Folding Survival Knife

Survival skills are undeniably important. To be precise, the survival knife is one most crucial pieces of equipment in your gear. Using the best survival knife, you can work out plenty of things to keep up in the survival situations.

The Best Survival Knives

RoverTac Pocket Knife Multitool Folding Knife

The survival knife is ideal for hiking, camping, backpacking, fishing, and many other outdoor activities. It comes with seven different tools, which make it the best versatile folding survival knife.

Features

• Overall Length: 7.6 inches
• Blade Length: 3.3 inches
• Blade Material: Stainless steel
• Handle Material: Heavy-duty pliers
• Knife Weight: 0.49 Pounds
• Knife Dimensions (LxWxH): 4.34 x 1.3 x 1 inches

This is simply not only a knife but has several blades and tools, which is why it stands as the best folding survival knife. The other tools are a wire cutter, regular pliers, needle nose pliers, screwdriver bit adapter, bottle opener, and 9-in-1 screwdriver set. All these essential tools make the folding survival knife essential daily equipment.

The handle is made from high-quality stainless steel, and the steel has a black oxide finish. The coating provides extra durability, more protection and upgrades the knife performance. It offers a perfect grip as the knife comes with grooves on the handle, which further reduces the chances of the knife slipping from your hands.

Coming to the sharp blade, it is 3.3 inches long, and the style of the blade is flat asymmetrical. The cutting edge is half-serrated, and it bends a little to join the spine, which is present at the center of the blade. Hence, it becomes a reliable and sharp knife that you can use to chop down multiple hard things.

The folding survival knife is very easy to carry as it includes a durable and comfortable nylon pouch. You can effectively attach the nylon pouch to your belt loop. The survival knife comes with a lifetime warranty.

Smith & Wesson Extreme Ops SWA24S 7.1in S.S. Folding Knife

The Smith & Wesson Extreme Ops SWA24S 7.1in S.S. Folding Knife is the top-rated and the best tactical folding survival knife in the market. It is the most survival knife in the best-selling tactical knives section.

Features

• Overall Length: 7.1 inches
• Blade Length: 3.1 inches
• Blade Material: Carbon Stainless Steel
• Handle Material: Aluminum
• Sheath: None
• Knife Weight: 68 Grams
• Knife Dimensions (LxWxH): 4 x 0.3 x 1 inches

The blade is 3.1 inches long and is made using premium quality black oxide carbon steel. It is a powerful, durable, and the best tactical folding survival knife that can easily cut through tough substances. The metal clip is incorporated into the frame.

The knife comes with one index flipper, one pocket clip, and a raven smooth aluminum handle. It offers a steady and comfortable grip which mostly limits the chances of blisters on the hands. The knife handle contains textured substance and finger holds, which gives a safe and secure grip while holding it.

The portable knife can easily fit in hand. This handheld size survival knife is suitable for daily carry, and you can keep it in the pocket without any size issues. For easy and fast deploying of the knife, it features thumb studs. It includes ambidextrous thumb knobs, which makes it easier to grab the knife when you urgently need it.

The straight hybrid blade comes with a serrated edge. Even the serrated part of the knife has razor-sharp edges. The knife goes well with everyone’s budget, and it comes with a lifetime limited warranty.

Gerber Swagger Knife

It is a high-quality and affordable survival knife. The Gerber Swagger Knife offers a smooth and one-hand opening. With a partial sharp serrated blade and easy to sharpen point knife blade, it stands as one of the best folding survival knives.

Features

• Overall Length: 7.5 inches
• Blade Length: 3.25 inches
• Blade Material: Stainless Steel
• Handle Material: Fiberglass
• Knife Weight: 0.22 pounds
• Knife Dimensions (LxWxH): 0.7 x 5.5 x 9.5 inches

The Gerber Swagger Knife is one best tactical knife which is perfect for everyday use. It is easy to use and carry. The survival knife is 7.5 inches long, and when you close it, the overall length is 4.25 inches long.

It comes with an essential black titanium nitride coating which makes it resistant to corrosion. The whole length of the convenient handle is 4.25 inches, and it fits in hand perfectly. So far, the best G-10 composite handle ensures ultimate durability. Besides, the handle comes with a tactical design that offers an all-conditions grip.

The blade of the survival knife has the 7Cr17MoV stainless steel material, which is the next high-end vanadium version of the 440a stainless steel. The blade is reliable, durable, robust, resistant to rust, and flexible enough, making it one of the best choices as the best folding survival knife.

There is a plunge or button lock mechanism that is present in the blade. The lock provides you the extra stability and reliability. You can find the thumb studs on the side part of the blade. The thumb studs let you lift the blade up and down, and the spring assist function deals with the rest of the details.

Kershaw Blur Black

The Kershaw Blur Black Tactical Knife is undeniably the best EDC folding survival knife. The lightweight, compact and modest design knife is good enough for everyday use.

Features

• Overall Length: 7.9 inches
• Blade Length: 3.4 inches
• Blade Material: Sandvik 14C28N chromium Steel
• Handle Material: DLC coated
• Knife Weight: 0.26 Pounds
• Knife Dimensions (LxWxH): 6 x 1 x 1 inches

The Kershaw Blur Black uses high-density Sandvik 14C28N steel, which has a high nitrogen ratio in the formula to provide extra resistance to corrosion and hardness. The 14C28N chromium steel is one of the world’s best ideal materials for making stable, sharp edge, corrosion-resistant knives.

This best EDC folding survival knife comes with a premium DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon) coating, which provides additional toughness to the knife blade. The DLC finishing gives more hardness, extra wear resistance and decreases friction coefficient. Hence, making it hard for other particles to attach to the blade.

The Kershaw Blur Black uses an anodized aluminum scale with track-tec add-ons which gives excellent texture and perfect grip. The knife has a light, slim, and convenient insert lock system.

The knife comes with a low-end pocket clip on the frame, which is easy for you to pull the knife from the pouch. It has a modern speed-safe assisted opening function, which ensures quick, secure, and smooth deployment of the knife with one hand. To withstand the friction of the torsion bar, you need to apply physical pressure either on the thumb stud or on the flipper.

CRKT Seismic EDC Folding Pocket Knife

It is the best budget survival knife, which is perfect for trips and wilderness camps. The knife features a sharp black blade and a durable G10 grip handle.

Features

• Overall Length: 9.438 inches
• Blade Length: 3.97 inches
• Blade Material: 1.4116 PVD
• Handle Material: Durable G10
• Knife Weight: 6.3 Ounces
• Knife Dimensions (LxWxH): 1 x 1 x 1 inches

The CRKT Seismic EDC Folding Pocket Knife is a high-end, thick, durable, affordable, and easy-to-use knife with perfect weight distribution. The total length of the folding survival knife is 9.44 inches. When you close it, it measures 5.46 inches.

With the 3.76 mm thick blade, you can easily cut various hard things. The blade includes 1.4116 stainless steel, which makes the knife last longer. The sharp blade comes with a final PVD coating which adds extra toughness and stability to the survival knife. It includes a hollow grind.

You can find the G10 handle at the end of the blade, which is 5.45 inches long. The handle material offers perfect grip. In the cold steel part of the handle, there are dual lanyard-potential holes.

When you deploy it, the highly durable steel bolts connect with the liners and the steel blade, which gives good enough stability. The IKBS ball bearing pivot function assures fast, smooth, and safe opening. With the help of the knife’s flipper, you can swing the blade open using a single hand. Depending on your requirement, you can place the dual-way pocket clip on any side.

Buying Guide

What Exactly Is A Survival Knife?

You can use ordinary knives for various purposes like cutting fruits, vegetables, meat, and more. But they don’t always help you in survival situations. For example, when you need to cut the wood into small slabs for a campfire, then the ordinary knife couldn’t be a crucial help. So here comes the survival knives to the rescue.

A survival knife is a versatile tool that helps you to tackle several crises. When you go through the wilderness, you can rely on the survival knife for building your shelter and for hunting your food. Generally, a survival knife is created to be useful in extreme things like trimming tree branches, skinning animals, building traps, and cutting wood.

You might think that survival knives are too flashy and have a bold design. But there are a few survival knives that come with a simple design and look like an ordinary kitchen knife. Many survival knives come with fixed sharp blades whose length will be between 3.9 to 7.9 inches.

The survival knife is famous among outdoor sports enthusiasts, hunters, mountain trekkers, and backpackers. Some survival knives are compact and lightweight. Meanwhile, the others are heavy and come with a thick blade.

What Are The Uses Of A Survival Knife?

While the survival knife is famous as a hunting or fishing weapon, it is useful for numerous other tasks. Here is a look at other uses of the survival knife.

Weapon

Sometimes you need a weapon to obtain your food. You can use the survival knife to collect small plants and also fish. The sharp spear point of the knife is good enough to set a trap. One of the best self-defense tools is the survival knife.

Food

Starting from slicing raw vegetables to skinning animals, you can do everything using the survival knife. In the wilderness, it is the practical tool for processing various food ingredients.

Building Shelter

When you need a shelter to protect yourself, you can use the survival knife to build it. The knife can easily trim the branches and the trunk of a tree, which you can use as a protecting wall or fortify the shelter. Use the knife to slice the pine boughs to make a roof.

Making Tools

The survival knife itself is an essential survival tool, but it helps in producing other equipment. You will need the knife for making a drill and igniting the fire. If you have the necessary skills, you can use the knife to make bowls, spares, spoons, and other things using wood.

Hammer

The pommel, which is the end part of the knife handle, is good enough to be used as a hammering tool. It comes in handy when you come across stakes.

First Aid

Getting injuries is not something new in a survival situation. Even when you wander in the wilderness, there are high chances of you getting hurt. You can use the survival knife for cutting the bandages, opening the kit, and many more. In the campsite and military base, it is used as a versatile first aid tool.

Cutting Wood And Making Fire

A good-size survival knife with a full-tang and a flat edge can easily cut the tough wood. It also helps you in slicing the inner bark from the tree trunk to get the tinder part. The tinder part helps in starting a fire in every circumstance. You can also use the knife for blowing your ferrocerium rod to ignite the tinder part.

What Features To Consider Before Choosing The Best Survival Knife?

Blade Length

The maximum number of survival knives have blade length ranging from 6 to 12 inches. If it is less than 6 inches, then it might not be useful for every situation. When you choose a knife with more than a 12-inch blade, you will face transportation or carrying problems. This makes it more like a barrier instead of a survival tool.

Handle

Another feature that makes the survival knife stand out is the handle which varies from one to the other. You can find some survival knives with hard rubber handles while the others have polymer handles. You must avoid knives that have a hollow handle. Other models that you need to avoid are the handles with the compass. Most of the time, they will screw up your handle grip.

The Thickness Of The Blade

Commonly, people tend to choose survival knives with thin blades as not to add extra weight. But thin blades aren’t always useful in survival situations. Let’s say you need to chop down hardwood or plank. In this situation, knives with a thin blade are not a good idea. Similarly, we don’t recommend buying extra thick blades. Look for the survival knife with blade thickness between 0.17 and 0.25 inches.

Blade Design

In general, you will find two types of blade design, which are serrated and straight blades. The straight blade survival knife is ideal for cutting woodblocks. You can easily sharpen the straight blade knife using a smooth stone when you don’t have a whetstone. But for sharpening the serrated blades, you must always use a special sharpener.

Tang

In the knife, the tang is a part of the sharp blade that stretches down into the handle. Both the knife blade and the tang are a single solid steel piece. The best survival knife comes with the full tang or a tang that extends down to the handle base. Because the full tang provides strength to the whole knife. On ordinary knives, the blade is only attached at the handle top, which can break off easily.

Sheath

One underrated yet important to consider is the sheath. It is not a wise idea to choose the survival knife whose sheath is uncomfortable. You must look for a sheath which you can easily attach to your hip or belt. Having an add-on storage pocket on the sheath is a good factor, but you must make sure that it is not a burden to you. For sure, the sheath of the survival knife must have a latch mechanism. Some great locking mechanisms are button release, leather strap, and velcro. Check whether the sheath can strongly hold the knife while you are running. Because a lost survival knife helps none.

Blade Metal

In general, the blade metal of the survival knives is made using either carbon steel or stainless steel. The stainless steel blades are mostly unbreakable, durable, last longer, and are resistant to rust. Whereas carbon steel knives are famous for their long-lasting good edge.

Conclusion

We spent countless days testing all the available survival knives and finally created the top-notch and the best survival knives. Every survival knife on our list is the best-selling product with top ratings. Our top pick is RoverTac Pocket Knife Multitool Folding Knife, as it ticks every essential box to stand as the best folding survival knife. It has a decent length, sharp blade, affordable, good enough for EDC, durable, and most importantly, it is the customer’s top and favorite pick.

Check your requirements and pick the one that passes them. All the above five survival knives will help you out in every situation.