How we Choose our Favourite Outdoor Knives

Whenever we hit the trail for a few days of camping or a hike, a reliable knife is one of the things we’re always sure to pack.

I mean, there are an infinite number of ways a knife could be useful when you’re in the wild, from chopping sticks for a fire, to prepping your outdoor meals and even making an emergency shelter if things unexpectedly go south!

But how do you choose the right knife for you and for your activities?

With so many models, sizes and brands out there, it’s easy to get lost and end up choosing a knife just because it looks cool and because it’s what you think you might need.

It’s a mistake we’ve definitely made ourselves so, with that in mind, let us walk you through everything you need to know to choose the right outdoor knife for you!

Different knives, different outdoor activities

Outdoor Knives are tools like any other, and what you need is the right tool for the job.

A a small pocket knife would be a poor choice for wild camping, just like a machete would be overkill for a day-hike in the woods.

So the first thing to figure out is what you’ll be doing with your knife. For simple meal prepping, such as cutting meat and vegetables, you wouldn’t need more than a simple 3” fixed blade with a decent handle. An example that we love is the Civivi Timberbark, since it’s light, reliable and very easy to use.

It also has one of the most common blade types you’ll find on the market, called a flat grind. You can easily recognise it because it is completely flat from the spine (the back) all the way to the sharp edge. Since flat grind knives are amazing slicers, they are a go-to option for hunters and the perfect choice for your camp kitchen!

While you’re at it, you could also use this type of knife if you want to try and do some bushcraft, perhaps try your hand at getting your own campfire started. Flat grinds, however, need some regular sharpening because they dull rather fast when used against harder materials such as wood. That’s why we prefer to use a different kind of knife called a scandi (short for Scandinavian), for all of our bushcraft activities.

Scandi knives are easy to spot because the blade starts flat from the spine and then tapers evenly along the length of the edge. In addition to being easy to sharpen and holding an edge for a long time, Scandis are also some of the best knives for cutting wood, carving and chopping. A classic scandi knife is the iconic Mora Garberg, one of our favourites knives to bring on hikes and camping trips.

While these kinds of knives are enough for most outdoor activities, let’s imagine you wanted to go bigger: Survival knives are a broad category of large, thick knives that are meant from anything from chopping wood and branches, hunting and even self-defence from predators. While we own a few, ours generally stay home because they weigh a ton, are pretty cumbersome to use and because we can get stuff done around camp with smaller knives. With that said, if you wanted to try one out we recommend checking out the Cold Steel SRK, a fantastic knife and a great model to learn how to handle large blades.

The difference between carbon and stainless steel

Essentially every knife available on the market is made of either carbon or stainless steel and, while they look identical on the surface, they are actually very different from one another.

Carbon steel, for one, is a lot more beginner-friendly because of how easy it is to sharpen. It also holds a better edge and can become sharper than stainless steel but is also extremely sensitive to rust and is more brittle and prone to chipping. Stainless steel is a little more difficult to sharpen and won’t hold an edge for quite as long as carbon steel. On the other hand though, it is extremely rust resistant and much harder to chip.

We tend to go more for stainless steel ourselves, just because we’re paranoid about our knives rusting and because it gives us the freedom to use them in a wider variety of environments, but both have their pros and cons, and each one is more adapted to different situations and environments. Stainless steel, for example, is the obvious choice when hiking and camping in wet and humid climates that would absolutely destroy a carbon steel knife. Long distance hikers and wild campers, however, might prefer carbon steel over stainless because of how easy it is to sharpen on the go.

Don’t forget to look at the handle

If your knife doesn’t sit well in your hand, then it’s not the right knife for you.

The handle is equally as important as the blade, and it needs to be comfortable, ergonomic and secure. You don’t want a knife that will slip from your fingers when its wet, or that has bumps and ridges that compromise your grip.

The material of the handle is also important to consider when making your choice:

• Wood is a classic choice for knife handles, but it’s also easier to break and can become slippery when wet.

• Rubber and plastic are more durable and offer a better grip, even though they don’t look as nice as a natural material.

For the of both worlds, the materials we recommend the most for your knife are micarta and G10. They are both composite materials that come in a variety of colours, have a comfortable, grippy texture and are extremely durable and resistant to wear-and-tear.

Something else to take into consideration when looking at the handle of your knife is what’s inside, and by that we mean the shape of the tang. The tang is, very simply, the unsharpened part of the blade that extends into the handle, and it comes in a variety of shapes and sizes:

• A full tang, in which it has the same thickness as the blade and extends to the bottom of the handle, makes the knife a lot more durable because it is composed by a single, continuous piece of steel. However, it also makes the knife heavier. This design is typical of high-end knives that offer maximum durability.

• A half-tang has the same thickness as the blade but is only half-way down the handle, offering a good compromise between durability and weight. It also makes the knife less balanced, however, since the blade is heavier than the handle. You will usually find half-tangs in bushcraft knives, since they are not meant for heavy tasks.

• A rat-tail is a tang that is thinner than the blade, and that sometimes doesn’t extend all the way through the handle. Rat-tail tangs are the lightest option, and you’ll find them more commonly on hunting and combat knives meant for stabbing and cutting soft targets. However, they are also the least durable and the most prone to breaking and bending. Overall, rat-tails are the only design we generally try to avoid, unless we’re talking about pretty small knives.

And that’s pretty much it!

Choosing a knife for your outdoor adventures is actually pretty easy and straightforward once you know what to look for. Sure, we could make your head spin by going into detail about different blade shapes and grinds, but we already have an overly long and boring article about that, so we’re going to stick to the basics for now.

We’re looking forward to seeing which knife you’ll choose for the 2025 outdoor season!

Other articles you will enjoy: