Badlands Fieldcraft: Opinion and Gear Review: A few good knives

This originally appeared at Badlands Fieldcraft.

I’m a big fan and proponent of Dave Canterbury’s “10 C’s of Survivability” system. One of the “C’s” is Cutting tools, and I’d like to detail some of my favorite knives here.

I don’t like limiting myself when it comes to tools, and knives are no different. I’ll typically have at least a few knives with me at any given time, usually depending on what I’m doing and for how long.

I’m also not a fan of the “one tool option” types of knives out there, although I do understand some versatility is useful. Why limit yourself to just one knife though? I’ve also never been into the tactical knives. I’m sure they have their place in the world, just like all the other different kinds of tools out there. They’ve just never been something I have needed or used, so I’ve chosen to spend my money else where. Instead, I prefer knives that are more utilitarian in their design and construction, built for obvious and practical use in the bush and based on historical designs that have proved their worth time and again.

A good bush knife can be a subject of hot debate. Blade length, materials, grinds, thickness and etcetera are the usual discussion points. In this article, I’d like to present a few knives that I own that are all very different, but are all good knives for the tasks I use them for. I’ll try to give you my rationale for selecting them and what I like and dislike about them, as well as why. I’m not trying to convince anyone that it’s a perfect setup, I’m just sharing this information for educational purposes.

I think there are a few categories my knives fall into depending on what I intend to use them for. I’m a tradesman at my day job, so I understand the importance of “the right tool for the job”. I guess I’ve brought that mentality with me to my training as well.

The “Survival” knife: this is a knife that should be very durable and functional enough to complete most of the tasks needed to help someone survive. This predominantly involves those jobs pertaining to maintaining your core body temperature, hydration, acquiring food, and signaling for rescue. It should be easy to sharpen in the field but still have a durable enough edge to put up with some abuse. I like high carbon steels with a sharp 90 degree spine. A full tang blade with a length of at least 5 inches is good for splitting smaller wood and is the minimum length I would consider. It is the closest to a “one tool option”, although I would steer clear of anything that isn’t clearly a knife.

The belt knife: This is a knife that should share most of the same characteristics of the survival knife, but should be of a size that makes it comfortable to carry but large enough to do most camp chores. A 5” belt knife could certainly be considered a survival knife as well. I still opt for high carbon, full tang blade here.

The everyday carry knife: This is a knife that I carry all the time. I have a couple folders that I like, with a focus on the knife’s defensive use as well as its usefulness in the bush. While I normally prefer carbon steel for my fixed blades, I actually like stainless for these EDC knives. I figure it will be less maintenance due to the resistance to corrosion, and although it is harder to sharpen, I’ll typically have the luxury of my tools at home to help me resharpen rather than what I’ve carried into the bush.

Habilis Bushtools SRT

First up is my Habilis Bushtools Self Reliance Tool. This knife clearly fits into the survival knife category. This is the largest of the knives that I’ll be discussing, with a blade length of 6 3/4” (5 3/8” cutting edge) and overall length of 11 3/4”. It’s a strange looking knife with a lot of useful design features that help make it even more useful for alot of bush work.

With this knife I wanted something that offered a lot of bang for the buck, since it is a bit spendy. I also wanted something that would be very useful in the bush, whether it be for building shelters, starting fires or killing and processing game.

Pictured here with the included JRE sheath and a 1/2” x 6” ferro rod with Gorilla Tape for emergency tinder.

The subject of batoning wood with knives is another hot topic of discussion with knife people. Some arguing for, and some arguing against, saying that a knife isn’t designed for that type of work. That may be true for some knives, but not the SRT. It’s designed from the ground up for batoning. It features a curved portion in the spine, referred to as an “anvil” by the maker. This portion is there to help guide the energy from a baton while splitting wood, and it works quite well for that. Combined with the 3/16” thick full tang cryo-treated blade that further helps split the wood, this blade is noticeably better at batoning than most of my other knives.