Which is better for wilderness survival: a knife or a hatchet?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “hatchet knife“
About Vivian
Written by: Vivian
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Which is better for wilderness survival: a knife or a hatchet?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “hatchet knife“
About Vivian
For wilderness tasks with only one bladed option I would go with the one that most resembles an axe. But I completely agree with Keith and his suggestion for a tomahawk.
The smallest axe I have that my go to would be is the GB hunters axe.
Weighing in at around a kilo with a 19″ handle it cuts deep enough that makes short work of larger limbs, easily swipes through smaller limbs it’s not too heavy to carry on the belt if thats how you like it and can still be used for other tasks like feathering or even some food prep, though food prep isn’t it’s best performance. The smooth poll is designed for skinning and makes it a bit of a pain to use for hammering in pegs but stakes aren’t a problem.
Gransfors have taken a few liberties in their pricing the last few years if you ask me, ever since the son took over the company but they still make a damn fine axe and if you can pick one up second hand, all the better.
If I was going to choose a knife instead, it would be a big knife, well bigger than most might.
My smallest go to thats is good for travelling would be the pen knife khukuri.
Made by himalayan imports, mine is over 15 years old so I don’t even know what they are like these days but this is a damn capable knife. They hard’y ever come sharp so I would plan for a heavy amount of attention on sharpening if you get one. It will take a very sharp edge but needs touched up more often because it’s high carbon, it’s not as tough as the hunters axe edge wise. Most of their khukuris are tough as hell. Their smaller tools aren’t the best in my opinion, my small knife was realy soft and didn’t hold any kind of edge.
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That’s a moot question. Anyone who knows anything about being outdoors knows you ALWAYS carry a knife. A hatchet is VERY handy, but not always necessary.
Basic EDC: pocket knife & lighter. Both tools are great for everyday use, but in an emergency (especially long term survival) they are invaluable.
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This will come down to personal preference. Both tools have a blade and can do the job of the other if nessisary, but are obviously optimized for different tasks.
Over all, however, I would say a big knife is the more useful of the two. On my backpacking adventures I carried a 12 inch clip point Bowie. I could do everything from felling trees, to processing wood to food prep with just one tool. Yeah the size was inconvenient for some jobs, but that was more than made up for by the fact that I only carried one tool instad of many.
At one point I actually weighed it out, taking the one big knife vs. all the tools I would need to carry to replace the functionality in better packages. The big knife beat out the half dozen other tools by almost a pound. And the weight is not the only benefit, there is also the reduction in pack clutter. No more trying to remember where I put the rope saw, or the small food prep knife, or the mini-hatchet for wood splitting, it’s all just the one tool on the side of the pack.
Now of course a good hatchet can do the same jobs with a little forthought. Make sure it has a nicely pointed beard and it can prep fish, the back can be used as a hammer, and it excels at wood processing and shelter construction. But I find that, while a knife is not as good at many things, it is far more well rounded. A big knife may not chop as well as a hatchet, but it still does chop pretty well. But a hatchet, while capable of food prep, really, really sucks at it. It is far easier to chop small edible roots with a big knife than a hatchet. Whittling? Also easier with a big knife. Processing plants to fiber? Big knife wins there too.
When you start considering all the jobs that need to be done, the big knife just wins out on average. So while I will not say choosing a hatchet over a knife is wrong, I will say that you are probably making your life more difficult than it needs to be.
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Both knives and hatchets are versatile tools for wilderness survival. Both tools have valid techniques for accomplishing the same types of tasks, though efficiency sometimes differs. That being said, I’d tend to give the nod to knives over hatchets if it comes to picking one over the other. The portability and ease of wearing most knives makes them easier to carry on average and thus more likely to be present and accessible than an axe if something bad happens to you in the wilderness and you actually need to use the tool to survive your unfortunate predicament.
That’s not to say there aren’t any hatchets with fantastic carrying options. Really high end hatchets and tomahawks sold by companies like RMJ and Winkler have perfect sheathes which mount wherever the users wants and allow the axe to deploy extremely quickly, but those axes are also eye-wateringly expensive and sheath systems for most hatchets which are accessible to the average consumer are really very poor compared to knives of a similar price point. Even when a hatchet has a decent sheath system, it’ll still tend to be bulkier and more awkward to wear than most knives.
To help drive the point home, the RMJ Jenny Wren hatchet and ESEE-4 knife in the picture above both have phenomenally good sheaths. The ESEE-4 lives full time on my belt when I’m out and about. The Jenny Wren hangs out inside my backpack unless I want to use it, at which point I then strap the hatchet and its sheath to my belt. The reason for this is that the hatchet is simply more of a burden to wear than the knife, so unless I think I might use the hatchet soon, I don’t wear it.
Outside of carrying options for hatchets being typically lackluster, knives…
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If I could only have one, it would be a hatchet, especially if I could have a good way to keep it sharp. A knife is not very good for cutting firewood or small trees, but a hatchet can be used for skinning, etc. if you can keep it sharp. As a matter of fact, if I was kitting up for a long stay in the wild woods, I would probably want two good hatchets instead of a knife and a hatchet.
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Hatchet, you can cut wood with a hatchet, but not with a knife. Plus hatchets can do everything a knife can do. But a tomahawk would be a better option, if the handle breaks on a tomahawk, it’s easy to replace.
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A hatchet, it is more versatile. Personally though I would choose the tomahawk with a round or oval eye. It is even more versatile that a modern hatchet. I carry three knives & a tomahawk.
Keith.
The square poll tomahawk I carry now.
The round poll tomahawk I used to carry.
The heads are easy to remove to use as a scraper for hides or to make a replacement handle, & the helve/handle is easier to make & fit because it is tapered & fits in from the top like a pick axe handle, & does not require a wedge to secure the head as on a modern hatchet. In the 18th century the tomahawk was a trade axe.
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To begin with I am not sure what “wilderness survival” really means. It could mean remaining alive long enough to be found after being accidentally stranded, or it could mean doing the whole into the “wilderness living” long term thing. I am also unsure what you have in mind when you ask about a hatchet or a knife. Some hatchets are small and light enough to work for everything a knife would do, some knives are big and heavy enough to double as axes.
I would tend to think of survival as staying alive in an emergency long enough to be founds and rescued. In that case the best thing is something you would actually have with you. A small knife is something justifiable as an every day carry item. So in my estimation a reasonably sized folding knife that fits easily in your pocket would be better than a hatchet, which would require a belt sheath, be heavy and awkward, and which would definitely raise a few eyebrows as an every day carry item.
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Campers and trekkers are the ultimate travel fanatics, who often organize a group to go off for camping or trekking almost every year after a short interval of 4-5 months. You may find plenty of travellers, who don’t care about flight availability, hotel-rooms, residential accommodations, etc. while planning a trip. Most of those trips are organized in remote hilly areas, or rocky mountains where usually people don’t visit.
All they accompany with them is a rucksack, tent, dry fruits and a backpacking hatchet! It’s always best to carry a backpacking hatchet on a trekking trip because,
A hatchet is a perfect tool for fixing a tent.
Perfect material for splitting, tree branches, dried leaves and stem to light bon-fire.
Easy to build tinders and kindle for evading too cold near the tents etc.
Back in ancient times, the hatchet was used as a perfect hunting tool for fighting predatory animals. It was a primitive tool in the Paleolithic age for self-defence. Today, it might not be used for killing animals, but it’s a perfect weapon for self-defence particularly when you plan to build a camp in dense woods.
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I think a sturdy fixed blade knife has more uses than a hatchet. If I had to pick only one, it would be a fixed blade knife.
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For wilderness tasks with only one bladed option I would go with the one that most resembles an axe. But I completely agree with Keith and his suggestion for a tomahawk.
Think again and chose you’re survival knives wisely. Camping is a lifestyle for me, and with that came my passion of collecting survival tools. It wasn’t until I visited New Zealand that I discovered how important a sharp tool is in the outdoors. I’ve had my fair share of woes with blunt knives, and to be honest, if those woes were a book, it’d be thicker than Bhagwan’s Biography. It takes a lot of time to find the perfect knife, but when I found this this knife it only took a second ( it’s being given away for free ). It’s easy to access and it doesn’t take too much space. It’s so light that I sometimes forget I’m wearing it. The way I can carve wood and cut rope with this thing makes me feel at ease. No difficulties at all. This stuff is fantastic.
The smallest axe I have that my go to would be is the GB hunters axe.
Weighing in at around a kilo with a 19″ handle it cuts deep enough that makes short work of larger limbs, easily swipes through smaller limbs it’s not too heavy to carry on the belt if thats how you like it and can still be used for other tasks like feathering or even some food prep, though food prep isn’t it’s best performance. The smooth poll is designed for skinning and makes it a bit of a pain to use for hammering in pegs but stakes aren’t a problem.
Gransfors have taken a few liberties in their pricing the last few years if you ask me, ever since the son took over the company but they still make a damn fine axe and if you can pick one up second hand, all the better.
If I was going to choose a knife instead, it would be a big knife, well bigger than most might.
My smallest go to thats is good for travelling would be the pen knife khukuri.
Made by himalayan imports, mine is over 15 years old so I don’t even know what they are like these days but this is a damn capable knife. They hard’y ever come sharp so I would plan for a heavy amount of attention on sharpening if you get one. It will take a very sharp edge but needs touched up more often because it’s high carbon, it’s not as tough as the hunters axe edge wise. Most of their khukuris are tough as hell. Their smaller tools aren’t the best in my opinion, my small knife was realy soft and didn’t hold any kind of edge.
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Both can be useful. Theoretically a sharp Hatchet might be better than a sharp knife but you are not supposed to go around chopping down trees or even disturbing falling dead limbs. In a Wilderness especially you should leave the place looking exactly as you found it. If you are actually concerned about surviving in the wilderness you are probably in the wrong area. This is not the 18th century. The next guy w…
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A knife is easier to use and can do all the same tasks. My opinion is that a well made bushcrafting knife is probably the single most essential tool for survival.
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I would choose a good knife. Bowie, camp or something similar as these could be used similar to a hatchet. If the blade is good enough, you could use a 2″ or better log to use as a hammer to drive the knife through a log for splintering or chopping.
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Which is better for wilderness survival: a knife or a hatchet?
Personally, I would do my best to carry both. If I had only one, I’d choose a knife.
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