View Poll Results: Which blade?

Voters
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  • Survive! Knives GSO 4.7 or 4.5

    0 0%
  • Bradford Guardian 5.5

    1 7.14%
  • Benchmade Leuku

    1 7.14%
  • Other (please list)

    8 57.14%
  • You’re crazy for spending that cash to make a campfire

    4 28.57%
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Thread: Help me spend money on a camp knife

  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by TOTS View Post
    Gents, looking for a fixed blade for camp use. We mainly tent camp and the primary use would be for processing kindling for starting fires. Pretty much narrowed it down to the below three ~ 5 inch blades but wouldn’t rule out anything similar. Budget limit is pretty much $250. Looking for something in stock or lead time under six months.

    Survive! Knives GSO 4.7 or 4.5. Pros: Magnacut/3V and great warranty. Cons: lead times, shape is just a little wonky with the spear point
    https://surviveknives.com/gso-4-7/

    Bradford Guardian 5.5 Pros: 3V and great warranty. Cons: longevity of company (service in 15 years?)
    https://bradfordknives.com/guardian-...olate_richlite

    Benchmade Leuku. Pros: 3V, price (mil discount) Cons: puuko shape, yet another Benchmade
    https://www.benchmade.com/202-leuku.html

    Am I crazy for spending $250 to split some wood to start fires? I currently only have a tactical style 4.5 inch and three Moras. Should I just use the Moras as disposable and spend the cash on an AR?

    ETA: I’ve kinda discounted the Esee products as I’m not spending $150+ and ending up with 1095. Also, I’ll never sit around the fire and whittle a spoon, etc, so I’m looking a little larger than the traditional bush-crafters.
    You definitely do not need a $250 "camp knife" to start a fire. And I say this as a person who owns multiple $250++ camp knives. I own well made (but expensive" large knives because I like them and I want to.

    There's a big difference between our modern, weekend camping and say a 1700's fur trapper who lived either alone or with a few comrades deep in the wilderness for months on end.

    A hatchet is absolutely a much better tool for processing wood than a knife. It's better at chopping and it's better at splitting. I think the current craze in "bushcrafting" is to baton logs all the time. I view batoning wood as an emergency process, for when you need to get a fire started right now and there is no viable dry kindling. If I needed to split large pieces of wood to secure dry kindling and I had a hatchet, I'd use a hatchet. A knife is my tool of last resort in this situation. With a good, sharp hatchet you can split wood, make kindling and shave down feather sticks.

    IME, the camp knife is the jack of all trades and master of none. You can clean game with it, but it may be awkward. You can chop vegetables and perform other meal prep, but it's not going to be as efficient as a dedicated chef's knife. You can break down wood for a fire, but it's not as efficient at this task as a hatchet.

    A camp knife can be a fine choice for occasional weekend camping, since it does most tasks pretty well. Although a hatchet also can act as a hammer, and a knife not so well.

    Far be it for me to discourage a man from buying a new knife I'd suggest taking a look at Bark River knives on DLT Trading or KnivesShipFree. I have several of their knives and they are excellent blades. Look for something in 3V for a very tough blade, with excellent edge holding characteristics and fairly stain resistant.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by cornstalker View Post
    Regarding 1095: With the advent of the super steels, I get it. Especially CPM 3V for utility purposes. Just a thought, though.

    When it came to ease of sharpening, and the ability to throw a shower of sparks off of a ferro rod, I was really glad I had a 1095 blade. The TOPS BOB is a tank of a tool, and would handle the tasks you describe with ease. My point is that I wouldn't rule out a knife that fits your needs just because it is 1095, as it has its own set of advantages in the field. Then again, I live in a dry climate.
    I get it. And I really should look at Tops. They have really great prices for military. Great points for 1095 and the BOB. I know they do 1095 right. I currently only have a defensive fixed blade and some Moras; my tendency is to get one tool for the category and get the best one for me within budget. That’s what’s pushing me to 3v.

    Great info from all, I really didn’t expect a) this much involvement in my discussion, b) you guys to suck so much at enabling and encourage me to save money!

    You all bring up valid points and I’m convinced by the argument that it’s probably better to add a skill to the armory vice equipment. @okie john, thanks for the book recommendation; it’s ordered. @blues, those videos are a good place to start if you don’t know what you don’t know about hatchets. Now to learn what makes a good camp hatchet.

    I never gave any background but it may be relevant after all. The fact that I have taken several survival training classes but no camp/ bushcraft classes explains the gap in my skillset. Furthermore, it was always ingrained into me that the time to practice a survival skill was not in a survival situation. So I started making opportunities to build ‘field fires’ and have my kids doing the same. My wife found a small packet of cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly with small twigs and part of a birds nest in my daughter’s over-alls pocket and threw it at me, rolling her eyes! “Im not even gonna ask….”

  3. #23
    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RevolverRob View Post
    Moras work fine for these tasks and I don't see what a Bradford or Benchmade will give you over a Mora. It certainly won't five you $200 more kindling when camping.

    But for that matter, I strongly prefer a hatchet when camping. Because it's a hammer and a fire tending tool.
    Am 90% committed to getting one of these this year. Light and incredible balance. Razor edge. Akka Forester's Axe

    https://hultsbruk1697.se/products/the-akka/
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

  4. #24
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    @okie john

    I'm a big fan of Kephart. Have all his books. A Kephart knife built by Carothers.

    Have hiked the trails he frequented in the Smoky Mountains and have visited the site of his last camp on Deep Creek...and been near his old camp on Hazel Creek.

    Also visited his grave at the cemetery in Bryson City.

    Lot to learn from folks like him and Nessmuk.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

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  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by JHC View Post
    Am 90% committed to getting one of these this year. Light and incredible balance. Razor edge. Akka Forester's Axe

    https://hultsbruk1697.se/products/the-akka/
    FWIW, I have three Hults Bruks products and am very happy with all of them. I had a head come loose early on one, but it was an easy fix.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by JHC View Post
    Am 90% committed to getting one of these this year. Light and incredible balance. Razor edge. Akka Forester's Axe

    https://hultsbruk1697.se/products/the-akka/
    Nice! In my brief readings concerning axes and hatchets, HB keeps coming up as the standard of quality. I’m now about 90% committed to the same axe!! It definitely seems like what I’m looking for

  7. #27
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Swedes make some sweet axes. I've only got a few from Gransfors Bruks but i hear great things about the Hults as well.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

    Read: Harrison Bergeron

  8. #28
    Site Supporter Maple Syrup Actual's Avatar
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    I am totally also an axe-plus-lighter-duty knife guy myself AND I know there's almost no camp task I couldn't do with a $30 hardware store axe and a $10 Mora. Or if I wanted a heavy duty beater I'd probably just grab one of the Milwaukee tools $20 knives that are suddenly everywhere around here and I bet you could baton that through a road surface without changing it too much.

    BUT: that's not really the question. The question is "what sweet camp knife should I get, to have a really sweet camp knife?" and back when we were a dual-income-no-kids family I thought about stuff like this a lot because I love camping and fires and edged tools of all kinds.

    Of the choices shown the Benchmade Leuku trips my trigger the most - I think of a small leuku as the middle of a three circle Venn diagram that features "small butcher knife," "mini-machete" and "woodcrafting knife" and to me that makes it a near perfect all-arounder if your chores include a bunch of heavier knife-work.

    As an axe guy I went a slightly different route when I wanted a sweet camp knife: the Bark River Aurora. It's not a chopper at all but for non-chopping tasks, it's like a Mora on steroids...which also then approached an elite-level strength coach to maximize the performance gains. But it's still a fairly light knife relative to what you're looking at there, precisely because I have all the chopping power I can use readily available.


    I do also really like their original Hudson Bay camp knife, it's a lot choppier. But I don't know if it checks exactly the same boxes as the 3 knives mentioned; the original one was I think about a 7" blade and the current one I'm pretty sure is noticeably bigger than that so you're getting into pure chopper territory there and I think that reduces the utility.

    Anyway that's my take. The only downside to the Leuku IMO is if you want to do any fiddly woodcrafty stuff, the tip isn't suited to drilling holes or anything, so maybe a little trickier if you want to build a Simpson rabbit launcher etc. But the comment about whittling not happening makes me think that's not a problem.



    One last comment I guess is just to expand on why I prefer the Leuku to the other options shown:

    The "Survive" knife I think the torx screws would start to become hot spots in my hand if I used it for too long. Ten years ago I worked with my hands a lot and they were like saddle leather but now they're softer and I find screws on handles like that bother me after a while. But I still probably get an hour of use time in before it becomes an issue so maybe not a major concern, that's just my "lose two points for screws" automatic response.

    The "Guardian" is a really nice looking knife and I think those screws in the handle look less likely to bother me. For totally unspecified "I will camp and must have knife" activities I think it would be a more broadly applicable shape. The only real reason I have to go with the Leuku over that is that I think you will find the leuku's blade shape puts a bit more weight at the end and thus chops a little better and I THINK you will lean a bit more towards chopping and food prep. The Guardian is like the midpoint between the Leuku and the Aurora I mentioned earlier, so if there were an equal balance of chopping, crafting, and slicing, I think I'd go this route. I just got a bit more of a "choppy" vibe from the thread, maybe because it drifted into axe talk, but anyway, that's my take.


    Oh one more thing: Hults Bruk has been good to go every time I've picked one up. I have a Wetterlings (now Gransfor Bruks) one size down from the Akka and it's very handy if you need a packable axe, but I previously had a Hults in that size - we call it a 3/4 axe here - and for a general use axe IMO it's just about perfect. It was stolen out of an old pickup I had, that's the only reason I don't have it anymore. And now I process enough firewood that I use a huge maul more than anything else, so I don't find as much need to replace it as I used to. But a great axe, no doubt about it.
    This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff

  9. #29
    Member Shotgun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by blues View Post
    my small Gransfors Bruks mini hatchet.
    PM incoming.
    "Rich," the Old Man said dreamily, "is a little whiskey to drink and some food to eat and a roof over your head and a fish pole and a boat and a gun and a dollar for a box of shells." Robert Ruark

  10. #30
    I'm a simple guy who only camps for a few nights at a time, but a small Fiskars hatchet and Mora knife covers all the bases for me.

    I also usually carry a small Silky saw if it's cold and I know I'll want a good fire.

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