Survival vs survival...what's the difference?

[trinydex]

If you re-read my post you'll see that I was explicitly stating the "what if" scenario... if you don't have that wet tinder or the tech like you described then what?

if you broke your arm, then what?

You predicate your post on simply being prepared, but you cannot always carry what you need for every situation, besides the knowledge in your brain and the experience in my hands.

do you train to conceal carry? what good is all that training if you do not carry your gun?

being prepared is a lifestyle. you make the emergency backpack for your everyday vehicle. you make the day-hike pack kit in case the cliff washes out from underneath you. you don't make decisions like i'll just go on a day hike by myself with absolutely no equipment.

I specifically stated that you need to completely self sufficient without technology... and then add it as you progress in your skills for redundancy...

the question i'm asking here then is when will you be totally without technology and why? why did you go out in the middle of nowhere with nothing? when your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, are you without technology? when you go hiking or backpacking, are you without technology? you're manufacturing a scenario that is very unlikely, a scenario that purposefully negates preparation.

very hard men go into foreign countries among the enemy prepared with gear. even in lone survivor, he has a watch, a signaling device (gps from his radio), knife, clothes, etc. and that's after tumbling down a mountain multiple times, losing much of the gear he went in prepared with.

You train and prepare for real world scenarios... not hypothetical situations where you can go "hmm well I'll have this and this and that with me"

Technology Dependent training is a crutch and sets you up for failure.... Fail to train and you are training to fail

i don't disagree with training. you should absolutely train with varying levels of gear. train with nothing, yes. i tried it, what i realized was it sucks and you need to sort out your preparation to avoid situations where you don't have basic implements that drastically increase your survivability. can i do it? certainly, but why do i want to put myself in that position? i don't need to laden myself with all kinds of crazy stuff that's not necessary, but there are things that are difficult to do from scratch in the wilderness. provide and prepare those implements.

if you ask people who have through hiked the pacific crest trail, they use the minimum amount of gear. they have to carry everything while doing 25+ miles a day in some of the hardest areas in north america. ask any of them if they use a bow drill, even a fire steel. they use lighters, because lighters make fire. they use wet tinder (something as simple as vasoline on a cottonball), because wet tinders make fire. those two things weigh almost nothing and these are the most weight conscious people.

[jahrule]

My 2 cents is, best thing one can do is go out to the wild and see how it is minimal gear. You spend as long as you can out there. By the end of that there will be something you wish you had. Get that thing and see if it helps. Rinse and repeat. I also suggest trying to have a backup skill for each item you have. Ex. Lighters, matches, whatever are nice to start a fire. Flint and steel might last longer and be more cool. But, one should have the skill of starting s fire with a bow and bark (aka rubbing two sticks together).

[ra2bach]

My 2 cents is, best thing one can do is go out to the wild and see how it is minimal gear. You spend as long as you can out there. By the end of that there will be something you wish you had. Get that thing and see if it helps. Rinse and repeat. I also suggest trying to have a backup skill for each item you have. Ex. Lighters, matches, whatever are nice to start a fire. Flint and steel might last longer and be more cool. But, one should have the skill of starting s fire with a bow and bark (aka rubbing two sticks together).

pretty good response. and it makes me ask, are we taking the words survival, and bushcrafting, and even backpacking or camping and blending them into some amorphous category?

survival, to me, is a response to an unplanned condition, or IOW, what you get when you don't get what you wanted. now there's nothing wrong with going out and practicing survival skills and a lot of that falls under bushcraft or primitive living skills, and I see no problem with that...

in the case of knives there's a great debate as to what actually is a "survival" knife, with the most simplistic answer being "a survival knife is the knife you have with you when you need to survive". that's almost become a punchline but it starts with a huge grain of truth.

a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon and creating "bushcraft" knives that fit the pattern the modern pioneers (Kephart, Kochanski, etc.) relied on for their daily needs, but it really helps to understand these guys never relied on one cutting tool, invariably having an axe and/or saw as well.

there's an elitism that's going on now that says "I could do anything that needs done with just a __ inch knife", and I'm sure that's true for those people, but again, is this the best answer when time and energy are your only resources?..

I think a survival knife has to do all the things I might ask of it, from fire building to shelter and food prep, in the quickest, safest, and most efficient manner. I think it bears saying that, yes, we could probably make a piece of flint (or a 3-4" "bushcraft knife) do everything we need but is this really the best tool for the job?

If you knew that the canoe you were in was going under in the next set of rapids, taking your axe/saw and all your other supplies away down stream, what one knife would you like to have with you when you dragged your scraggly butt up on the bank?

for me that would be a sturdy knife that could stand up to chopping, splitting, and scraping wood with an edge that would hold up to abuse. I'm not looking to carve delicate things, I'm just looking to bust open some wood to get at the dry center, make small slivers and fluff that will take a spark, chop some stuff to make a shelter, and settle in.

Fallkiniven has three knives listed in their "survival" category - the 6.3" A1 is their heavy duty general purpose, the 5" S1 they call a hunting/fishing knife, and the 4" F1, which they say they made specifically as a Pilot's Survival knife.

these all vary in weight and blade thickness as well -- http://www.fallkniven.com/en/shop/ca...urvival-knives

just using these as an example, which would you choose for a one-knife survival situation?..

[trinydex]

just using these as an example, which would you choose for a one-knife survival situation?..

I think another question that may deserve to be asked is why do people insist on using a knife where a small saw attached to a leatherman would do the same job with less flailing?

i'm not saying a knife of ___ inches is bad, but there's an insistence on one knife and that knife does it all. well does that knife do well at carving out a capstone for a bow drill? who wants to ruin their pretty $xxx or heaven forbid $xxxx knife making a divot in a rock? but in a real survival situation, it just becomes a tool and you do what you have to do with it, right? but if you don't train that way then how do you know what that knife will do to a rock? with a leatherman I just fold out the standard tip screw driver.

there's definitely a conglomeration of terms going on.

survival is supposed to be keeping you alive and getting yourself help/found.

if minimalist living is what people are trying to get into, well that's fine. but if i'm going to live for an extended period of time on hand tools, the first thing I would want to do is obtain a complete ensemble of hand tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

that's what this guy from alone in the wilderness did. I don't consider myself better than him.

[ra2bach]

I think another question that may deserve to be asked is why do people insist on using a knife where a small saw attached to a leatherman would do the same job with less flailing?

I use the little saw on my leatherman but not for anything more than cutting the small notches in fireboards and other fine work. however I can, and have, done the same work with my knife, just not as pretty...

I have a couple of 7" folding saws, one of them a Bahco Laplander, considered to be a prime example of folding bushcraft saws, but I don't find them very useful except for constructing things that require finished ends. if I use a saw, it's probably going to be at least 21". less than this, it's just not any more efficient than a good axe, hatchet, or big knife/small machete.

but to answer your question, I can easily cut off a green sapling up to about 2" by just bending it over and pressing the blade of a knife into the outside of the bend, no flailing involved. and if the wood is dry, it's easier to just break it...

my opinion, but a knife is not replaced by a saw (of any length). they're two separate tools and while a knife can do almost everything a saw can, there's a lot that a saw can't do. a knife can be batonned to split wood and it can make shavings and scrape. it can cut rope, clean an animal and slice cloth, leather, and bark. you can use the point to drill through wood or bone, and if necessary, it can even be batonned cross grain to make very clean end-grain cuts for snare triggers. it can dig holes and pry open logs to find beetles, grubs, or worms to eat or for fish bait. there's a reason a blade is considered a must for survival where a saw is more for convenience...

i'm not saying a knife of ___ inches is bad, but there's an insistence on one knife and that knife does it all. well does that knife do well at carving out a capstone for a bow drill? who wants to ruin their pretty $xxx or heaven forbid $xxxx knife making a divot in a rock? but in a real survival situation, it just becomes a tool and you do what you have to do with it, right? but if you don't train that way then how do you know what that knife will do to a rock? with a leatherman I just fold out the standard tip screw driver.

first, by most definitions, a survival situation is something that happens to you unexpectedly and outside of your preparations. the idea of a survival knife is one that would allow you to perform all the tasks to survive in the wilderness until you can make your way back to civilization or are rescued. if you happen to find yourself in a situation with a full complement of tools, food, and shelter, that's not much of a survival situation, is it? that's just camping...

and second, I don't think you need a stone for a spindle block. I make them out of whatever wood is laying around and just dig out a small hole with the point of my knife. rub some fat or grease in there or pack it with green plant matter and the spindle does the rest. so yeah, I know you're talking about training with your gear, but if my life depended on it, you can bet I'd sacrifice the fender of my Maserati to grind or chip a hole in a rock.

I didn't mention $all$niven because I think an e$pen$ive knife is necessary, I just think their category of survival knives shows a good range of sizes and they do make darn good ones. substitute ESEE, Coldsteel, or any other maker that you think represents a good range of knives and tell me which single size knife you'd want to have with you when things go wrong.

a leatherman is a great tool, very convenient, but it's a compromise. I'd rather have it than not, and the truth is I always have one in my pocket when I leave the house, but it doesn't replace a good fixed blade knife. not for doing the types of chores I mentioned above...

there's definitely a conglomeration of terms going on. survival is supposed to be keeping you alive and getting yourself help/found.

yes.

if minimalist living is what people are trying to get into, well that's fine. but if i'm going to live for an extended period of time on hand tools, the first thing I would want to do is obtain a complete ensemble of hand tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

that's what this guy from alone in the wilderness did. I don't consider myself better than him.

Dick Pronneke was a hell of a mountain man. he flourished in the wilderness and did stuff that would sorely tax lesser men but I don't consider what he did as survival, and I don't think he would either...
he went out to stay long term, he was well equipped with plenty of proper tools and things to care for them, and he set about making his life alone in the wilderness.

you'll notice he does most of his finish work on the logs with a double bit axe. he's got chisels, a big saw and a draw knife but he's an artist with that axe.

as someone once said (maybe Whelen or Kephart or one of them), "I don't go into the bush to rough it, I go there to smooth it"... that means they went prepared with enough stuff to make it easy and comfortable. that's not survival...

[trinydex]

I use the little saw on my leatherman but not for anything more than cutting the small notches in fireboards and other fine work. however I can, and have, done the same work with my knife, just not as pretty... ...

my opinion, but a knife is not replaced by a saw (of any length). they're two separate tools and while a knife can do almost everything a saw can, there's a lot that a saw can't do. a knife can be batonned to split wood and it can make shavings and scrape. it can cut rope, clean an animal and slice cloth, leather, and bark. you can use the point to drill through wood or bone, and if necessary, it can even be batonned cross grain to make very clean end-grain cuts for snare triggers. it can dig holes and pry open logs to find beetles, grubs, or worms to eat or for fish bait. there's a reason a blade is considered a must for survival where a saw is more for convenience...

and don't get me wrong, I am agreeing with exactly what you're saying, but I am trying to play devil's advocate. if you have a leatherman which includes a saw which can cut through green saplings even larger in diameter than its length, without batonning, and the small blade within the leatherman can do basic cutting work, then what isn't very survivor about this multitool? i'm not saying the knife is replaced by a saw, but that a "survivalist knife" may very well be replaced by a multitool of sufficient quality. however, that doesn't seem to be sexy enough for tv.

first, by most definitions, a survival situation is something that happens to you unexpectedly and outside of your preparations. the idea of a survival knife is one that would allow you to perform all the tasks to survive in the wilderness until you can make your way back to civilization or are rescued. if you happen to find yourself in a situation with a full complement of tools, food, and shelter, that's not much of a survival situation, is it? that's just camping...

I very much agree with your assessment here with a few caveats. a big part of preparation for survival is to ensure you're not in a survival situation. if you've sufficiently prepared and made choices that don't put you in a situation where you're fending for your life then you've taken more than half the battle. for those 1%s that you cannot anticipate, then you need knowledge and you need to exploit what you have. hopefully good preparation has provided something for those instances.

to continue with your example of just camping, well if a backpacker goes into the wild and he has a 5 day trip planned, even if he gets lost, he can cut his trip a little bit short and get back on track. no one is the wiser. he has in his possession plenty of prepared equipment to sustain himself.

the most at-risk person of actually facing a survival situation is not the post apocalyptic male, but the foolhardy day hiker who goes out without any preparations, for what is supposed to only last a few hours. this person, gets lost, falls off the trail, then what? the bottle of water in-hand was finished hours ago. the shorts and t-shirt are sweat through and it's almost nightfall. well at least he brought his cellphone. if he has the common sense to find a signal and call in for rescue then he's just another statistic. another ill prepared noob who went out and got lost and the wildland firefighters and company go fetch him. can anyone here pose a more likely scenario than this one? especially for the vast majority of people who are nowhere close to doing anything that can be remotely considered as expeditionary.

and second, I don't think you need a stone for a spindle block. I make them out of whatever wood is laying around and just dig out a small hole with the point of my knife. rub some fat or grease in there or pack it with green plant matter and the spindle does the rest. so yeah, I know you're talking about training with your gear, but if my life depended on it, you can bet I'd sacrifice the fender of my Maserati to grind or chip a hole in a rock.

again, absolutely agree. while playing devil's advocate I am choosing situations that serve my point. yes, there are alternatives.

Dick Pronneke was a hell of a mountain man. he flourished in the wilderness and did stuff that would sorely tax lesser men but I don't consider what he did as survival, and I don't think he would either...
he went out to stay long term, he was well equipped with plenty of proper tools and things to care for them, and he set about making his life alone in the wilderness.

you'll notice he does most of his finish work on the logs with a double bit axe. he's got chisels, a big saw and a draw knife but he's an artist with that axe.

as someone once said (maybe Whelen or Kephart or one of them), "I don't go into the bush to rough it, I go there to smooth it"... that means they went prepared with enough stuff to make it easy and comfortable. that's not survival...

here again, my point was not to say that this guy was a survivalist, but he was a doing minimalist living. like him, if I were to embark on minimalist living, the first thing i'd do is gather up an ensemble of tools that would enable me to do everything I needed to do.

in the post apocalyptic world, I would not be without technology or tools. the premiere excursion would to be acquire tools needed to do what needed to be done. there would be no end to such missions or "shopping," if it couldn't be found or scavenged it would be made. there is not a realistic situation where there's not technology or no tools where i would be forced to live off a knife for some indeterminate period of time. that's fantasy.


and this is the rub, the only reason i'm actually bothering to even speak on the subject. people bother to buy fire steels and pack them up in these emergency survival kits or 5 days survival bags or whatever the hell you call them. but do they actually know that it's very difficult to use a firesteel to start a fire in wet conditions? do they know that for less weight they could have windproof matches and wet tinder like hexamine fuel tablet or wetfire or a petroleum jelly infused cottonball or lintball that will start fire much faster (rule of 3s), with less effort (calories) and more reliably? do these people know that once you start a fire, you can keep it going for days and you don't need umpteen million matches and if you were to douse the fire then the firesteel would be just as difficult the next day?

there's nothing wrong with having a firesteel as an option for an emergency kit, i have one in every emergency bag, but people are wholesale buying into this sort of survival gear--with or without training. firesteel a survivor doesn't make. firesteel doesn't even always make fire! only in certain conditions is it capable. you can literally submerge windproof matches, hexamine fuel tablets and the twigs you're trying to light and then pull them all out of the water and make a fire. that's the kind of reliability that makes survival easier and likelier. there's a romance to starting a fire with firesteel, i'm sure even more so with a bow drill. however, after doing both, i'd rather have stormproof matches and wetfire.

[ra2bach]

and don't get me wrong, I am agreeing with exactly what you're saying, but I am trying to play devil's advocate. if you have a leatherman which includes a saw which can cut through green saplings even larger in diameter than its length, without batonning, and the small blade within the leatherman can do basic cutting work, then what isn't very survivor about this multitool? i'm not saying the knife is replaced by a saw, but that a "survivalist knife" may very well be replaced by a multitool of sufficient quality. however, that doesn't seem to be sexy enough for tv.

nono, don't get me wrong either. I think the knife on a Leatherman is very capable for a lot of things and I'd absolutely use it I had nothing else. a few people make a lot of hay by showing how they can use just a glass shard to survive with but that's not optimal. I take a leatherman with me all the time because of the other tools - the knife is just along for the ride and I enjoy having a spare.

but the question is what knife is a "survival" knife and I don't think most people should choose that as their first option.

I very much agree with your assessment here with a few caveats. a big part of preparation for survival is to ensure you're not in a survival situation. if you've sufficiently prepared and made choices that don't put you in a situation where you're fending for your life then you've taken more than half the battle. for those 1%s that you cannot anticipate, then you need knowledge and you need to exploit what you have. hopefully good preparation has provided something for those instances.

to continue with your example of just camping, well if a backpacker goes into the wild and he has a 5 day trip planned, even if he gets lost, he can cut his trip a little bit short and get back on track. no one is the wiser. he has in his possession plenty of prepared equipment to sustain himself.

the most at-risk person of actually facing a survival situation is not the post apocalyptic male, but the foolhardy day hiker who goes out without any preparations, for what is supposed to only last a few hours. this person, gets lost, falls off the trail, then what? the bottle of water in-hand was finished hours ago. the shorts and t-shirt are sweat through and it's almost nightfall. well at least he brought his cellphone. if he has the common sense to find a signal and call in for rescue then he's just another statistic. another ill prepared noob who went out and got lost and the wildland firefighters and company go fetch him. can anyone here pose a more likely scenario than this one? especially for the vast majority of people who are nowhere close to doing anything that can be remotely considered as expeditionary.

here again, my point was not to say that this guy was a survivalist, but he was a doing minimalist living. like him, if I were to embark on minimalist living, the first thing i'd do is gather up an ensemble of tools that would enable me to do everything I needed to do.

in the post apocalyptic world, I would not be without technology or tools. the premiere excursion would to be acquire tools needed to do what needed to be done. there would be no end to such missions or "shopping," if it couldn't be found or scavenged it would be made. there is not a realistic situation where there's not technology or no tools where i would be forced to live off a knife for some indeterminate period of time. that's fantasy.


and this is the rub, the only reason i'm actually bothering to even speak on the subject. people bother to buy fire steels and pack them up in these emergency survival kits or 5 days survival bags or whatever the hell you call them. but do they actually know that it's very difficult to use a firesteel to start a fire in wet conditions? do they know that for less weight they could have windproof matches and wet tinder like hexamine fuel tablet or wetfire or a petroleum jelly infused cottonball or lintball that will start fire much faster (rule of 3s), with less effort (calories) and more reliably? do these people know that once you start a fire, you can keep it going for days and you don't need umpteen million matches and if you were to douse the fire then the firesteel would be just as difficult the next day?

there's nothing wrong with having a firesteel as an option for an emergency kit, i have one in every emergency bag, but people are wholesale buying into this sort of survival gear--with or without training. firesteel a survivor doesn't make. firesteel doesn't even always make fire! only in certain conditions is it capable. you can literally submerge windproof matches, hexamine fuel tablets and the twigs you're trying to light and then pull them all out of the water and make a fire. that's the kind of reliability that makes survival easier and likelier. there's a romance to starting a fire with firesteel, i'm sure even more so with a bow drill. however, after doing both, i'd rather have stormproof matches and wetfire.

right. he wasn't surviving, he was thriving. his skill were, more properly, "bushcraft" skills (even though that's a very overwrought term these days).

the 6P's - Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance... but who's going to be most prepared? not the urban joe who heads out as you describe above and suddenly finds himself in deep shit with darkness descending. but if he has some tools and a little knowledge, he might not make such a bad hash of it. in this case, something in the hand is better than nothing...

I'm one of the other kind of guys and I always carry a small PSK (personal survival kit) and I always want the easiest, most foolproof stuff in it. my preparedness is I double up on everyday essentials like navigation and lights, and I triple up (or more) on emergency items like fire, water, and shelter.

I don't put a firesteel in the PSK, I put lifeboat matches and "cheater" tinder like petroleum jelly cotton balls and fat-wood sticks. I also have a small magnifier in there for, you know, torturing ants and stuff. I use a firesteel as my primary fire source to save matches and I also stash a couple lighters about my pack and pockets in case I get impatient.

I carry a pot or metal canteen/bottle for boiling water and a Sawyer mini water filter. If I'm going with more than 1 other person, I have a Steripen purifier because it processes more water quicker than the other methods. I keep Aqua pure tabs in my PSK.

outside of my tarp or tent, I go a little overboard with my shelter. I usually carry a poncho or SOL "heatsheet" two-person survival blanket, and a combination of a couple reflective Mylar emergency blankets and clear heavy-duty trash can liners or sheet plastic (you can make a sauna out of a shelter with a reflective back and clear front to trap the long wave radiation from a fire).

so back to my original question, recognizing that you can press almost anything into service in an emergency, what size knife would you choose on purpose to be prepared for a survival situation?..

[sevenhelmet]

I think this is a mindset thing. A lot of the whiz-bang gear comes from the simple fact that- face it- a lot of us are "gear guys". We love technology, and at the end of the day, I think that is OK. However, the problem arises when one tries to justify said purchases because of highly unlikely scenario A, B, C, etc. Nothing wrong with gear, I'm just honest with myself about why I'm buying it. The industry doesn't help- half the websites I see include ads about "Why the stock market will crash" and "25 reasons to buy another gun!". I came to the realization long ago that I don't collect guns and ammo to in case of "teotwawki/shtf/Hillary 2016" or whatever the tacticool guys are calling it these days. I collect gun stuff because I like it, and I can use it for defensive purposes in the 0.001% chance I ever need to. In the more likely event there is a local natural disaster or something, plenty of drinking/cooking water and about 72 hours' worth of food will get my family through 95% of what is out there. For the other 5%, well... I've gone a little beyond the 72 hour rule.

As for looters, well- go ahead and try

[jahrule]

I think this is a mindset thing. A lot of the whiz-bang gear comes from the simple fact that- face it- a lot of us are "gear guys". We love technology, and at the end of the day, I think that is OK. However, the problem arises when one tries to justify said purchases because of highly unlikely scenario A, B, C, etc. Nothing wrong with gear, I'm just honest with myself about why I'm buying it. The industry doesn't help- half the websites I see include ads about "Why the stock market will crash" and "25 reasons to buy another gun!". I came to the realization long ago that I don't collect guns and ammo to in case of "teotwawki/shtf/Hillary 2016" or whatever the tacticool guys are calling it these days. I collect gun stuff because I like it, and I can use it for defensive purposes in the 0.001% chance I ever need to. In the more likely event there is a local natural disaster or something, plenty of drinking/cooking water and about 72 hours' worth of food will get my family through 95% of what is out there. For the other 5%, well... I've gone a little beyond the 72 hour rule.

As for looters, well- go ahead and try

I could not agree more. I think that 0.001% chance is worth being prepared. The definition of prepared is what I think gets skewed by fear and advertising. Having a firearm 22 or whatever is good "just in case", but that does not mean one needs to an arsenal. Be honest with yourself. A bug out bag is cool to have "just in case" or a cool knife whatever but really any knife and household things will get you through most scenarios. So, just be smart buy what you like, but be honest about why you are buying. Because in the end it only takes one bullet/bite/stab/etc to drop you and all that tacticool gear you got will not help.

[soulezoo]

I chose the S1 and love it.

I also have a Fallkniven Volcano... a lot of wow factor there.

pretty good response. and it makes me ask, are we taking the words survival, and bushcrafting, and even backpacking or camping and blending them into some amorphous category?

survival, to me, is a response to an unplanned condition, or IOW, what you get when you don't get what you wanted. now there's nothing wrong with going out and practicing survival skills and a lot of that falls under bushcraft or primitive living skills, and I see no problem with that...

in the case of knives there's a great debate as to what actually is a "survival" knife, with the most simplistic answer being "a survival knife is the knife you have with you when you need to survive". that's almost become a punchline but it starts with a huge grain of truth.

a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon and creating "bushcraft" knives that fit the pattern the modern pioneers (Kephart, Kochanski, etc.) relied on for their daily needs, but it really helps to understand these guys never relied on one cutting tool, invariably having an axe and/or saw as well.

there's an elitism that's going on now that says "I could do anything that needs done with just a __ inch knife", and I'm sure that's true for those people, but again, is this the best answer when time and energy are your only resources?..

I think a survival knife has to do all the things I might ask of it, from fire building to shelter and food prep, in the quickest, safest, and most efficient manner. I think it bears saying that, yes, we could probably make a piece of flint (or a 3-4" "bushcraft knife) do everything we need but is this really the best tool for the job?

If you knew that the canoe you were in was going under in the next set of rapids, taking your axe/saw and all your other supplies away down stream, what one knife would you like to have with you when you dragged your scraggly butt up on the bank?

for me that would be a sturdy knife that could stand up to chopping, splitting, and scraping wood with an edge that would hold up to abuse. I'm not looking to carve delicate things, I'm just looking to bust open some wood to get at the dry center, make small slivers and fluff that will take a spark, chop some stuff to make a shelter, and settle in.

Fallkiniven has three knives listed in their "survival" category - the 6.3" A1 is their heavy duty general purpose, the 5" S1 they call a hunting/fishing knife, and the 4" F1, which they say they made specifically as a Pilot's Survival knife.

these all vary in weight and blade thickness as well -- http://www.fallkniven.com/en/shop/ca...urvival-knives

just using these as an example, which would you choose for a one-knife survival situation?..