My most used outdoor knives and why

 My most used outdoor knives basically fit into two sizes:

Around 7" fixed blades and 5 inches or so fixed blades

Modern 5" or so fixed blades (LINDER knives ATS 34 bladed Bushcraft Super Edge series and LINDER Hunting knife) perfectly at home for hunting and camp duties. I say modern as they incorporate polymer handles and high tech heat treatments.

Just sub 5 inches fixed blade (Manly knives "Drugar") totally at home in the bush and well-proven in my hands.

A modern classic 7 inch fixed blade (Extrema Ratio MK 2.1) of military styling works just fine for extreme off the track wilderness or in-frequented hiking camp trails but more so wilderness where fires maybe allowed and wood preparation a definite part of camping. Remember many spots only fuel stoves could be allowed and chopping or using of any wood could be forbidden during certain times of the year. Check you country's laws, don't abuse them, they are there to make the next person's trip just as enjoyable as your own. No one likes arriving at a campsite that looks as if it's been hacked to the ground, especially when only fuel stoves were/are meant to have ben used.

The 7 inch blades get taken where I generally will rarely meet any other campers, hikers or hunters. My 5 inch sized knives go all places. That means for me the smaller knives are used more often as I simply don't always have the time to venture into pure wilderness and it easier going on pre made tracks and frequented or semi frequented campsites, as apposed to blazing trails and setting up campsites where there were none before, or extremely old and basically not used any more.

Seven inch knives for me are a good handleable size for what I call a big knife (of course anything bigger is a really big knife- you know that stupid Paul Hogan line: "That's not a knife....." 

A 7" knife of quality, sturdily built will serve you well and can easily undertake any imaginable (real world)  task in both tropical and non tropical environments. I know, I've been there done that with these knives and know they will perform just fine.

Lighter build 7 inch knives will also be useful away from the tropical environments, where simple cutting tasks will dominate your outdoor activities as apposed to hacking into coconuts, or cane etc.

Extrema Ratio's 7" long T4000S, at 4mm across the spine, this capable knife is just fine for non- tropical duties, although saying that, it easily dispatches hard tropical food stuffs but it won't be good for hacking into coconuts not without slow careful effort, where a large Golok or parang/machete would be the ideal choice if consuming many coconuts*

* see my blog about deserted island survival

A 5" knife is a great hiking and camping knife, which won't frighten newbie campers or people not used to seeing knives being used. It can prep wood for fires and gut and butcher meat and fish in skilled hands and won't place a burden on the pack weight.


Taking a "hunting" styled knife as in the LINDER (shown above as an example) can easily work a multi-role of camp kitchen, butcher knife, hunting knife and general purpose knife. Good hunting knives by their very definition should be stress free to use, ie simply comfortable during extended non stop usage; and they need  to keep sharp also after extended use. You should carry a knife with a tip that is sharp. A sharp tip will help you gut fish and game. Blunt tips even on the most expensive knives, render them useless in my opinion. In other words spend some time to learn how to sharpen your knife properly.


More to come


BCT out.