Batoning is not totally useless. It looks more manly than gathering wood off the ground. If I'm out glamping, I'm not too concerned about saving calories. I'm out there to have fun, beat my chest a little, and not take myself too seriously.

What they know about is there Locations and the use of a large machete style blade in their locations. Also they did not Know technology and some still prefer to not know technology.

You may also consider the age of the blade designs and the age of melee combat between such old cultures.

Neither do I, but I wonder if it's based on both of us living in SoCal? I imagine most of your experiences are in the Sierra Madre, Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, Sequoia areas?

In which case, dry fuel is usually abundant, pine cones make great "starter" wood, half the time we can't make a campfire anyway.

I imagine if I went camping in WI with my wife's family, the constant rain and nuclear-mosquitoes would make getting a fire started a tad more difficult - green wood more common, rain more often than not in summer, or socked under snow (this winter being the exception).

Well, you hit the nail on the head when you said primitive cultures. With the invention of portable stoves, ultralight pack saws and all our other modern gear we don't have to rely on these skills and tools like primative cultures do. I would venture most primative cultures know more about real survival than most of us will ever know(or would like to know) Especially when most of us only venture out into the "wild" for a few days at a time before returning home to our warm houses.

If I was trapped on a deserted island for a couple of years a big knife is exactly what I would wish for. A large knife can do everything a small knife can but usually not the other way around. For a weekend out or a short term survival situation most of us could get by with a very modest sized knife.

I find it is way easier to make a fire that actually stays lit when I use split wood. Partly, this could be due to my lack of experience using exclusively gathered wood, but I figure it's at least partially due to the fact that dry things burn better than damp things (that's also why an evening fire is often easier to get going than a morning one).

Based on this, I find batoning to be a useful skill and something I want my knife to be able to handle - both for those times when I don't want to pack along a hatchet as well as those potential emergency situations where I wouldn't have packed a hatchet to start with.

That said, I don't think you need to get into big knife territory to simply baton. Or at least what I think of big being ... a blade 6 inches or bigger or weighing in at around 1 pound or more (a definition of "big blade" would likely help the conversation).

For example, I've started batoning with my 4" long, 1/8" thick blade and it seems to work fine. A little more thickness and maybe a bit more length would make it better at this particular task, but I don't think you need a huge chopper to process wood in this way, just a strong, solid mid-sized knife.

some really good thoughts here guys,it's great to see this did not drift off into "you need a big knife to stick bad guys and fight off bears"
i was not thinking of Nutnfancy himself,i fact i sort of like his stuff and have told him so,he's not so "end of the road survivalist" as some on the Tube.
also it was the mindless whacking away i was down on and not batoning which is the only way to get dry wood sometimes and some places.i think of it as making small splints for fire starting and not replacing a ax to make billets.i have used my Mora 2000 in the batoning mode to get chop stick size sticks out of broom stick size wood but thats about as large as i would go to avoid busting my knife.also just hitting a knife back to split wood does not seem to burn energy as much as full arm swinging chopping.
of course if your camping for sport or have a cabin with a 50 pound sack of flour and a rifle you can whack away all you want.

As far as pure chopping goes CDOGS, The biggest problem I ever encountered beside the considerable effort vs gain game was my blades chipping out. Partly due to hitting knots in the wood, and partly due to living in northern Canada where a good winter day drops to -50 deg. The one blade I never had problems with was a 25 dollar cold steel kukri machete of all things.

Nothing convinces you not to chop a knife blade into wood faster than having to spend 2 hours grinding out chips.

Actually, most of my experience is outside California - in the coniferous forests of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, as well as a bit of experience early on in Minnesota. For what is basically an arid climate, a lot of time was spend in very damp and drippy conditions at higher elevations, often during winter time and during SAR work. I am sure conditions in eastern hardwood environments, where I do not have extensive time, are different.

Some years ago, I figured out that if fire was really critical, it was a whole lot easier, effective, and safer to pack a lightweight stove and fuel - problem solved, one way or another. If the stove crapped out, I still had a plentiful supply of "boy scout fire starter." With the wide variety of stoves and fuels available today, that is a better and better option.

You raise a really important issue - the techniques and practices that work superbly in one environment may not be best for another - and most of us are at least somewhat localized.

A big knife can do little knife stuff, but a little knife can't do big knife stuff. You do run into the law of diminishing returns if you go too big.

A knife was also primarily a self defense tool back then as well as used for skinning, gutting and building shelters. And it impressed others lol.I carry a survival Bowie myself.