Knives

Alright, if you’re reading this and you’ve known me for over a week, then you know that this is going to be a rant, how long? I don’t know, I’ve only just begun typing, but I have an entire eight hour shift, uninterrupted, to type and somewhere around forty six years of experience to draw on for comments.

This is your last warning, ;)

I’ve heard this same tired, stale, pointless argument for decades now, and it doesn’t sound any better when you change the noun. “This _______ is far superior to that ________, because (fill in whatever vapid nonsense enters your head at this point).
It’s a pointless argument, which can never be won because it is an opinion based argument which generally has no basis in probative fact.

The case in point, and the current burr under my collar (wolves don’t wear saddles, and if you don’t understand the referent, then don’t bother asking for explanation) is the subject of knives.
I have heard every argument in the world as to why one knife is better than the other and why some people just “absolutely will not use any knife other than BRANDO Knives, model whaddafark.”

Wanna know something real? An attitude like that is going to get you killed.

An attitude like that is also a leading cause for people being a lot more cold, wet, hungry, thirsty and, generally speaking, miserable than they need to be.

Care to know why?

Because (and I’ve yet to see it work out any other way), there always seems to arise some circumstance; some situation where you become separated from the object of your affection, and generally at a time when you need it the most!

Can’t/Won’t/Will Never happen to me, you say?

Keep chanting that mantra, it’s about as effective as “om mane padme hum.”

In my case, my Randall and I became separated because I secured the sheath for a jump, in a hurry and consequently got to see that knife “hurry” on its way as soon as my chute opened. For whatever reason, I almost worshiped that knife.
Had to rely on a cheesy looking GI issue pocket knife and my Buck model 110 for the duration of that particular exercise. I didn’t complain though, just worked out some really inventive ways to help those knives accomplish what I’d gotten used to using the Randall for.

How useful a knife is in a given situation depends on several things:

a. type of steel
b. type of tempering
c. blade shape
d. type of grind at the final edge
e. the construction of the handle attachment (full tang, spike tang, bolted on, etc.)
f. the overall construction of the knife

Now, those items are a good start, but you also need to consider:

a. the use you intend for the knife
b. the environmental conditions where you are likely to be using the knife
c. what requirements you may personally have for that knife, in order to utilize it to its maximum efficiency

This is where you get the real kick in the pants,

NO ONE KNIFE IS GOOD FOR ALL TASKS UNDER ALL CONDITIONS

Knives built for use in the jungle, are less than perfect for use in the Arctic, knives made for use at extreme marine depths will give you problems in the desert, so on and ad nauseum. The knife that you thought was a real kitten while skinning a moose is probably going to be a pain in the arse if you try to carve a bow drill with it.

More problematic yet is the fact that there are people out there who believe that ANY Paleolithic knife will be perfect for all tasks; hooooooo boy, let me tell you, are THEY in for an education!

Personally, I generally carry about three knives and they seem to be up to what I require of them when I need them. Which three knives they are, of the thirty some which I still own is the question.

What I usually try to do, is to insure that the mix of knives I carry with me is correct.

Usually it will be one large general utility knife, one small to medium sized utility knife (even a paring knife, well built, will suffice, as long as you have a sheath for it), and some type of folding knife. On a recent hike (for my children, it was a hike) I carried my Tah-chee bowie, a vintage neck knife around eighty years old, or so (I can attest to it being on its third handle) and a Leatherman “Kick.”
The Tah-Chee bowie didn’t get much use, but the other two got a workout. Other times the large knife’ll get the work while the other two just kind of hang around. Such as the time we had some feral dogs try a bluff charge. They weren’t quite ready for someone who wasn’t bluffing.

I try to keep the mix interesting so among the large knives (the brand name knives, not the flea market specials I sometimes indulge in) I have an Ontario Knives SP5-95 Bowie, a Cold Steel Bushman, a TOPS Tracker knife and the Crazy Crow Tah-Chee reproduction. I generally have at least one of these somewhere close to hand no matter where I am.

The midsized knives are a Mora (from the Tracker School), an Uluu, an Old Hickory butcher knife and a Buck Nighthawk.

The neck knives are an antique, of indeterminate origin, a Blackie Collins “Necklance” and a Gerber jump knife.

My folding knives run the full gamut from some Pakistani made items (which were picked up at a flea market and STILL haven’t died) to a high end, handmade, miracle work from Al Mar. The knife is an incredible piece of work, well balanced, lightweight and holds an edge as sharp as all get out. It was a gift from an admirer who had more money than sense and wouldn’t listen to my, to his mind, unsophisticated preferences.

However, even though I can’t think of another knife I’d rather have in my pocket while traipsing about the city, you’ll never see that particular knife on my person whilst I travel the wilds. Because although it is a splendid knife, it isn’t suitable for that sort of work.

One knife which I’ve seen come under fire, repeatedly of late, is the Tracker knife.

Some folks have issue with it because they have issue with TBJ, guess what, I don’t care who designed it; that has nothing to do with its functionality.
So far, I’ve abused that poor knife to the point where other knives I’ve had, from Schrade, Gerber, Buck and others, have failed.

The manner in which they failed was that they came apart.

I can be a real demanding bastard when I decide to take a knife to its limits.
I have dug with it, chopped with it (including some things that had my wife scratching her head and going, “Wha??”) pried with it and found a few other things to do that knives were NEVER intended to do.

So far, the Tracker knife has held up just fine, just scuffed up the epoxy coating they use, but then, I manage to do that with every knife like that. I generally strip the epoxy off and blue the blade anyway.
I have tried the wire cutter and found that with a wire under tension it works just fine, otherwise, you’d be better off with a Chinese AKM bayonet. Can it break? Of course it can, the idea is to try to keep from being too stupid with it. That includes realizing that, with the fulcrum being that far forward, any load put on the other end is liable to snap off anything near the tip that is less than ideally attached.
I’ve also carved a Thanksgiving turkey with it, boned a chicken (wouldn’t care to repeat the experiment, but it is doable) and cut vegetables. Works just fine so far.
I could probably use it to skin a deer also, but all I’ve had access to for almost the last decade, are road killed deer, and attempts to skin them (around here) earn strange looks and a quick call to the sheriff’s department (nice young men, just asked that I stop what I was doing because it was freaking out the PETA nuts, their word choice, not mine).

The only change I’ve made so far is to recut the blade angle, I found a crock stick (pocket sized) from Lansky that has multiple surfaces and does a bang up job on the knife, including the quarter round on the draw knife portion of the blade. Keeps a decent edge and you can easily hone it up with a broken beer bottle.
Sheath retention is pretty good, you just have to remember to push it far enough into the sheath that you feel a “click.” I haven’t tried fastening it to my day pack (a WWII vintage RTO’s ruck sack) but I have strapped it to my pack basket and that’s worked out pretty well so far. I’ve put the sheathed knife on both sides of my belt and across my back (as it was used in “the Hunted”) and the draw from all three locations is smooth. Quick and quiet enough that the local talent would rather steer clear of me than take their chances.
But back to the original premise, that no one knife is good for all jobs, in all types of terrain. Are there times and places where I wouldn’t take the Tracker? Probably, but I haven’t found those yet, maybe a triple canopy jungle but I think it might do well there also.
What a lot of people seem to forget when dealing with the Tracker is that it isn’t a specialist knife. It isn’t a “super knife” and it isn’t a “do all” knife. It’s a general purpose utility knife that is designed to accomplish as many tasks as possible, with as few moving/movable parts as is possible.

I do have to admit that, for that purpose, it has my vote.

I’ve tried other knives which have attempted the same type of concept, the Buckmaster (exotic steel, hell to work with if you ding the blade up too badly), the aforementioned Chinese AKM bayonet, a “Woodsman’s Pal” type of knife and probably about ten or so others.

I found the Buckmaster to be a nice enough blade, if you aren’t too far from civilization or some other support. The saw worked pretty well, the grapple actually had a good bite if you made certain that the hooks and eye were pretty well seated (used it in a storm, to secure the canoe off shore, a complicated mess) and I was able to chop down (standing dead wood) a six to seven inch diameter tree with it and still slice tomatoes cleanly afterward. The serrated blade, being located near the tip was a bit of a problem when you wanted to cut a rope (anything over ¾ inch took forever to cut) and the blade didn’t have enough mass for efficient chopping. Oh, and it didn’t exit the sheath cleanly enough (belt attachments need dropped about an inch from factory spec and you need to use the leg tie) for a quick draw in a fight.

The AKM bayonet was a lot more limited in its applications, although I’d had some friends who actually raved about how great it is, they’re entitled to their opinions, I just don’t happen to agree. I do have to admit though, that for a five dollar knife (Smoky Mountain Knife Works, quite some years ago) I’ve seen a lot worse. Overall performed pretty well, nothing particularly notable other than, if you need it quick, in a fight, you better have it already out and in your hand.

The “Woodsman’s Pal” which I’d had the experience of was, admittedly, a knock off, but it was a well done knock off by a friend who is a decent blade smith. The brush hook worked well and I had no arguments about how well the straight blade handled things, both sides of the knife could speak with authority if the situation demanded it. The sheath he made for it was great, if feral dogs were to try their luck with you, they’d be in a world of serious hurt. Problems though, were that you couldn’t do any sort of small carving with it, without a lot more trouble than it was worth. You were better off grabbing a broken beer bottle (state parks are wonderful) and knapping the edge to make a bow drill, or even a hand drill. One other thing, don’t EVEN think of using it to cook with.

So far, among these four, my preference is still the Tracker knife.

I’ve yet to try a comparison with a Kukri, but that’ll be coming as soon as I can afford the cash outlay to get one, and I also plan on obtaining one of the newer model bayonets and finding out how well those work. I’m not holding my breath on those, however, as I have very clear memories of finding out that my drill instructors were all too correct when they said that the only thing most bayonets were good for were for use as tent stakes.

I do plan on giving them a fair chance so, let’s wait and see what happens.