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What Knife?

A review by Hugh O 

 

If you ask most survival ‘experts’ what the most valuable survival tool is, you will always get the same answer – your brain (and the knowledge it contains). However, having got the trite answers out of the way, and re-phrased the question as “what bit of kit is the most valuable”, you will also get a unanimous answer – a knife!

 

Good, so now that that’s settled, shall we all grab a dinner knife from the cutlery drawer and head for the great outdoors? Well, no, a blunt bit of Sheffield stainless, whilst better than nothing, is not what you need. So let’s debate what you would be best.

 

This article will, at great length, debate the relative merits of the clip point versus the drop point, explain the necessity of a full length tang and discuss ………………… nope, I’m bored already. If you want to become a knife collector, find a website. This is about a tool, the most important tool for the survivor, not a “know the 30 parts of the knife” paper.

 

 

Before I begin, let me set the context of what I’m talking about. This article describes the tool I would like on my belt, if, in a hypothetical situation, I found myself having to live in a situation remote from civilisation. Everything described here would be illegal to carry in a public place and would be deemed an offensive weapon (unless you could show good reason why you were carrying it).  If you are unaware of the law, you could choose to summarise it like this – any fixed blade (including lockable or “lock knife” blade) may not be carried in a public place without good reason. A folding (and non-fixable) blade under 3” in length is exempt. No spring loaded or gravity actuated (flick, switch or gravity) knife is legal in the UK (or any use in a survival situation).

 

 

On a day-to-day basis, this means you can carry a penknife or multi-tool with a blade no longer than 3” in length and no lock knives or fixed blade knives.  Therefore let’s assume we all carry either a multi-tool or a “Swiss-army knife” and leave them out of this article and cover them separately.

 

There is also the debate about what I would call “heavy tools” – these include machetes, saws (folding and fixed), axes (hand, felling tomahawk etc.). Again, these serve a different a different and more specialised purpose than the belt knife and so will be covered in as separate article.

 

In a survival situation, I would also always choose a fixed blade (sheath) knife over a fixable (lock) knife. I will therefore include lock knives with multi tools and folders and cover them separately.

 

 

Fixed bladed knives…..

 

This article is going to discuss what I want on my belt “come the fall”. What you what on your belt – is up to you. Hopefully some of the points raised here may inform your decision. Okay first question – does size matter? Yep, in this area, size does matter, but bigger, is not better! The classic E-bay “survival knife” is illustrated below:

You must have seen this kind of thing – 10” “Rambo” type blade – saw back – and yes – unscrew the end of the handle and there is your fishing kit and compass.

 

If you own one, please ignore my previous advice about the dinner knife – take that instead! Why? Because the hollow handle means that the blade is not an integral part of the handle. You want the part of the blade that extends into the handle (the “tang”) to be the full length of the handle so that it won’t snap off under pressure. A hollow handle (with one exception) is weak. Also the blade is not handy enough for most tasks of skinning, gutting etc. – its half knife, half machete, and a bit of saw. Its good for none of these tasks though.

 

 

So what is the exception to the “hollow handle bad” rule– where the whole knife is still one piece – The “Cold Steel Bushman” shown below is the only modern commercial one-piece knife.

 

As you can see – the knife is formed from a single piece of steel. The thin, rolled handle is still weaker than a thick solid section in the middle of the handle, but because it is the same piece of steel, less likely to break away than a separate hollow handle.

 

 

The “Rambo” knife has two (and only two) things going for it though:

  1. A way of securing the knife in the sheath
  2. A sharpening stone attached to the sheath

 

So we have our first rules:

  1. A full length “tang”
  2. A way of ensuring the knife stays in the sheath
  3. A way of keeping the knife sharp.

 

Since knife sharpeners can be kept separate (and sharpen other things) we will deal with those in a separate article. So we are back to rules 1 & 2.

 

Right so a full tang blade, with a way of keeping the blade in the sheath

Great – so a great big knife that has a way of securing it into its sheath……

 

Nope – no good here either. This thing is so big, it is effectively a machete. Your knife must be able to feather a stick, skin an animal etc. This thing is good only for felling trees! A blade no more than 6” or so  is great (actually a 4” blade is plenty).

 

So – perhaps the classic Sykes Fairburn commando knife then….

 

Still no. Imagine the action of skinning….you will curl your index finger around the back of the blade and slice upwards. With a double sided knife there is no blunt side to gain purchase with. The rules are growing….

  1. A full length “tang”
  2. A way of ensuring the knife stays in the sheath
  3. A blade no more than 6”
  4. A single sided blade

 So we are getting somewhere.  Little and sharp… lets try this one

 

 

 

Hmmm tiny little 2 ½” blade. That’s right. Also sharp enough to shave with, a purpose designed skinning knife with a broad fat blade to separate skin from carcass.. The gut hook (the notch on the back of the blade) is razor sharp on the inside of the U shape but blunt on the back of the blade.  To slit an animal skin, make a small nick, pinch the skin away from the stomach etc, turn the knife over, insert the point of the U and pull – no chance at all of piercing the stomach and contaminating the meat. The olive wood handles are very non-slip and the knife has a way of tying it off to a belt loop – an absolute must for me. The only draw back is the blade is a little short for some tasks (jointing meat etc.).

 

Right we are there with our list…..here goes:

 

  1. A full length “tang”
  2. A way of ensuring the knife stays in the sheath
  3. A blade of 3” -  6” in length
  4. A single sided blade
  5. A way of tying off the knife

 

It’s a  fairly defined list and it rules out a couple of close contenders – the neat Kershaw knife shown below for example:

 

 

 

This has a perfect size and shape of blade for me… and it has a neat feature. Fold up the blade end of the handle and you can remove the blade and replace with the saw blade that comes in the same sheath.

 


 

This knife loses on two areas – no way of tying off the knife and an inherent weakness as the blade steel isn’t solid and full length (no full tang). It’s a great idea but I’m scared it might weaken over prolonged use (it might not of course).

 

So lets go for the last couple:

 

 

A “Puma” bowie. Solid tang, 6” blade, rough, non-slip stag handles, lanyard hole, single edge blade. How’s the sheath? Let’s see

 

 

Solid leather, good retaining snap (no velcro to get dirty or wear out), leg tie down and hole at the top to attach a lanyard to. This is a beautiful tool. It doesn’t win for me though.

 

Here’s the one that does:

 

 

 

Ugly, isn’t it? Fat blade (great for skinning). Weird looking leather on the sheath (soft as butter from having saddle soap cleaning). Strange angle at the top of the blade near the handle (ridged to give a good thumb grip, curve under the bottom of blade where it joins the handle (perfect to hook your index finger into for an upward cut). 4” blade, retaining strap (pierced so silent to open or close), lanyard hole, solid tang. For me this is THE knife (until I find a better one).  If you like it (and no-one does – until they use it) it’s a Grohmann – handmade in Canada. It’s not a weapon, it’s not a status symbol, and it’s quite simply the best tool for the job for me.