Could we please get responses to this question?

Thanks!

You might want to look at the many very good hunting knives out there. Buy one that will be useful while hunting so you aren't carrying excess weight. Odds are you will never use a survival knife for surviving. It will either never be used while it's waiting to go into action, or you will use it every day for utility/EDC stuff.

I really like Doug's RSK Mk II; it carries easy for EDC and it's a very good slicer. I'm not too fond of Mora's.

O.K. Your standing wet on the shore as the J3 supercub sinks below the waves with all your gear; every match, button compass and MRE. Your in layered woolens, a windbreaker with hood, quality boots, mittens and a balaclava stuffed in the pocket. And HEY! theres a knife in there with them you forgot about. Lets make a fire for warmth and an immediate emergency signal. We gather tinder, kindling and main fuel wood, but find some needs batoning and splitting. So lets forget about sawbacks, as they don't appreciate being beaten on and may even fracture at the tooth gullet ( USAF survival knife) abused sawing and hammering away at the twisted perspex windscreen. We want to create some feather sticks for kindling, so a nice forward curve and relatively thin is a nice feature ( mora.). If we still had our metal match we could create a shower of sparks ( most of the so called 'bushcraft knife' sheaths are set up with companion pockets for a metal match.) Is our knife high carbon and high rockwell? If so, and the spine properly dressed by file a sharp flintlike stone can produce sparks ( Mora again.) It's stainless steel? We better start assembling a friction device; bowdrill,fire piston, plow etc. The( WSI Ranger) has a machined Divot for just this use and nice reverse grip ergonomics on the skeleton handle. So now we have three fires going for warmth and signalling. Dusk came all to soon, so we greatfully curl up inside the ring of fires. Tommorow morning we will consider a shelter before bad weather moves in and some other needs. I'll let another poster build it with assorted blade options and suggest the next priority, again, only one knife. Once completed think of the next task and priority. Since it's almost midnight here, I'll hold onto my knife real tight, perhaps making a lanyard out of some tough surface roots I dug out or from my clothing.I fall asleep secure in the knowledge Bart the Bear would rather have vanilla icecreme than Brad Pitt or Timothy Treadwell anyway.

I live and play in pine forests and rocky high desert. My knife needs to be able to clean a fish, gut and butcher an elk or deer, split wood lengthwise, cut branches for the roof on a lean to, and be sturdy enough for emergency prying. My current blade is a Becker BK10, but I'll bet there are hundreds that would fit the bill nicely.

"I fall asleep secure in the knowledge Bart the Bear would rather have vanilla icecreme than Brad Pitt or Timothy Treadwell anyway."

It will be Bart-the-Bear steaks for me. I mean, why else am I carrying all that snare wire in my knife handle? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Where does this "one knife" thing come from? When I flew I had two knives in addition to the "survival" knife in my vest. One was a little Schade stockman that I used for small stuff and the other was an SAK with lots of useful widgets. BTW, the Air Force survival knife can take a lot of abuse to include batoning. There's a good thread on this very topic at Pawn shop find.

You can also buy a $3 fresh pumpkin and half, peel and cut it into chunks and if you have no blisters when you're done than the knife may be suitable for you.

Frankie

The 'one knife thing' comes from people who do not have the financial resources to buy more than one knife and need to make an informed decision. It comes from real world situations where people make do with one knife. I've used the USAF myself, starting in Arctic Survival School. Extreme sub zero temps, a well used knife, unseen production flaw and a young enlisted man all contributed to it snapping from the 5th saw gullet diagonally down to the edge. I saw several tips snapped off too, a inherent design weakness. We had only one knife, because we were only allowed one knife. My instructor issued me a second knife. Even as a dumb 20 y/o I figured if this happened in the real world there wouldn't be instructors around to hand out replacements. Again, I've used this knife, and knowing it's particular drawbacks, and every knife out there has a few, like it for what it is and can do. If you reread my reply, I am using different examples for each possible task to show their pros and cons.

I noticed the different knives mentioned, but I've seen the "one knife" issue come up in many threads and always wondered why someone would limit themselves. In the real world, I carried more than one knife because I recognized the limitations of the AFSK; and I agree on the poor tip design -- a simple drop point would be much stronger. In my next tour I had the para-riggers swap out the AFSK in my vest for one of my own and I still carried the small folders.

The MORA knives are full tanged knives, i.e. is the metel of the blade is conintuned to the end of the handle.
cheers