The Best Knife? (Part 2)

While the best knife in a survival situation may be the one you have with you when the crisis occurs, forethought and planning go a long way into making sure you don’t have to make do with an inferior blade.  A folding knife is the easiest to carry as in many areas, it is not illegal as long as it is under a certain blade length (Make sure and check your local laws and regulations).  But, a folding knife has a major drawback built into the design.  As they say, a folding knife is already “broken”.  And while a good folding knife is better than no knife at all, most that understand the rigors placed upon a blade doing survival tasks will tell you that there is no good substitute for a strong fixed (non-folding) blade knife.

After selecting a good quality steel, a survival knife should not only have a fixed blade, but it should be full tang and not a stick tang, or partial tang, blade.  The tang refers to the part behind the blade which is attached to the handle/haft of the knife.  A stick tang is thin and goes inside the handle and extends to the end of the handle and is fastened by peening (bending over) the steel tip that extends past the handle, or by a nut or butt piece that is screwed on.  The thinness of the stick tang makes it prone to breakage under certain heavy use conditions such as chopping or batoning (Using a stick to baton the knife through a piece of wood to split it, either to get to the dry wood in the interior or for better burning, making a fire hearth for a spindle or bow drill etc.).  A partial tang only goes part of the way into the handle as is even weaker than the full stick tang.

Some so called “Survival Knives” that are hollow handled to store survival items in are only attached to the handle by a tang that is less than an inch in length fastened by a nut inside the handle! This is not acceptable in any serious situation and these cheap knives and their inferior survival kits are marketed to those who don’t know any better.  Woe to the individual that tries to truly survive with one of those!  Most hollow handle knives fit into this category with the notable exception of the Chris Reeve knives machined from a single piece of steel (Very Expensive) and the much more affordable Schrade hollow handle knives made much the same way.

So a full tang knife is one that the knife steel goes all the way from the blade tip to the back of the knife and is visible from the top and bottom of the handle as well as the butt end and the handles are actually slabs affixed to either sides using some type of screws, rivets, Loveless bolts etc. (Many slabs are also attached permanently with epoxy as well as the fasteners)  This is the best and most durable form of fixed blade knife.  More on knives tomorrow, talk to you then!

Remember, God’s Word is our Sword as well.  It not only shows us our true selves but we are to become experts in wielding it to drive off  attacks of Satan, our enemy, just like Jesus did when he was tempted directly by Satan three times right after His forty day fast in the wilderness.  Use it well and use it often and when you resist the Devil with the Word of God, he will flee from you!

James B.

PS. You can check out my website where you can set up training for many of these skills at www.waypointsurvival.com and look at and order my custom knives at www.benderknifeworks.com.