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Thread: Survival/general purpose fixed-blade knives

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by militarymoron View Post
    I haven't heard the word 'parang' for years! At least not since I lived in south east asia.
    I was living in south east Asia when I was using it. I had a really nice golok as well.

    Both were handmade from a truck leaf spring, heat treated and had the appropriate grinds. I loved the golok, it had polished water buffalo horn handles. The parang's handles were made from teak. That was nice, because they would not rot off the blade in the humidity.

  2. #32
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    FWIW, I recently picked up a Becker BK-10 a while back as a general purpose knife, and I've been very satisfied with it. It was designed to compete for replacing the aircrew survival knife. It has a nice balance between robustness, size, cost, and blade design.
    "Man is still the first weapon of war" - Field Marshal Montgomery

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  3. #33
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    I like ESEE knives with their NO BS WARRANTY. I have 4 knives from theM- ESEE 3, Eskabar, ESEE 6 and junglas. Tough as nails. Beckers are great too and a little cheaper
    Last edited by bushcraftdave; 08-04-17 at 08:59. Reason: Adding more info

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by SeriousStudent View Post
    I was living in south east Asia when I was using it. I had a really nice golok as well.

    Both were handmade from a truck leaf spring, heat treated and had the appropriate grinds. I loved the golok, it had polished water buffalo horn handles. The parang's handles were made from teak. That was nice, because they would not rot off the blade in the humidity.
    You didn't keep it?! I wanna see pics.
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  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by WillBrink View Post
    You didn't keep it?! I wanna see pics.
    No, I rotated back to CONUS, and gave them to friends. They could still use them, and I thought I would not need the blades when I finally got home.

    Machetes aren't much use in a desert.

  6. #36
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    A 7" old hickory butcher knife modified to your blade style preference... Full tang and as good or better than a Mora.
    Great starter knife... Only $13-$15!!!
    Last edited by big 54r; 08-16-17 at 19:16.

  7. #37
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    Mora...one of the few things you will ever buy where you really get the feeling you got a lot more than what you paid for. Just learn the easy way to sharpen a Scandigrind instead of free handing and learning later you have to redo it on a flat coarse stone like I did!

  8. #38
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    Tramontina machetes from Brazil are very good and dirt cheap.

    Got the 17.5" Condor Parang and it seems to work well as a machete, but don't really think it has the multi purpose capabilities I have read about parangs produced in their original countries having.

  9. #39
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    I'd like to add MORAs. THey're awesome and cheap.
    Last edited by bushcraftdave; 08-18-17 at 06:04.
    Disclaimer: I make videos as a hobby and share them on YouTube.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by pinzgauer View Post
    After years of carrying bigger blades outdoors, I now lean towards a 4" blade with full tang and no serrations.
    This. Exactly.

    Ideally, you want a 2-knife solution, right tool for the job and all that. A small-ish blade in the range of 3.5" to 4.5" that is your primary all purpose blade, light and tough enough for batoning, but small enough for slicing and detail work. You don't want this knife to be the "sharpened pry bar" survival type of knife. Stock on the blade typically between 0.14" and 0.17", with something like a full flat grind for slicing. This smaller type of blade, I prefer to be a modern stainless steel because if it involves food prep, it's much easier to maintain and to keep clean from corrosion which you wouldn't want around food. Then in addition to the smaller knife, get a much bigger knife in a carbon steel (you want the carbon steel for toughness and easy sharpening on the large blade), as big as you can stand to carry, in the range of 6" to 12" for the blade and preferably toward the upper end of that range. Why? Because the big knife can replace several tools and gives you more versatility. A great example is the ESEE Junglas 1 (10" blade) or Junglas 2 (8" blade). Both of these knives will actually let you do a ton of useful tasks. The Junglas 1 can be sort of a jack of all trades (and master of none admittedly--but it lets you replace carrying several tools): it'll let you clear brush like a machete, chop like a hatchet, baton, hammer, and can still be used for knife tasks too. As you learn to choke up on it, you can do amazing fine detail tasks even with that huge blade. Recently I practiced with mine prepping some food and then using it as a steak knife, mostly just to practice fine slicing with it. It's pretty surprising how well a large knife can work if it has a good edge and a good primary bevel.

    If you can't do a 2-knife solution--"what one knife would you take" and all that--then I agree with the poster who said something like an ESEE 6. This is a total "compromise knife" (because not big enough to do serious chopping like a hatchet, and also not small enough to easily do fine detail work), but it's also a great general purpose knife that can do many things KIND of well, if you're set on only carrying one. I've never been in a situation that only required me to carry one knife though, so I like to have adequate tools to do everything I want to do when back packing.
    Last edited by maximus83; 08-28-17 at 09:18.

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