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- Jun 3, 2015
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- 2,119
I've been looking into getting a Becker or similar large knife for a while, and am struggling to make a lot of sense of what I am reading about 'survival knives' on these and other forums. The knives that people are reviewing seem to mainly get assessed on their ability to baton wood, with all other features ranking a distant second against this consideration. All the Youtube videos I have watched involve people smashing these knives into bits of wood with other bits of wood, and then commenting on whether the knife 'performed' or did not.
I fail to see how smashing up bits of pre-sawn wood with a knife has any relevance to an actual survival situation. Why and in what circumstances would you do this? What exactly are these smaller bits of wood used for, and how did the larger logs that are being batoned get sawn up? How much energy/calories are being expended on this task, and to what end?
The main relevance of the test seems to be that it is used to justify selecting a really large knife with a very thick blade. No other 'survival' test I have seen being performed in a Youtube video seems to require this blade size and strength as an attribute. The trade-off is that the larger knife may make a hopeless spear point, or be poor at food prep, first aid, or the countless other tasks that a small knife performs much better.
This got me thinking, what tasks are relevant in a survival situation? I just don't think I know. There could be a whole bunch of stuff - it depends where you are trying to survive and what you are doing. Certainly, the type of tasks that a backpacker or trekker uses a knife for would be relevant, but so would the tasks that a hunter does, and probably a general handyman as well. But the more you think about those varied types of situations, the less likely it seems that you would actually be relying on one knife as a multipurpose survival tool. You would need to be on your own, in remote wilderness, without a vehicle, and having to live off the land, all of which seems very unlikely. The most likely way this could come about is if you were already in the wilderness for the purpose of trekking or hunting, and somehow gotten lost, and then needed to live in the wilderness for a protracted period of time with very limited resources. Generally, this situation would befall someone who was inexperienced in the outdoors, couldn't navigate and hadn't make contingency plans if anything went wrong. If that person was a hunter or trekker, and was a knowledgeable outdoors man, they would have selected a knife primarily for its hunting or trekking capability, not for survival purposes. Their knife would not have been chosen for its ability to smash large bits of wood into smaller bits of wood. Nor would they select a knife based on building large or complex structures, trail clearing, farming or other tasks that knives like Kukri's are used for.
In real life terms, how many people do we know have been in this type of situation and have reported back on their knife's utility? Are there any reports of people getting lost and having to survive who lament the fact that they were only carrying their hunting knife and not something 'designed' for 'survival'?
All of which makes me think that a 'survival' knife might make a great truck knife, where it may perform a range of different purposes, or if it could also be used as a self-defence weapon, it might be useful tool for a soldier (or more likely, an airman or driver who is pressed for room but not for weight), but the type of 'survival' tasks that you see people using 'survival' knives for on Youtube videos seem completely inappropriate when considered against a real, as opposed to an imaginary, survival situation.
I fail to see how smashing up bits of pre-sawn wood with a knife has any relevance to an actual survival situation. Why and in what circumstances would you do this? What exactly are these smaller bits of wood used for, and how did the larger logs that are being batoned get sawn up? How much energy/calories are being expended on this task, and to what end?
The main relevance of the test seems to be that it is used to justify selecting a really large knife with a very thick blade. No other 'survival' test I have seen being performed in a Youtube video seems to require this blade size and strength as an attribute. The trade-off is that the larger knife may make a hopeless spear point, or be poor at food prep, first aid, or the countless other tasks that a small knife performs much better.
This got me thinking, what tasks are relevant in a survival situation? I just don't think I know. There could be a whole bunch of stuff - it depends where you are trying to survive and what you are doing. Certainly, the type of tasks that a backpacker or trekker uses a knife for would be relevant, but so would the tasks that a hunter does, and probably a general handyman as well. But the more you think about those varied types of situations, the less likely it seems that you would actually be relying on one knife as a multipurpose survival tool. You would need to be on your own, in remote wilderness, without a vehicle, and having to live off the land, all of which seems very unlikely. The most likely way this could come about is if you were already in the wilderness for the purpose of trekking or hunting, and somehow gotten lost, and then needed to live in the wilderness for a protracted period of time with very limited resources. Generally, this situation would befall someone who was inexperienced in the outdoors, couldn't navigate and hadn't make contingency plans if anything went wrong. If that person was a hunter or trekker, and was a knowledgeable outdoors man, they would have selected a knife primarily for its hunting or trekking capability, not for survival purposes. Their knife would not have been chosen for its ability to smash large bits of wood into smaller bits of wood. Nor would they select a knife based on building large or complex structures, trail clearing, farming or other tasks that knives like Kukri's are used for.
In real life terms, how many people do we know have been in this type of situation and have reported back on their knife's utility? Are there any reports of people getting lost and having to survive who lament the fact that they were only carrying their hunting knife and not something 'designed' for 'survival'?
All of which makes me think that a 'survival' knife might make a great truck knife, where it may perform a range of different purposes, or if it could also be used as a self-defence weapon, it might be useful tool for a soldier (or more likely, an airman or driver who is pressed for room but not for weight), but the type of 'survival' tasks that you see people using 'survival' knives for on Youtube videos seem completely inappropriate when considered against a real, as opposed to an imaginary, survival situation.
