We Found the Best Camping Knives! | Knife Banter S2 (Ep 38)

Today on Knife Banter we went outside to talk some camp knives but apparently it's national dirt bike day in our camp site... How's it going guys and welcome to knife banter welcome back to the studio. As you could see from our intro there trying to shoot the knife banter portion of this out in the wild didn't pan out so well for us so we came back to the studio where we have a little more control over the sound design. Jamie you're a little more happy with that right yeah it's much easier. A little bit easier there really were guys there was like just dirt bike after dirt bike after dirt bike so here we are now you guys can hear us. Um and we're gonna kick off with the first knife that we went out and tested and got dirty. Jamie what do you got? Okay so first knife on the table is the Mora gerberg and so we kind of broke this down at a few different categories so this first category is kind of survival-ish knives i guess you could say and this one is more of a survival light type knife is how i'm going to look at it so the maura gereberg is a very strong robust knife it has a nine inch blade or so excuse me nine inch overall 4.25 inch blade is a carbon steel it doesn't say what carbon steel but imagine it's some sort of 1095-ish type steel with a drop point scandi grind and a polymer handle and one thing i have to say about this particular knife is when you look at it you're like ah it doesn't it doesn't look as tough as it actually is when you get this thing in your hand it is a substantial piece of steel so i think like look to uh i guess feel ratio is is interesting on this one another thing to point out about this is you have a scandi grind here so your cutting power is going to be uh pretty high on this one it's going to rip through wood and that type of thing so if you're out doing bushcraft type tasks this is going to be a good one. It's not going to be as much of a chopper as let's say the next one on the table which is the ESEE 6 which is what you're going to talk about but i think for like a survival light knife or a knife that you can just throw in your pack and have it be available to you and not super heavy this is a fantastic option. That's what i was going to say is with the things that we did for kind of that survival category didn't accelerate at chopping but we didn't anticipate it yeah it's not going to chop great but i mean it got the job done and that's the thing is when we talk about camp knives when i talk about camp knives what i'm always talking about is knives that i will take to like work on a different craft or brush up on my fire making skills or whatever the reality of it is is like when you go camping you could probably just use the knife that's in your pocket and you're fine you can open up your mountain house you can open a bag of doritos and a bag of marshmallows and you're camping right? Um but i like to go out and and play around with skills and so that's kind of the varied things that we have on the table. So for uh this the the kind of the survival skill working on what you're camping knife i picked was the ESEE 6. This thing is a beast obviously so 11.75 inches overall it's got a 6.5 inch blade so over half of the knife is blade 1095 steel drop point blade flat ground and a 3d milled micarta handle. Now the the handle is actually really cool on this so it is a polished micarta i usually don't like polish micarta because the whole point of micarta is to get a grip on the knife. But because it has this milling in there right it actually makes for a really really comfortable and really really good grip to the knife. Right great knife this thing excelled at all the tasks we threw at it i mean it even feather-sticked really well with that flat grind. Yeah i mean it's it comes pretty decently sharp right out of the box so you're not gonna have any problems there um a little bit jealous on the the chopping prowess of it versus the mora you got definitely got the better in the deal there but for sure yeah and you know here's the thing is the ESEE 6 is great this is a great camp knife because again you could take this knife out and you can do bushcraft you can do firecraft you can whittle you can carve you can whatever and you know whittle it's obviously a very big knife. - i'll show you it's easy watch matt pop it up like nothing- but you really can like this thing will just take it'll just go to work. So I don't know ESEE 6 is a cool knife uh it goes for about 140 bucks on the website and uh yeah that was that was the the one i had for that that qualification. So the next one that we had up was for kind of the fire for cooking actually yeah we did some fire crafting but so uh cooking now again when i go camping for me it's usually like a mountain house right or i'll pre-prepare something but i know a lot of you guys out there like to cook when you go camping you like to you know bring along some food and some meat and cook grill something up so Jamie what did you choose for cooking? Sure so kind of that food prep category this is kind of a knife that is just going to live in your pocket and might excel more than other EDC knives at food prep. Obviously it's not going to be as good as like a kitchen knife but this is the Spyderco Endura 4. This has a 8.75 inch overall length a 3.75 inch blade. It's VG10 drop point with a full flat grind we'll get into that in a minute and then an FRN handle of course. So I think the reason why this could excel at food prep like a food prep type EDC I think for two reasons one is the overall length so it's a fairly long knife so if you have a bigger piece of food you're gonna be able to get through that bigger piece of food easier we were cutting out tomatoes and peppers and stuff and like i had no problem getting through either of those. The other thing is the full flat grind so it's going to glide through those food items nicely versus something like if you have more of a saber ground type blade or kind of other grinds i guess are not going to excel as much as just that full flat grind when you're getting through things like food. So I think those are the two main reasons why the Endura 4 made it on as my pick for the food prep knife but yeah great great pocket knife EDC as well. Yeah and you and Kurt just did a whole Knife Banter on like food prep pocket knives right yeah if you want to see a bunch of other maybe edc knives that excel at the food aspect of EDC yeah check that knife banter out. Yeah and guys uh I have over the last year and Jamie's been doing this a little bit as well i've been uh i've had a bunch of kitchen knives that i've been testing out playing around in the kitchen trying to learn more about them and so we've got some cool kitchen knife stuff coming your way soon! On the note of more maybe more of a kitchen-esque knife i went with the white river camp cleaver. So for a few reasons one uh it has a micarta handle two it's a cleaver three it comes with an awesome uh an awesome leather sheath and fourth it's made in the USA so it kind of just checked all the boxes for me for something that i wanted to try out since we could go out and test some of the stuff out. So overall length on this thing is just over 10 inches the blade is 5.6 inches so again you're getting more blade than handle on this knife s35vn blade so a nice stainless blade obviously it's a cleaver style it's got a flat grind and then again that that burlap micarta handle. Um I really wanted to bring the tops eight inch Dicer that was what i wanted to bring but we tops has had some production snags with that and so we're not sure when we're going to see those again so i wanted to show you guys something that you could actually would be practical so the top dicer would be a great camp kitchen knife but this cleaver also proved to be a very uh adept camp kitchen knife so obviously a little bit thicker of a kitchen knife so handling things like tomatoes and stuff it still did great though i mean it sliced right through them the factory edge on this thing was razor sharp so even though it's a little thicker it didn't smash down the tomatoes obviously it made easy work of the meat however Jamie was telling me he's like oh we should try to cut the bell pepper this certain way but like i guess people cut the top of the bell pepper out and then like pull the stem out or something. How's it supposed to work? If you don't know how to cut a bell pepper i feel like that's like the standard approach is where you like cut the top off but yeah you should do it the way i did it yeah you do it because that's the way that i normally do it but Jamie's like hey let's try this i'm like okay but the cool thing about the test is one thing we found is is if you have food prep that requires like piercing or anything this is not the knife and that's the reason why i wanted to do it i wanted to like do a little bit of a tip test on it exactly so definitely not nice for that um but one thing that i did really like is that you have this belly across the blade here and so it does make for a nice sweeping cut motion that you can make so bell peppers even the meat everything that i cut with this to the tomatoes i was able to use that. The one thing that i would like on this because it is more of a kitchen knife than you know let's say the one that Jamie chose is i kept reaching for like a pinch grip yeah i wanted a pinch grip because i've been playing with real kitchen knives so much i'm getting more particular about my my kitchen knives so i would have liked a pinch grip on this but with it being a cleaver i can completely understand on on a proper cleaver you don't need a pinch grip on the proper little square up front there yeah it is a little square up front but did really great and i even got to chop cleave some some steak after the first two Jamie's like maybe let's just cut it... So but it was a lot of fun and this thing goes for $250 on the website so a really great piece from white river knives. Next up we mess around with some firecraft and so Jamie what uh what did you choose for that right? So this next category obviously kind of that fire making bushcrafty type category so maybe a little bit smaller knives. This is the bark river puukko and this comes in at 8.75 inches you got a 4.375 inch blade it is cpm3v so that's pretty dope. With a convex grind and again we'll get to that in a minute and then you get that polished micarta handle and this is more polished than the ESEE is i more of like a satin type finish where this is just it's almost glossy right which is an interesting choice bark river does that on basically all of their knives. This knife for feather sticking was nuts yeah bark rivers in general just come razor sharp out of the box and all of them come with the convex grind and i feel like with a convex grind when you're feather sticking you have a lot of fine control because you have that curved edge that you're able to just kind of rock and get in the right spot versus like a scandi is very aggressive when it comes to feather sticking so you're either biting really hard or not biting at all and there's not a lot of wiggle room in between there but with a convex grind knife you have that ability to take that edge and just kind of roll it into place and get it perfect to get that nice curl and that's what i found with this is it's super easy to feather stick especially with the wood that we had but oh yeah the wood let's let's be clear the wood that we had was the most perfect wood that you'll ever have for making fire ever. I think that was the the main draw of this knife for me was how well the convex grind feather stick and got through the wood material with just the kind of that fine control so that's the bark river puukko. If you're looking for something in that bushcraft firemaking realm this is a great option the back's nice and sharp good for striking so as far as like actually striking a fire steel it does come with a sharpened spine I think most bark rivers do and again you have this nice leather sheath that complements the knife nicely. Cool sound so for my firecraft knife i chose the Gerber Principle so this was a knife that uh we learned about from Gerber that was this year early this year yeah i think so yeah early this year um and it's one that i've wanted to get out and get dirty i've been interested in testing it and uh honestly i really liked it um it's a good little knife. I mean it comes in it's like 60 bucks so it's it's not a very expensive knife overall length is 7.5 inches the blade is three inch just over three inches it's a 420 hc drop point blade it's got a true scandy on it and then it's got this nice rubber rubber over mold handle now i usually don't like rubber handles they did a really good job with this though it feels nice it doesn't sometimes you get a rubber handle and it's it's hard or almost plasticky this it feels like rubber like it feels really comfortable and nice in hand. Now I said it was a true scandi you might be sitting at home looking at this and and tell and asking yourself no it looks like it's got a secondary bevel to it it doesn't it really is a true scandi grind um it's just the way that they sharpen it from factory is it looks like it it has that i think they're just knocking the burr off essentially exactly what they're doing exactly so um because that was something that i said the first time i saw it too i was like is that a true scandi? But it really is this was an awesome little knife for firecraft um feather stick like a dream it's got a nice sharp edge on the back and uh the sheath that it comes with is actually really interesting i don't have all the bits and bobs to it here with me but um first off the sheet locks which is really nice and the cool thing about it is is that it it's it's a really light release so it's not like you have to like jam your thumb over to release it but it's a really nice light release and then the back comes with this super modular system so you can wear it on a belt you can wear it on molly you can strap it to a backpack whatever you want to do with it it comes with a bunch of clips and stuff that you can use as well. So anyways this is a nice little knife the gerber principle. This is a great just camp tour knife in general obviously wouldn't be great for like a ton of batoning or something like that that's when you'd go back to your ESEE 6 But yeah I really enjoyed it um and then we would have went camping if we didn't bring an axe we had fun with the axes. We had a lot of fun with the axes i'm gonna let you go first okay and then i'll talk on my experience with my axe. Okay um i mean i think i got the better end of the deal on this but yeah we'll talk about it we'll talk about it. So this is the uh if i get in a shot here this is the Hults Bruk Salen. It's a 20-inch total axe it's you know got a pretty traditional it's a swedish steel but it's just it's going to be a high carbon type steel right and then with a hickory handle. I think Hults Bruk just makes fantastic axes just in general so i think it's no surprise that this excelled at being a you know 20-inch hatchet-type axe right so we had a little incident with a tree um with with your axe uh and this one i don't think there was any argument on what axe performed a little bit better in in that specific task. -All right we're gonna see if the uh Hults Bruk fares any better.- These come with a great edge right out of the box your cutting edge is is not super steep so it does bite fantastically into wood so i think that was the one of the main takeaways from this particular axe and most Hults Bruks in general is just like they come with a great edge out of the factory and they're just great axes. -All right Hults Bruk hatchet for the win!- That's the Hults Bruk Salen hatchet. I really enjoyed it yeah and it does come with you know kind of your i guess you would call this a sheath? Yeah it's kind of a traditional leather yeah it's just a cover for the edge your edge cover for uh yeah for your hatchet there so. The other cool thing about Hults Bruk is is they're in the business of making axes right right like you buy a Hults Bruk and they've got like carpenter axes they've got felling axes they've got splitting axe i mean they got them all right and so we chose kind of a nice camp sized axe and they've been doing it for forever for two so exactly yeah so my experience... So uh i chose the uh CRKT Freyr uh you know it's it's kind of a honestly it's it probably built as more maybe like a tactical type axe especially with this big beard here right i mean traditionally that was used for like grabbing shields and pulling shields out of the road during battle or something like that but 16 inches overall it's got a 1055 uh steel head i mean with with axes and stuff like that you just get kind of a solid working steel yeah and then it comes with a nice it's actually a really nice hickory handle. So um and then uh sheath wise doesn't come with anything it has a rubber edge out of the box so you can keep that to keep your keep it over your edge if you want to i would probably just make a sheath for this i like making sheaths so um but yeah uh my experience with this was not great. I will say that this did not come sharp at all out of the box. Um and that is 100% we just grabbed out of the box and left and went up the mountain. -Yeah not the sharpest axe in the book here look when that all fails guys you just Captain America it! -Yeah i think that's enough for the old Freyr for me uh i think uh yeah i'm good.- Always check your tools before you go out to make sure they're gonna do the job you want them to do so i can't fault crkt 100% on that i should have checked it i could have put an edge on it. Uh with the edge it would have performed a lot better uh it does have more of a steep angle to it as Jamie was kind of talking about before so the edge does have more of a steep steep angle so it would be less likely to take out nice big chunks like the Hults Bruk would. It's kind of a cool looking axe i think it'd be fun to like throw around. We actually didn't get a chance to throw it we were going to but then with the motorbikes and all that other stuff we ended up just packing up and leaving. Yeah so not a great experience but i will take i will take some of the blame for that i will take some i didn't check my tools before i went out. There's a subset of people that are into regrinding axes and like that could be really good with a regrind on it especially if you needed to do like if you look at a carpenter's axe it's a similar profile... The beard obviously is much bigger than a carpenter's ax but you can really get in and choke up and do some detail work with it and i think it would accelerate that just with a different edge on it. And that goes uh for about 67 68 bucks on the website so cool little axe uh maybe you regrind it maybe you don't maybe you make a sheath for it maybe you don't but for sure put an edge on it before you take it out. -Nothing hanging out and no loose clothing- So yeah a lot of good ones on the table uh Jamie did you did you have a favorite that you used or was there one that you wanted to use for mine or kind of what's your what's your takeaway with some of these on the table? Honestly i think my most surprising experience was just using the Bark River to feather stick. I don't have a lot of experience with convex grinds it's not a very common factory grind right so having a convex grind and being able to experience how it works and kind of his differences between other grinds was was really eye-opening for me and that I was super surprised. I feel like you don't hear about convex and grinds a lot when you are talking about like bushcraft and stuff like that it's always scandi scandi scandi. It's also just a harder grind to do in mass on in the factory right? For sure for sure i would say out of the ones on the table i'd say the most surprising was actually the principal the gerber principal actually surprised me the most it was really comfortable really sharp out of the box. It got everything done i wanted to do and um to be honest it it feels like it would just be a handy little utility blade to have so i think i think the gerber principle would be my would be my choice on the table um obviously i want to go to the ESEE 6 just because it's such a beast yeah but but i i think the gerber was the most surprising was the one that i was like oh wow like like this isn't a knife that i was considering purchasing but i consider purchasing that knife yeah. So kind of kind of a cool deal um so anyways guys uh there are some camp knives for you we hope that you guys enjoyed uh we're we're glad we were able to come back and get some good sound for you so that always works out great but let us know if you guys have a favorite on the table or what your favorite camping knife is down below in the comments and catch you on the next one! Welcome to the end screen make sure to hit subscribe if you want more awesome knife content. Check out bladehq.com for all your knife needs and uh Jamie's put together a sweet playlist over here so definitely click that check out some sweet videos.

Channel: Blade HQ

Views: 253,359

Rating: 4.8547068 out of 5

Keywords: Blade HQ, BladeHQ, Knife Show, Sharp, Steel, Knives, Knife, Pocket Knife, Knife Life, Cut Anything, EDC, Everyday Carry, Camping Knives, Camping, ESEE, Spyderco, White River, Bark River, Mora, CRKT, Hults Bruk, Gerber, Garberg, ESEE-6, Camp Cleaver, Principle, Puukko, Feather Stick, Fire Making, Chopping, Axe, Food Prep

Id: fj8yB9UjxCs

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020