survival/bushcraft knife under $100

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mainecoon

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Looking at the Gerber LMF II for a fun knife to fill this category. Any others to consider?
 
Mora. It's not a pry bar, just a sharp easy to sharpen knife with good steel whether it is carbon or stainless. You can find them for $15. Buy three or four of them.

If you want a pry bar, buy a little pry bar as well, for peanuts. There are also small titanium ones available too if you want you want to spend more.
 
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I don't baton, I use an axe for that but for most other things I find the Condor Bushlore to be a great outdoor knife. and as Water-Man says the sheath is top notch...... less than $50 at Amazon
 
I bought my buddy a Condor Mayflower for Christmas. I played with it a little before I gave it to him, and I liked it. He has been similarly happy with it. I happen to have a nice custom knife that is similar in both form and size to the Condor that I don't think I will buy one for myself, but I would.

That being said, I am about as big a fan of Mora's as you will find. Cheap, well-made, and extraordinarily useful. I always have a Mora around.

As a side note, I also have the KaBar BKT 16 that I bought specifically because HSO recommended it to me a couple of years ago. Great knife, and it seems to me that it is a good, solid compromise across a lot of categories: Fieldcraft, combat, general purpose, and with the drop point it could easily be pressed into use for hunting. Specifically for bushcraft, I would likely choose a Mora, and specifically for hunting I do choose my custom Harvey King knife (along with a back up Buck), but that BKT 16 can do all of that pretty close to as well.
 
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Kind of a straight-forward design and fairly simple knife, the Condor Woodlaw.
The Condor Bushlore, IMO, is more appropiate for the task mentioned by the OP. With the micarta handle, they're both about the same price but the Bushlore has a larger blade and is heavier. More for the money.
 
The handles don't cover the entire tang on the Woodlaw, so it's almost like a glass breaker in the rear, I don't know when you'd need that camping or hiking, but it is just an annoyance when you're scoring or drilling or hitting the back of the knife to poke through something. Most of the time when people buy a Woodlaw blank, they extend whatever handle they put on it all the way to the back.
 
Was looking for a survival/bushcraft knife a few years ago and went with the Ontario RAT-5. A well built and solid knife that fits my hand perfectly and wasn't all that expensive at the time. I liked that they also offered it with a partially serrated blade.

 
My Esee Laser Strike has been very good for woods/desert tasks. Also have an Esee 3HM that I used last fall for getting a mule deer into the freezer (I do my own butchering) Excellent steel and tempering jobs on these blades. Very easy to touch up the edge too. The 3 will be in my pack this elk season.
 
Do a search for knife king model 3 I think Amazon had them for $65 it tempted me.
 
For a serious blade that will handle harsh use, and stay under $100 you cant go wrong with Condor knives.

I carry a hudson bay and a kephart (for fine work) in my pack and dont need a hawk.
You can get the pair, and still be under $100.
I've chopped mesquite, rolled linoleum, leather, bone, radial tires, sheet metal, rope, just about anything.
Comes back to hair popping sharpness easily.

Condor also has excellent leather sheaths.

For the money, Condor knives are some of the best available.
 
Has anyone used a Knife King ?

They're made in Pakistan. The people who have had good things to say about them are ornamental knife collectors. I haven't seen any reviews of people using them for processing wood, or general camp tasks so I'm curious about them...
 
The kbar Becker series offer some interesting things in their lineup

A lot of people like moras too
 
For bush craft it comes down to how the blade is ground. Any decent carbon steel will do, what affects it a lot more is how far up the blade is tapered. There's a lot of difference between one that is full stock and then ground close to the edge vs full flat grind. The first may be "stronger" but has a lot of wedge to it and won't slice thru thicker items well, the second will do a better job slicing in general but may be less easy to chop or baton -if you are inclined to abuse the only knife you may have in a very difficult situation.

Let's not forget that Canada requires an axe in bush planes for a reason, and that we imported a lot of hatchets and axes as trade goods from Europe. That is because we already understood that in a temperate climate with hard winters those were the superior tools.

It's important to define YOUR bushcraft needs at YOUR latitude and that it reflects the environment there. It's also important to know that most of the tasks of living in primitive conditions require a knife prepare food twice or three times a day, building an encampment, properly, is something better handled by larger tools and isn't an ongoing 24/7/365 chore. Eating is. Once you get shelter up it's done. You only maintain it after that. Once you get a meal done then just wait 5 hours, our human condition requires you to repeat it. Food prep is far more important to knife selection than camp construction. That is highly ignored in the "bushcraft" online hype.
 
depends entirely on what tasks you think need doing. most tasks can be accomplished with a $12 Mora.

if you want to baton logs you need a bigger chunk of steel with a thicker blade. Plenty of sub $100 blades out there that will do the job. Personally, I think batoning firewood of any size is mostly a waste of time. Let the fire do the work on thicker chunks. For cutting firewood a saw is a lot safer and more calorie efficient for the average user in the field. Watch a few of the so called bush experts using their axes and hatchets on Youtube sometime. I am amazed more of them have not chopped off a leg the way they swing the blade in the direction of their bodies on occasion. Not the best thing to happen in the field where you might be hours from help.

So my advice - get a mora and a saw over a big knife.

You can use the mora to make tinder and kindling and the saw for bigger chunks.
 
Ka-Bar Becker BK2 (large). ESEE 3 or 4 (life time waranty). RAT 3, Blade HQ under 100 some models. Schrade is making some affordable budget stuff if you want to go that way.
 
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