There's lot of suvival knifes out there. the knife i have is called the "GAITOR" Survival King. the survival knife has a hollowed out handle with a capsile in it that contains: tweezers, pencil, flint, small scalpel, safety pins, fishing hooks, sinkers, line, and bandages. the case is made of plastic with a slide out tray with a sling shot adapter for the case and a signal mirror and a list of signals. Now thats what i call the ultimate survival knife. does anyone else have a good survival knife like mine.<br> - Shawn

Lofty Wiseman doesn't recommend a hollow handled knife, and neither does Ray Mears, for reasons that are all too obvious. Check out the knife Ray Mears designed, and has been using for 10 years now. The knife you have may best reflect the interests of this forum, though.

I received the Gaitor as a gift from a well meaning friend. It is a nice effort of a failed design. Have fun with it, find out what works and what doesn't. You will upgrade as you learn. Don't feel bad, we all have examples of this stuff.

the knife ray mears has is truly great. made by alan wood I beleave.<br>glad someone else on this forum likes his knife! maybe everyone else hasn't seen it yet. <br>do you have his new book dropout? "Bushcraft" I got it yesterday. it's great.<br>-james<br>

Yeah, I got his new book 4 days ago. I was just practicising some knots today, for pitching a tarp. The one the Evenk use is magic, and that technique for getting water from damp soil the Kalahari bushmen use is the first time I've come across it. I'm gonna scan some of his diagrams and insert them into the inside cover of Lofty Wiseman's pocket guide.

Having broken several of the hollow handled knives in the past, if I were going to consider another one (I am not), it would be a Cris Reeves, which are made out of one piece of steel and should be much stronger that those blades that have the handle attached to it...<br><br>http://www.chrisreeve.com/onepiece.html

I'm not a fan of hollow-handled knives, just because the hollow isn't big enough.<br><br>However, if one were get a good one, like the Randall survival knife, I can't imagine that handle "strength" would be an issue - unless you are using the knife improperly.

It's not the strength of the handle, or the blade, on many of them. It's the strength of the JOIN between them that is the real question. Any seam is a weak point. And try as you might, real world usage is hard on knives. Just wittling puts a lot of pressure on a knife. One of my mom's carving knives snapped at the handle once, becuase a turkey slipped off the fork while being turned, and that was a was a good, professional grade chef's knife. Thats a lot LESS force than a knife will take if one of is wearing it when we slip, and it tries to cushion the Earth from our impact.<br><br>

>>It's not the strength of the handle, or the blade, on many of them. It's the strength of the JOIN between them that is the real question. Any seam is a weak point.<<<br><br>With respect, I don’t think that’s really a major point against this type of knife, though it’s often cited. The join, like anything else, can be done properly, though shoddy makers will of course not bother. <br><br>As already pointed out, Chris Reeves machines both the blade and hollow handle out of one billet of steel. On the early Randall model 18 (Vietnam era), the long tang was bent to the side inside the handle tube and welded to the inside of the tube for most of it’s length. In later models, the handle tube was turned from a solid stainless billet, they left the end of the tube behind the guard solid for something between one and two inches, and threaded the tang into it. I talked with Randall about this at the time, and he said that this actually tested stronger- and that the stainless tube would collapse before the join failed. I’ve certainly never heard of an "18" failing. <br><br>What gave this type of knife a bad reputation for failure at the join were the millions of shoddy imports and imitations, all the mass-market “Rambo” knives. I’ve seen cast aluminum hollow handles joined to blades with just a roll pin.<br><br>But, IMHO, this isn’t what killed the concept. What did that was a contradiction in it’s basic idea.<br><br>Clearly, most of these were intended to be survival kits for when you had nothing else. If you expected to be in a survival situation, you’d have other gear… but how likely is it that anyone outside of a combat zone would bother to lug around a pound-and-a-half or more of knife if they did NOT expect to be in a survival situation? In other words, the chances of your being caught only with one big, heavy item of survival equipment were almost nil, since it wasn’t worth carrying the weight if you didn’t expect to need it.<br><br>The silliness of the concept was actually made more apparent by the movie “Rambo” (second movie in the series), where the plot turn necessary to put the protagonist in the position of depending on just his knife (again) was obviously very contrived.<br><br>I sold my model 18 back in the late ‘70s, and a custom hollow-handled boot knife earlier. The concept just didn’t work. Survival gear is what you have on you when the need arises, not what's in a closet at home, and they were just too much weight and bulk to carry. I also got tired of the balance changing constantly with the contents, the fact that the handle didn't orient the blade by feel… and there’s something that just doesn’t feel right about taking one of man’s simplest, most basic tools, and making it complicated.<br>

My survival knife is the BUSHMASTER from United.Its got a range finder on the blade,survival kit in the handle,a compass,<br>And in the sheath is a Snake bite kit,Flashlight,Snare,can Opener,and a sharping snone.