Choosing Your Survival Knife

In this guide we explore what to look for and how to select the best all round knife for use in the wilderness and a survival situation.

Making the right choice when choosing your "grab bag" all purpose survival knife is of great importance, this will be the tool you will use and rely upon the most and also the tool you will use to make other tools with, so understanding the different types of knives available, the materials used to make it and what can be expected from it under heavy use is critical. 

For the all rounder a tactical knife that will hold a good sharp edge under regular use requires a hard steel and a knife that will be used for all matter of bush craft; prying and stabbing and general camp use. There also needs to be some flex to the steel, and this kind of speciality knife steel is not in every blade.

A "full tang" knife is best suited as the all rounder survival knife, that is a knife where the blade steel goes to the end of the handle. A good solid and comfortable grip is essential made from materials that don't perish easily. A good quality survival knife usually comes with a high quality sheath  and sometimes contains a stone for sharpening the knife.

Knives of this quality can go quite high in the price range but there are some manufacturers that produce very high quality products at more reasonable prices.

Extrema Ratio, Fällkniven, Rat Cutlery and Boker make some very high quality and value for money knives suitable for such a critical role as your main survival knife. There are also some more expensive knife ranges like Rockstead, Tomoyuki Nemoto and Kiku Knives that are truly impressive custom built knives.

This quality of tactical knife can withstand the most punishing of treatments and still continue to do it's job well.

Knife Steel

This is the most important thing to consider when looking for a survival knife. The quality and treatment of the steel will dictate what the knife will be capable of.
There are a few steels that are the most commonly used for making all purpose survival type knives.

Steel is a mixture, or alloy, of iron and carbon, combined during the smelting process. Steel is in fact iron that has a carbon content of 1.7 percent or less. The characteristics of a steel can be modified by adding in varying amounts of other metals like chromium, molybdenum, manganese, vanadium, nickel, or tungsten, and by adjusting the overall carbon content.

Heat treating is the process that gives steel its hardness, as well as toughness, strength, durability, wear and resistance to corrosion. Then to achieve a high degree of hardening, the steel is subjected to rapid cooling. Stainless steels are typically air cooled at room temperature. Tool steels are generally "cooled" in warm oil.

High performance stainless steels are hardened to RC 58-60 on the Rockwell scale. Steels that are more stainless are usually softer, in the range of 55-58. To provide even more toughness, high carbon tool steels are typically hardened even less, to RC 52-58 or so. These knives are well suited to prying, digging or chopping, and will hold an edge better than stainless steels even though they are softer.

The stainless steel series 440A, 440B, and 440C are the stainless steels which have set the standard for better quality, yet quite cheap, stainless steel production knives. Carbon content, and thus hardenability of this series, increases in order from 440A (lowest) to 440C(Highest).

The higher performance stainless knife blade steels include ATS 34 and 154-CM, the ATS 34 being a cleaner Japanese copy of 154-CM. Both of these steels have a definite advantage in hardness and toughness over 440C. ATS 34 has a well deserved reputation for superb edge holding, good resistance to corrosion, and toughness. It is the preferred steel for high-end production and custom knives. ATS 34 is vacuum melted, a desirable quality consideration, while 154-CM is not.

The high carbon series 1095, 1084, 1070, 1060, and 1050 represent tool steels that are often used in cutlery applications, although 1095 is very popular for making knife blades. These series of tool steels exhibit the following characteristics, ranging from 1095 to 1050 in descending order: more carbon to less carbon; best edge holding to better edge holding to good edge holding; and tough to tougher to toughest.

Because of their toughness, 1060 and 1050 are often found in swords. 1095 is a common knife tool steel that is not too costly yet performs in a superior manner. It holds an edge well and is functionally tough. Similar to other tool steels, it is subject to rust. Most basic USMC type field knives produced by Ontario are made from the extremely durable 1095.

A-2 is an air hardened tool steel frequently used in the construction of combat type knives. Toughness is superb, complemented by good edge holding ability.

D-2 is a high grade tool steel gaining an ever growing following among higher end production and custom knife makers. Although not a true stainless steel, the "semi-stainless" D-2 is more resistant to rust and corrosion than other tool steels. It possesses superb wearing properties and excellent edge retention, but is not quite as tough as other more commonly used tool steels.

DAMASCUS steel is such a widely made product that it is impossible to make too many general statements about it, other than it seems to catch collectors better than any other type. Each smith does his in a slightly different way, ranging from the fellow who toughs it out, starting with three layers, to the guy who welds a 300 layer sandwich of shim stock into a billet with one hit in a 40 ton press.

N 690 Steel. This kind of steel, selected for its exceptional features, comes from Austria and is manufactured by a small steel plant; highly specialized in high quality special steels. N 690 is a martensistic special steel with 17% chrome and it differentiates from AISI 440C steel thanks to a higher level of molybden (double). Not only is molybden a strong generator of carbides (improving cutting features) but it also increases resistance to corrosion. Also vanadium and cobalt alloy add ons increase the performances of this steel (vanadium is also a carbides generator with a resulting increase in resistance to wear and therefore capacity of keeping edge sharpness for longer; cobalt prevents granulosity at high temperatures and improves drawing capacity and high temperatures resistance).

This steel features high resistance to corrosion and wear, keeps a sharpened edge for longer, can be easily polished and features also high levels in hardness, over 60 HRC (more than traditional steel AISI 440 C) that can be reached through the thermic treatment of tempering. These are the reasons why its main use is oriented towards blades and professional knife production. Thanks to the fantastic edge keeping quality and it's oxidation resistance this steel is used in industrial kniving (food and fishing industries) and for butchering jobs. In the medical area, it's mainly used for surgical instrument production.

 {shareit}