I consider them to be the most valuable of tools in my bushcraft arsenal, but I don 't really play with them..no more than I play with my cordless drill, hammer or chainsaw.. to me it is a tool that can be utilized to accomplish a myriad of specified and general tasks.. We or at least myself I think as self admitted knife nuts I think sometimes lose sight of that..
 
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Just about every knife can baton wood, and any knife can break.

As long as you are in tune with the limits of your knife, your knife will be fine.

I prefer the classic Mora #2 mostly for its handle shape and laminated blade, but the full stick tang is assuring too.
 
I am a die hard (as in you will die hard if you try to steal my) KJ Eriksson Moras! These are the ones with full tangs in the wood handle models and the 3/4 tang in the 511, 2000, and other models. It was always Frosts that had the cheap 1/3 tangs.

Now what happens when they become one company? Well the red wood handled Frost Of Sweden model I bought no longer has a full tang, instead of seeing the pinned tang all you see is solid wood so you can't tell how far the tang goes into the handle.

I sold all my Frosts and used the money to buy more KJ Erikssons then vacuum sealed them.

I have batoned with the KJ Eriksson 511 plastic handle knife with no problem but batoning is something I avoid if I can.
 
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