I went for a walk today with a bit of bushcrafting.
Until today I was a firm believer that folder was the best choice for a survival knife - it is always with you and it can do most tasks. And Victorinox Picnicker was my choice for carving and hiking, while SwissChamp was my choice for a universal tool.
Today, I had to make relatively flat piece of wood about 1 inch thick from a pine log about 2,5 inches in diameter. To make it relatilvely flat, I had to baton my knife (I do not have any large blade knife at home at all) through the log twice with 1 inch distance between each cut.
This was the moment when I damaged Picnicker - it went about 1-2 inches inside the log, got stuck, I applied too much pressure and felt the lock became wobbly. Yes, I knew folders were not tough, but I thought such a work was within capability of folders, I used to do a lot of things like this when I was a kid. No, it was not a good idea.
Luckily, I had my Busse BA3. To be truthfull, in recent times I started regretting buying Busse - it was quite expensive (but with excellent steel) and in real live you would not use all capabilities of this knife. Also, because it was quite heavy, I felt it was not good for common delicate tasks and to carry.
But today I felt completely contrast - of course, it was easily batoned through the log. Then I carved the log the way I wanted. I felt very strange thing while I was carving - the heavy weight of the knife actually helped me carving. It was not delicate carving, but more of delicate chopping. The thickness of the blade did not cause any problem. I can even state - Busse BA3 carved better than Victorinox Picnicker even though it was heavier (or because it was heavier) and had thicker blade. The handle on BA3 was much more comfortable than on Victorinox (until now I felt in contrast).
I also used to find that BA3's blade was too short, but now I feel it is just spot on for wood carving and survival tasks - if you have it longer, you won't have enough control of the tip of the blade. And it will be a heavier and bulkier knife.
Today's experience was a good lesson for me: I would not want to have a folder in my PSK as my reserve knife. If I get into a real problem, most likely I will have some folders with me anyway. And if they fail, surely I would have to have something even better as my last line of defence. I do not know if other folders with other locking system do a better job, but now only fixed blade knife will give me 100% confidence it will do anything.