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!
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sweet videos.
