Steeltoez83 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 10:16 pm
At 4 inch blades I start looking at fixed blades being more practical than folders.
I get this and mostly agree
but, I've come to really appreciate larger folders for on-the-go food prep. This despite me normally preferring small folding knives.
For backpacking, hiking - just about any backcountry adventure, I've come to prefer folding knives over fixed blades for the most common tasks. And especially food prep. They're light, compact, self contained (no sheath required) and easy to switch between backpack carry and pocket carry.
My ideal large folders are linerless, thin in pocket, lightweight and packs as much blade/edge into the handle as possible.
Salt is a plus and CE options are appreciated, but not something I need every knife to have. Standing up to hard use is not a concern.
There's still a place for fixed blades, large and small, and I was painfully reminded this last weekend. Preparing for a day of bird hunting I removed a 5" heavy bush craft style knife from my backpack to save weight. No big deal, I only use my folding knife anyways.
Well, on that particular day this assumption would backfire. Without getting too deep into the weeds, the short story is that I had to take down a couple of birch trees out in the field. With the Stretch 1 being the only sharp object I had on me, that's what I had to use. It was far from ideal. I think it might have developed slightly more vertical play than it had previously, but thankfully it's so little that I can't be completely sure if it really is more - or if the play that was already there is exaggerated by my fear of having applied some kind of wear or damage to it. It saved the day and is still perfectly usable - and that's what counts.
Lesson learned. From now on there will, at minimum, always be a lightweight Mora in my hunting backpack
that XL Caribbean makes an appearance, or a Salt SE Manix XL.
