The right bushcraft knife is an essential tool for the bushcrafter.
A good bushcraft knife is an absolute necessity for the bushcrafter and often replaces a lot of heavy, bulky gear. A strong knife and a club, allows you to baton through reasonably sized tree limbs, often negating the need for an axe, saw or machete. Although, it is always best to have the right tool for the job, it’s just not realistic. You can’t expect to have the proper tool for every task you might run into, especially in a survival situation. The right knife, although not always perfect, fills the roll of many different tools in many different situations. Carrying the right bushcraft knife can make life easier and can literally be a life saver in a dire situation.
So, what is the right bushcraft knife?
There isn’t one.
Well, there isn’t just one. The “right bushcraft knife” depends on your environment, conditions, and likely tasks. Camping on the beach often requires a stainless steel blade with a lower hardness or Hrc. Considering the possible lack of freshwater, the salt in the air and the likeliness of swimming in the ocean and cleaning salty fish with your knife, a carbon steel blade would corrode too easily. A softer, tougher steel is probably better suited for the rocky, course sanded beach, as opposed to a hard, more brittle steel blade, whose edge would likely chip. A softer rolled edge can often be easier to repair in the field than a chipped hard edge.on the other hand, I would advise the same camper to use a hard carbon steel knife if camping in dryer wooded areas. The harder steel will handle chores like splitting and carving hard, dry wood better and longer than a softer steel. Because the conditions won’t be as corrosive, the stainless properties aren’t needed, but a high carbon contentand hardness is preferred. Of course, this is a generality as there are many different stainless and carbon steels, each with the ability to be heat treated to suit. I will get further into the various steels later.
What should you look for in a bushcraft knife?
The functionality, strengths and weaknesses of a bushcraft knife, or any knife, depend on it its:
Blade Design & Shape:
A bushcraft blade should have a long flat cutting edge that turns up to meet a tip, roughly centered to the width of the handle and your grip. The tip shouldn’t be excessively narrow and pointy or blunt and rounded. The flat blade is very versatile making it easy to do things like chopping, batoning and push cuts. Plus, you wont come across slicing or slashing that can’t be done well with a flat blade. So, you won’t need the fat, swooping belly found on most skinning and butcher knives. The idea behind the centered point is versatility. Not only is intricate work much easier when the point of your knife is centered in your grip, but it also makes using your knife to drill and hollow things out easier. Because the tip of a bushcraft knife is so heavily used and abused, it has to be strong but still functional. It should be broad and strong enough to not fail under hard use, but thin and sharp enough to be useful. This design is universally good for things like construction, harvesting,carving, skinning, butchering, digging and food preparation. Especially, if properly maintained and sharpened. The best blade designs for bushcraft knives are:
Carbon/Alloy:
Knife Features:
In all cases, I strongly recommend a bushcraft knife with a full tang. This means that the knife’s steel runs the full length of the knife, from point to pommel. If the force applied to the blade is not distributed through the entire handle, there is a good chance the handle will break or come apart from the blade, eventually. There is one exception that I will mention because of its long track record and groves of adoring fans; the Mora knife or morakniv, now made by Mora of Sweden. I have no personal experience with any of the Moras, but I hear a lot of good about them and haven’t heard of anyone having a problem. There is no need for a serrated blade. Serrations only help a knife cut rough, deep and quick and give the average bushcrafter little to no advantage.
Twice the blade does not mean twice the knife. No double sided blades. Stay away from any type of saw toothed or sharpened spine. In most cases it eliminates the ability to baton, make push cuts or use a ferro rod with your knife. It is also dangerous. Saws often bind. If the saw on the spine of your knife binds on a push stroke, the orientation of the handle makes it likely your hand will slide up the blade, slicing your hand open on the knife’s edge. That could mean big trouble, especially with little to no first aid gear and far from help. If a saw is a must have, which it often is, purchase a lightweight, folding saw that meets your needs. There are many options that, in most cases, are not expensive.
.
