Kitchen knife
If the gathering is carried out in a hurry, and there is nothing else at hand, you can grab the first bread cutter that comes across nature. If your picnic takes place in cars, a kitchen device is quite suitable. However, for a serious hike it is too unreliable, and it is difficult to find a normal sheath for a kitchen knife.
Skeleton Knife / Wrap Knife
Quite a fashionable and now widespread version of the knife. You can find a copy in any price category: from Chinese consumer goods in a kiosk to high-quality models from expensive stores. Of the pros: as a rule, light and compact knives, but in my opinion, more designed for concealed carry in the city. If you have to butcher game or clean fish, a skeletal knife is easy to clean, a laced knife is much worse. Cheap options bend and break at once, but it’s not a pity to lose them. For me personally, a handle without pads is uncomfortable, but this is a matter of preference.
Jackknife
There are many options for folding knives with one or more blades-objects, including special options for hikers. Folding knife does not require a special sheath, can be carried in a pocket. However, in the field it quickly becomes clogged with dirt and other debris. A short knife blade is not always convenient: for example, cutting bread with a small knife is an occupation for entertainers. IMHO - a folding knife, again, is more suitable for urban conditions. As for multi-objective pen-makers, it is better to take a knife, a spoon, a saw and everything you need separately and not to pervert trying to do thirty-three things with one device.
Machete / cleaver
In areas where the jungle is the main habitat, a machete is an irreplaceable thing. However, in our taiga forests, a hatchet is much more useful. How can a hefty cleaver replace an ax in our climate? You are unlikely to have to cut through the jungle, and chopping logs with a machete and peeling potatoes is a so-so pleasure. May come in handy to surprise or scare someone with size.
art knife
No doubt, beautiful engraving, etching, etc., looks great on a beautiful knife. However, the more decorations on it, the less likely that this knife will ever come in handy. It's a pity to plan pegs with such beauty, not to mention opening a tin can. And if, not even an hour, you lose? The fate of such exhibits is to show off on a shelf or a showcase, for a trip you need something simpler.
Combat knife
Combat knife - a tool for defeating the enemy. It may have a number of design features - for example, an emphasis-guard, or a double-edged dagger-type blade. But these moments, which are certainly useful in hand-to-hand combat, are superfluous in chores. Do you need a dagger blade and guard when peeling potatoes? The fashionable anti-reflective coating tends to be partially erased with the active use of the knife as a working tool. And no less fashionable serrated blade requires a special tool for sharpening. In addition, a good combat knife is a quality item and not cheap. It would be a pity to lose one in the forest. In short, if you don't plan on fighting while on vacation, it might be worth taking something a little more utilitarian.
survival knife
Rare, fortunately, in our area device. In the handle of the knife there is an emergency kit: a compass, matches, a fishing line with hooks, and a lot of other things that could be put into pockets - and with greater benefit. The impetus for the development of such all-in-one kits was received after the release of the film "Rimbaud First Blood". It can come in handy if you suddenly fall into the taiga from a helicopter.
Finnish knife
For me personally, the Finnish design is an example of a universal tourist knife. At the same time, I perfectly understand that there is nothing particularly unique in this design, that many peoples had similar knives. But it's not that important. And the important thing is that a knife of this type is quite compact and convenient. With such a knife it is convenient to perform any field - household work, in any climatic conditions.
A real Finnish knife is not cheap, but, fortunately, there are enough analog samples. There can be many options, for every taste, color and wallet. You can find yourself an option with a rudimentary guard, with a rubberized handle, with a longer or shorter blade - any whim, for your money.
In general, the best option is to make a knife yourself, at least in part. Taking into account all your requests and wishes. And happiness will be with you from the convenience of owning such a knife and pride in front of friends and acquaintances.
Today it is not difficult to find manuals for choosing hunting knives with a detailed classification according to the shape and geometry of the blades. But about a good tourist, camp, camping knife - but what is there! - not much is said about the now gaining popularity "knife for survival in the wild".
Let's outline the silhouette of our camping knife. It should be for all occasions, and this is clearing a place for a camp and an overnight stay, and cutting pegs for a tent, and planing wood to light a fire (sometimes you have to chop small firewood, like a full-fledged hatchet, hitting the butt with a stick), and cooking food, and so on. Such tools should be sensibly assessed: let him not be a champion in a single discipline, but he will be able to do everything.
Our "walker", "camp", "prepper" must have a wedge with a good margin of safety. A rare camping knife has less than four millimeters in the butt - this strengthens the blade, but increases the weight. As a rule, there is no false blade on such knives, if only because it weakens the tip of the wedge, and the penetrating ability of the tip is not very important for fans of outdoor recreation.
Most often, the desired knife has direct descents from the butt, which favorably affects the price of the product. In addition, it is much more convenient to transfer the palm of your free hand to a wide butt to enhance the cut under pressure.
The second question of the geometry of the blade is about the cutting edge and the reduction of slopes. A camping knife should be such that it can cut food and chop branches. Therefore, a relatively thick convergence, usually at least 0.5 mm, is the best fit for this. It will cut moderately, but when chopping, the cutting edge will not crumble and the “clumps” will be minimal.
It is even better when the blade at the end has a complex grind and the descents for the tip of the wedge are displayed at a different angle. In this case, it is possible to achieve that the main part of the blade will be reduced to a thinner cutting edge, for a good cut, and its end will be reduced more massively, for various “picking” actions and rough work. But is it worth mentioning that such a grind also adds to the final cost of the knife?
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MULTIPLE HANDLE. What is the most important thing in a tourist knife? Blade steel? Perhaps today, no matter how strange it may seem, the main role is played by the handle. It does not allow a dropped knife to sink, a rope wrapped around it can be extremely useful on a hike, a leather type-setting handle allows the knife not to slip when cleaning fish, etc. Handles with a built-in compass, pencil cases, lantern handles and even shooting handles are more fashionable and in demand today than ever. Meaningless for professionals, hunters and military, but very useful for city tourists, knives with special “handles” continue to be produced by many little-known firms and reputable knife companies. But what about steel? Who needs a great knife with a great blade worth thousands of conventional units if it falls out of the hands of a sleazy tourist and simply drowns? |
Since there are no blades that remain sharp after a week of use, you need to pay attention to steel. For one- and two-day hikes, you can take a well-hardened "carbon" (just be aware that it can be fragile). During this time, it will not have to be sharpened often, if at all, and it is more convenient to take care of such a knife on short trips. And after a trip at home, you can timely wipe off the pitting spots missed during cleaning in nature.
For longer trips, it is better to take such a knife so that you don’t have to “kill” it for more than half an hour to edit it. This is its main difference from the hunting one: we don’t need the knife to cut the paper on weight after skinning the elk, we need it to be able to be brought into working condition with a few confident movements with ceramic musat.
Please note that many manufacturers use carbon steel in such knives, but they heat it to a hardness of 55-57 HRC, although most of these steels are freely heated to the level of 58-60 HRC. This is done for several purposes.
Firstly, as we have already found out above, so that the knife can be easily sharpened and corrected in the field.
Secondly, the steel turns out to be more viscous - the cutting edge is prone to jams, but not to chips. Thirdly, so that the wedge is not too brittle at sub-zero temperatures and the knife can be used in winter.
Another important point: uncoated carbon steel is unlikely to be a good helper on a long hike. There are many such coatings - from banal oxidation to pressure sprayed graphite (so-called diamond-like carbon DLC) or textured powder paint. You can choose a knife made of alloyed stainless steels, which, in fact, do not need such a coating.
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WOODEN ANACHRONISM. Today, the tree on the knives looks very archaic. Of course, it's beautiful, but very, very impractical. Wood swells, shrinks, cracks... Today, in the age of high-tech materials, it would seem that using wood is tritely stupid - excellent plastics are the best material for handles and scabbards. But ... where without a tree? The traditional material is so firmly entrenched in the human mind that tourist knives with handles made from a wide variety of exotic woods will always be in steady demand. The modern chemical industry creates impregnations that can prolong the life of wood, and thus the most ancient material that mankind has encountered has received a second wind. |
Probably the last selection criteria are the hilt and scabbard. The fewer parts and connections in the handle, the better. From modern synthetics - and the scabbard should be just that - there is a large selection of resistant materials. Very well behaved G-10 (glass fiber reinforced epoxy resin), neoprene, polymer Zytel, Kraton, thermoplastic Kydex.
All have their drawbacks, but the main plus is that they are resistant to abrasion, to all atmospheric manifestations, while being easy to clean, weigh little and provide good grip.
Sheaths are most often made up of two sheets fastened with eyelets, so moisture does not linger in them and they have a reliable lacing system.
It is worth noting that recently most manufacturers have switched to the fulltang design and forgot about the hollow handles. And for small accessories, as a rule, a pocket on the sheath is reserved. Fiberglass G-10 is most often made in the form of flat dies, which are mounted on both sides of the blade blank, forming a handle.
Therefore, on knives with a hollow handle-container (for matches, hooks and other small accessories), such material is not found. Another good example of a handle is a paracord-wrapped skeleton handle. This makes practical sense: the paracord can be removed when a few meters of strong cord are urgently needed.
Perhaps these are all the primary criteria for choosing a camping knife. There is only one last tip: do not take a giant machete - your hand will begin to go numb after five minutes of working with it. 10-12 centimeters of the blade, as a rule, is enough. Remember that you still need to grow to a small knife.
The most important tool in any hike is a camping knife (except, of course, axes). Any knife can be useful in the woods, but it is better to have a multi-functional knife or a set of highly specialized ones. A person who knows how to handle a blade will find a use for any blade, and even the best powder steel knives will not help an inexperienced tourist.
cold weapon or not
There is an opinion that tourist knives are melee weapons. This is not entirely true. There is a guest who clearly defines the signs by which this or that knife can be attributed to melee weapons. In stores, when buying a knife, be sure to require a certificate that contains a link to GOST and defines the parameters by which this knife does not belong to melee weapons.
If there is no certificate for the knife (for example, you made it yourself or bought it yourself), then you need to know the main differences between a “cold” knife and a skinning or tourist one.
The State Standard on carving and skinning knives specifies the signs by which the knife does not belong to melee weapons:
- A knife of any design, with a blade length of up to 90 millimeters, is not a melee weapon (CW);
- With a blade thickness of less than 2.4 mm, the knife can have a blade length of up to 150 mm, while its handle can have a limiter and sub-finger recesses;
- With a blade thickness of more than 2.6 mm, the knife can be longer than 90 mm in the presence of a traumatic handle (this means the absence of a limiter and sub-finger recesses);
- Parameters associated with the bending of the blade and handle. For example, the Nepalese kukri (this is a real combat knife) is referred to by the state standard as household knives.
The guest about sports and tourist knives has similar parameters, only the length of the blade in this case can be up to 220 millimeters.
How to choose the best outdoor knife
In order to find the best knife for your purposes, you need to remember what you usually do with a knife on a hike. If you are a hunter or fisherman, there is enough work for knives. A hunter can have axes, a clumsy knife, or a whole set of knives in his backpack. Many people carry folding knives in their pockets, a saw will find a place in a backpack, and an ordinary tourist on a hike may never get his set.
Jobs for which a tourist may need a knife are usually the following:
- If there is no saw, and the knife is massive enough, they can chop wood chips to light a fire. Inexpensive knives are great for this procedure. It is difficult to imagine a tourist who will chop logs with a good powdered or damask knife for 20 or more thousand;
- You can cut the ax handle if it is broken;
- Cutting food for lunch;
- If you manage to catch fish, the knife will come in handy in order to clean it. In this case, the quality of the blade does not play any role at all, even Chinese multifunctional ones (which are a knife, fork, spoon) or blunt kitchen ones will do.
That's all the main work, for them a simple knife with a blade length of about 15 centimeters, and steel 65x13 or 95x18 will be enough. The parameters of such a tourist knife are perfect for a novice traveler. It is not scary to lose it, you can give it to the inept hands of your comrades, sharpen it by passing it on a whetstone a couple of times.
In general, when setting up a camp, an ax and a saw do most of the work on its device, but often the ax is thrown into a backpack for show, and the saw has never been sharpened since the moment of purchase.
A very important quality for camping knives is the simplicity of their design and overall "indestructibility". You will have to open cans with a knife, dig the ground, so it must be with a fairly thick and strong blade. The quality of the steel is not particularly important. Chances are you will lose this knife after a few trips. The next blade will be purchased more thoughtfully, carried in a good leather sheath and not handed out to everyone. It is better to choose an all-metal handle with overlays, you can even hang on such a knife, nothing will be done to it.
If you are already an experienced tourist, then you will definitely have a sharp ax in your backpack, and a sharp finca from Swedish manufacturers will replace the clumsy camp knife. A set of two MORA CLASSICs, large and small, will handle all the camp work that an ax can't do. Moravian carbon steel has a very aggressive cut and can be easily sharpened on a cheap whetstone.
Folding or non-folding knife - which is better?
Despite the advantages of fixed blade knives, the main advantage of a folding knife is its light weight and compactness. Many models are also multifunctional, they represent a whole set of tools.
If a hunter needs a serious knife with which to butcher prey, and a long and thin fillet knife is useful to a fisherman, then a tourist may well get by with a folding blade. When working with a folding knife, the following nuances should be considered:
- The folding design is less reliable than the fixed one, so power work should be done with care. It’s better to forget about chopping wood chips for a fire right away. Some even manage to throw folding knives at trees, as a rule, this ends in breakdowns and injuries;
- The blade of a folding knife may not be fixed and, in case of inaccurate work, it can easily fold over your fingers;
- It should be remembered that for the compactness of a folding knife you have to pay with a small blade size. Bread or boiled sausage will have to be cut round;
- The folding knife mechanism is very sensitive to dirt. After the hike, it must be cleaned and rinsed under running water. In case of severe contamination, a complete cleaning will be required with disassembly of the folding knife and lubrication of the hinges.
Do not attempt to crack nuts or crush anything with the handle of a folding knife. When used in such work, even a high-quality and expensive knife will not last more than one season. Choose either multipurpose knives such as VICTORINOX or knives with a lock that secures the blade firmly. The most common types of locks are liner lock and axis lock. Axis is structurally more complicated, but the reliability of fixation is superior to a liner-type lock. From the purchase of single-piece knives without fixation, you should immediately refuse.
Types of tourist knife shanks
The shank is the back of the blade, which is hidden in the handle and serves to fix the blade. Shanks are of two types:
- Through mounting, when the shank passes through the entire handle and is fastened with a nut on the reverse side;
- Rigid mounting, when the shank enters the handle by about two thirds of its length.
There is another type of blade mounting, when the shank is the middle of the handle, and pads are attached to it on the sides (full tang system). A blade with such a shank is called a blank.
Many firms produce so-called survival knives, in which there is no shank as such. But in the hollow handle you can store various necessary little things. The reliability of such a knife is in great doubt and it is definitely not worth buying as a tourist knife. These knives are designed as part of emergency supplies (pilots, sailors or travelers) and should be used in emergencies. For example, in a crash. In such a situation, needles, hooks and flint from the handle are very useful.
The drop-mount shank is fairly reliable, but only if you are sure that it goes through two-thirds of the handle. When buying such a knife from the hands or in stores, this is quite difficult to say. You can recommend inexpensive Swedish knives for purchase, the manufacturer monitors the quality of their products. Of course, you should not stick it with all your might into a tree and hang on a knife, but it will do most of the work. It is worth noting that most traditional knives are made using the push-in technology.
Through mounting is a more reliable design, often the nut on the back of the handle is polished or a plug is inserted from above. Despite this, many manufacturers, in order to save metal, make such a shank in two parts. A regular hairpin is welded to the short shank of the knife. And often the shank is no more than two centimeters. It is impossible to check how through installation is made without disassembling the handle, so such knives should be bought from well-known companies that will give a guarantee or from trusted knife makers.
The most reliable blade mounting is the full tang system. Unfortunately, these knives are rather nondescript in appearance and are not very popular.
Sharpening a tourist knife
Sharpening of any blade must be done at a certain angle, and this depends on the tasks that the knife will perform on a hike. For example, for cutting fish and skinning, the optimal sharpening angle will be 10-15 degrees. If you plan to cut soft materials and food with a knife, then you should choose an angle of 15-20 degrees (by the way, the famous Japanese katanas were sharpened at this angle). All-purpose outdoor knives can be sharpened at an angle of 20-25 degrees. If it is planned to open cans with a knife and chop wood chips, the sharpening angle can reach 40 degrees.
The sharpening process itself is a fairly simple procedure. It is worth starting with stones of large grain size, gradually moving to smoother stones. After sharpening, it is desirable to finish (grind) the cutting edge on the skin with GOI paste. Sharpening solves the following tasks:
- Restores the shape of the cutting edge (or changes it to the desired angle);
- Grinds the edge to the desired smoothness.
In order to sharpen the blade at the desired degree, when sharpening, you need to hold the blade at this angle. If the knife has already been sharpened at the right angle, this will not be difficult. To change the sharpening angle to a smaller one, you can use special tools. For example, a sharpening angle holder or sharpening systems such as Lansky or Apex.
The main rule when sharpening is not to press hard on the knife. This can damage the whetstone, and the price of quality stones is quite high.
Knife blade shape
For a tourist knife, the blade shape should be universal. The centuries-old form with a straight butt is best suited. You should not chase pretentious forms such as tanto or scramasax, in work this will only be a hindrance.
Often there are such forms of blades:
- Clip point or finca;
- Spare point, spear-shaped blade;
- Drop point, with a lowering of the butt line;
- Various tantoids (Japanese or American tanto);
- Trailing point - with an increase in the butt (perfect for cutting fish).
Everyone can choose the form that suits him. If you want a serrated blade, remember that it is almost impossible to sharpen it in the field.
Knife handle
Tourist knife handles are made from a variety of materials. Conventionally, they can be divided into two large groups:
- natural materials;
- Materials of artificial origin.
From natural materials, wood, leather, bone, horn, or combinations thereof are most often used. Among the artificial materials, rubber and various plastics are most often used. The combination of rubber and plastic is durable and does not slip in your hand.
Handles made of natural materials look beautiful, but need care. For a camp knife, the main criterion for choosing a handle material is the convenience of holding it in your hand. Do not take a knife with a metal handle, in winter it will freeze your hand. Also, do not take a slippery handle. If you are not sure about the strength of holding the knife, you can provide it with a loop to fix it on your wrist.
The choice of steel for the knife
There are a lot of knife steels. For a tourist knife, you should not choose expensive steels. It is better to choose either stainless steel type 95x18 or carbon steel. Carbon has a more aggressive cut, but is prone to corrosion. 95X18 - good enough steel, does not rust, but is more expensive than carbon steel. If you carefully operate your knives, you can buy an expensive blade made of powdered steel.
- High-quality multi-subject "Victorinox" and "Laserman";
- Inexpensive Chinese or Russian sets with spoon, fork, corkscrew and blade.
Choosing a tourist knife is a rather responsible procedure. Buy a knife that will do most of the camp work, and not hang like a useless load on your belt.
If you have any questions - leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them.
I am fond of martial arts with weapons, historical fencing. I write about weapons and military equipment because it is interesting and familiar to me. I often learn a lot of new things and want to share these facts with people who are not indifferent to military topics.
Every tourist, fisherman and hunter knows that one of the main tools in a hike is a knife. While driving along the route, of course, you do not really need it. But in the parking lot, when organizing the camp and cooking without a knife, as if without hands. And the choice of a knife for a hike must be approached seriously, with all responsibility. Let's figure out how to choose a knife for yourself and what you should pay attention to.
First of all, you need to understand that a knife, from the point of view of law and common sense, can be considered a melee weapon. And if you have a knife with you without the relevant documents, then law enforcement agencies may have unnecessary questions for you, up to the seizure of the knife. To avoid trouble in such a situation, there are at least two ways out.
Firstly, you can buy high-quality, branded knives that are accompanied by a document from the manufacturer stating that the knife is not a melee weapon and carry this document along with the knife.
Secondly, you can buy cheap, obviously household, knives, such as kitchen ones. Naturally, no documents are issued for them. But the cost of such a product allows you to lose it without much regret and damage to your wallet.
What is a knife for on a hike?
The choice of a knife primarily depends on what you need it for, for what kind of work?
At small stops along the way or on weekend hikes (PVD), the knife is most often used for cutting some kind of food and for cooking in general. They also open canned food, but it should be noted that this greatly deteriorates and dulls the cutting edge. It is better to open canned food with a special opener.
On more solid camps with overnight stays, a knife can be used to organize a camp. They sharpen stakes with it, cut off branches and small knots on poles, make some kind of auxiliary devices made of wood (for example, a campfire hanger).
When making a fire with a knife, small branches are cut and larger ones are split, dry kindling is prepared for the fire.
What kind of knife to choose for a hike?
As you can see, on a hike, a knife is needed for a variety of tasks. And only from this we can conclude that it is impossible to pick up one universal knife for all occasions. It is very inconvenient to cook food with a thick and durable knife, and with a table knife with a thin blade you can’t do rough work, you can’t chop branches - it will simply break.
For a camp kitchen, a folding knife with a thin blade of medium size is quite suitable. It should be simple, without any teeth, files on the butt and serrated sharpening. In my opinion, the Opinel knife is the most suitable for this.
Folding knives are not suitable for rougher work. The hinge connecting the blade of the knife and its handle is its weak point and you can break the knife without calculating the load. Therefore, it is better for such tasks to have a knife with a fixed blade, durable and thick enough. Pay attention to the design of the handle. The most durable option will be surface-mounted, when the halves of the handle are riveted on both sides, and the blade is a continuation of the handle.
It is very good to have another small folding knife with various additional tools. Very high quality knives of the Swiss company Victorinox. An overview of one of these knives can be read in the article: "" In addition to the main blades, it contains screwdrivers, tweezers, a can opener, etc. Such folding knives come in various configurations and you can choose a model according to your needs. 
Knife sharpening
As a rule, all high-quality branded knives have a very decent factory sharpening and they do not need to be re-sharpened, especially in field conditions. But in a long trip, the sharpening of the blade will inevitably become dull and it is desirable to somehow restore it. To do this, take with you a small block of fine grain (donkey) with which you can correct the cutting edge. You can, of course, try to sharpen the knife on a stone, but most likely, you will ruin its sharpening completely. The touchstone weighs a few grams and will allow you to quickly and easily cope with this task without damaging the knife.
Which knife should not be taken
This is a separate big topic that has generated a lot of controversy and fights to stabbing))
Any picnic in nature, and even more so a serious hike, is not complete without the use of a knife. Therefore, today we will talk about tourist knives. Let's talk about which knife is best suited for tourism.
The knife theme is now very popular on the net, holivars on the topic of choice do not fade away, starting with a knife for going out into nature and ending with a knife for survival during a zombie apocalypse. I will try to soberly evaluate all possible options, and help novice tourists choose the perfect knife for the trip. I apologize to the knife lovers, the recommendations given in the note are the humble opinion of a tourist.
And so, my message is mainly to the reader who decided to choose a knife specifically for hiking, that is, a tourist knife, which actively looks at the offers of all kinds of “survival” models and cannot decide what is right for him. Recommendation #1 is to relax.
The best hiking knife is the one you have
What kind of knife to take with you on a hike? To be honest, absolutely any kitchen knife or other knife from the household will fit for hiking. If your trip does not involve a month of living in the taiga, then choosing a tourist knife for the first trip is the last thing you should worry about. In mountain trips, it is quite rare to cut down trees with a knife;), and any cutter will cope with cutting food or other simple tasks.
But if you dig deeper, then indeed, not every knife can be convenient on a hike. One will be too heavy, and the other, if the sharpness is lost, it will be impossible to undermine in the field. Let's figure it out.
Choosing a camping knife
When choosing a tourist knife, I always follow these principles:
- Light weight. On most mountain hikes, a 30cm machete will be over-length and therefore overweight. Perhaps during an expedition to the jungle, such a blade will come in handy, but in the mountains, especially above the forest zone, it will be useless. Choose the dimensions of the knife according to the conditions in which it will be used.
- Low cost. In my understanding, a camping knife must be inexpensive. There is a big risk of just forgetting it in the parking lot, losing it in the grass (for this reason, I advise you to choose handles of bright colors). Expensive knives made of super-hard steels, in my opinion, are not quite suitable for tourism. Yes, they are difficult to blunt, but if this happens, then in the field it will no longer be possible to fix them on a stone or a leather belt.
- Reliability. Of course, this point is rather arbitrary. Again, we analyze the scope. Products, for example, will cut any blade, but for stick branches it’s better, of course, to have some kind of indestructible fix.
Today, a large segment of the market is occupied by knives positioned as survival knives. Usually these are thick blades, sometimes with a dubious saw on the butt. In the handle of such Rambo knives, manufacturers shove flint, all kinds of NAZs and wrap it all with paracord. It is clear that for males who do not really understand why they need a knife on a campaign, such “survival” models will seem attractive.
Friends, if it comes to survival, God forbid, then by and large, a piece of glass from a broken bottle or a lid from a tin can fit in as a knife. So we dismiss the so-called "survival knives" immediately. Now answer yourself honestly, how often do you have an urgent need to brutally baton with a knife? Choose a huge indestructible cleaver only if you know for sure that you will live on a desert island or in the taiga for several years.
Knife for opening cans
No matter how ridiculous it may sound, a can opener is best suited for opening canned food. It is a special can opener, not the blade of your main knife. No matter how high-quality the blade is, you should not consider the knife as a can opener, it is simply not designed for this. Although many have a habit of spoiling knives with such manipulations.
I want to note that there are many lightweight folding can openers. In addition, any Swiss knife is equipped with a special can opener. Therefore, if you take tin cans on a hike, one of the two options will come in handy. Do not open jars with a knife.
Fix or warehouse?
There is an opinion that a tourist knife must necessarily be with a fixed blade, that is, not with a folding blade. I partially agree with this, fixes are more reliable, since they do not have moving nodes. For hard work, it really makes more sense to use a fixed blade. In turn, folding knives are conditionally less reliable, more prone to contamination due to the presence of slots in the handle. But these are trifles. At the same time, folders (folding knives) take up less space, they can be carried in pockets, which, you see, is more convenient than a sheath on a belt.
But far from always our trips involve the hard use of a knife, much more often a camping knife is a food knife.
Blade material: stainless steel or carbon?
Why is stainless steel good? As you might guess, it does not rust. Also, stainless steel blades do not absorb odors. But popular inexpensive grades of stainless steel have slightly fewer hardness units compared to carbon steels. Accordingly, stainless steel knives become blunt much easier than carbon ones. This cannot be called a definite disadvantage, because due to its softness, stainless steel is also easily sharpened - you can always straighten the blade on a small musat or leather belt with a few movements, which cannot be said about carbon knives.
Carbon (carbon) is steel with a high carbon content. Due to this, carbon knives are much harder than stainless ones, have a better cut and a more resistant cutting edge. But at the same time, carbon knives are harder to sharpen, they absorb food odors, and most importantly, they rust godlessly. When in contact with, for example, an acidic product, a carbon steel knife rusts within minutes. But not everything is as scary as it seems at first glance. In the process of use, the blade becomes covered with a thin patina, and, although it loses its appearance, it does its job perfectly. In addition, many immediately after purchase poison carbon knives in Coca-Cola or citric acid to speed up the oxidation process. After such a simple procedure, the blade turns black and becomes covered with a protective patina.
The choice between stainless steel and carbon is a matter of taste. For a beginner, of course, it will be easier to use stainless steel, it does not require maintenance. While a carbon steel knife is desirable to wipe clean after cutting food and should not be left in moisture. But personally, I came to the conclusion that for products it is still better to choose a stainless steel knife, and for cutting wood and other materials it is better to use carbon (carbon).
My knives (impressions of use)
All my knives belong to the budget category and are purely utilitarian in nature. As I said, a camping knife should be inexpensive so that it is not scary to use it to the fullest, and not too sorry if it is lost.
In the conditions of the campaign, I happened to use various types of knives - from urban pocket knives to multi-tool knives and fixes. I can say the following. Pocket folding knives like the beloved Ontario Rat 1, Ganzo g704 and many, many others do not quite meet my requirements - they are too heavy.
In the course of use, I came to the conclusion that the best solution for the average trip would be a tandem of two knives. The first knife is a fix, something like Mora, Bacho, Fiskars. They weigh quite a bit - about 80-90 grams. And the second is some model of a Swiss knife. It serves as a spare knife, a kitchen knife and a repair kit, because many Swiss are equipped with openers, screwdrivers, a toothpick, an awl, scissors, a saw, etc.
At the moment, this pair consists of a Mora Craftline Q 510 (weight 88 grams) and a Swiss knife Victorinox Spartan (weight 58 grams). On some trips, I only have one of these knives with me.
So far, I consider both knives a good choice for most trips, they complement each other perfectly. But the experiments do not stop, I want to test the notorious French Opinel knife in the field, in my case model No. 9 Inox (made of stainless steel), its weight is only 59 grams. But there are doubts, since the handles of these knives are afraid of moisture. After getting wet, the wood swells and it becomes difficult to open the knife. There is even a joke about this: “I do everything on a campaign, absolutely everything I do with opineel, I just take a multitool with me to open the opineel.”
Ready solutions
Who should take a knife on a hike? Based on the above, I bring to your attention a couple of ready-made options:
Tourist cautious ordinary: the main knife is fixed, for example, Mora Companion MG made of carbon. The second knife is the Swiss Victorinox, for example, the Camper model.
Unpretentious tourist: one knife for all occasions, such as the Mora Outdoor 2000 stainless steel fixed blade.
Tourist ultralighter: a small Swiss officer's knife Victorinox, the same Spartan for example. Well, or a blade from a clerical knife;)
But the choice is yours, friends. Most importantly, go hiking and have fun!
