Agreed. Makes me cringe just to think about it.

A recent episode of the trvel show GLOBETRECKER involved the young lady traveling with a Saami family. You actually see a reindeer ( well not the throatcutting, man thoughtfully turned his back to camera)butchered and cooked for dinner. The mother took a Lueko and with a light fingertip stroke harvested birch branches for the floor's bedding and insulation uder reindeer robes.The floor had been shovelled to permfrost by a-shovel.

I didn't see the Saami stabbing car doors,arguing over exotic metallurgys or what to put in the hollow handle.Catch any number of Amazon based films and some guy is swinging a Tramontina that even in the USA cost more to ship than actually buy.

The fundamental difference between these two examples and ourselves is apparent. This is theeir HOME. We go into the world, the REAL world as visitors and aliens and start building Swiss Family Robinson Treehouses.

(hey, wildman, just looked back at my post, realized I was going over the top, and down-one-side-and-up-the-other. i'm just expounding, no offence intended. we cool?)

The connection of the blade to the handle has always been a weak point on Mora knives. This is generally never an issue as long as you do knife-like things with it. As a knife, used for cutting and only the lightest prying or ax work, it is entirely adequate and dependable.

If your the sort who abuses their equipment, the sort who could break an iron ball with a rubber hammer, and the sort who mistakenly take this as a point of pride, then you might try putting an edge on the leaf spring from a truck.

I used to carry a Kabar but, as you pointed out, it is heavy and much larger than any knife needs to be for job. Ironically it is also far weaker in some ways than it looks. The tool steel is far more brittle than is commonly assumed.

There are precious few times and places where weight and bulk are not an issue. More weight means you move more slowly and/or arrive more exhausted and/or have to leave something else behind. It is almost always a zero-sum game. A knife that is overly heavy or bulky than it needs to be costs you somewhere else.

I wandered into owning three Mora knives. So far for what I have used them for (cutting stuff) they are great. Good size, easy to manage, light weight. I usually trust the opinion of my father-in-law on knife issues, and he absolutely loves his Mora knives. I also have (and can't wait to use) a Cold Steel Bushman. For it's size and supposed strength it is reasonably light, and inexpensive.

The Mora is a "rat tail" knife. So is the Kabar. Both are weak at that point...

I've broken a couple, usually batoning or heavy cutting trying to get to dry wood on the inside of a small log for a fire.

They work ok for cheap knives, but there are much better options out there, IMO. YMMV.

BTW the Cold Steel Bushman has been tested for shear strength at the blade/handle junction up to two tons before bending. They also have a three year replacement guarantee. All for around $30.

Yeah, interesting blade, but for backpacking? 10.1 oz.?!?

I can carry a Mora, a SWAK Classic and a wood saw blade for roughly half that.

Don't get me wrong, I've handled a Bushman, and want one to play with. Pretty sure I'd wrap the handle in grippy tape right away -- seems like a blister maker to me.

But for backpackers, that's exactly the kind of knife that stays at home.

I guess I worry less about weight when I'm backpacking. The only time I pay attention to weight when I'm going into the outdoors is when it concerns the size of projectile coming out of my barrel. Tarzan, I too carry a machete when I go into the woods.