I appreciate the series on this piece of military knife and tool history. No pilot with any survival training or common sense is going deliberately abuse one of their most important tools. The knife is well built, for the essential tasks it was made to perform. I own one of the finest combat survival knives ever made, but I didn't buy it to deliberately abuse it through misuse. It will last me my entire life, because I use it for the tasks it was made to perform.
I've never broken any knife using it for it's purpose: to cut and to slice material. A knife is not a pry bar, not an axe, not an Entrenching tool, not a digging bar, not a log splitting wedge, not a hatchet and not meant to be thrown into trees unless designed for throwing. Young guys have a fetish about destructively abusing knives then complaining the knife is garbage when it fails. I'm a bladesmith, graduated bladesmith school, served in the Army, grew up in the backwoods and currently live in 3rd world conditions where I still use bladed tools for day to day survival (not for weekend warrior camping trips) and I haven't broken any knife yet cause I use them as they're intended to be used.
Only 1 minute into the video but I was thinking "Jeez, my truck is real junk. I drove it at 60 mph into a brick wall and now it´s all wrinkled up and it won´t start anymore..."
I got my first air crew survival knife in the late seventies, I have more experience with this knife than any other, I own several from different periods, I still have mine from 1980, I always have taken care of them , these knife have really turned out to be very robust, still today I will strap mine on my belt, in my opinion it’s a good knife and can perform multiple task. I’ve had mine and used it everywhere, from the Florida Everglades to the Appalachia trail and in between, really appreciate this video, thanks
Damm I have got one from 1973 Camillus and I have used the hell out of it it sharpens easily and holds a fair edge I have butchered a moose with it and used it to baton wood for the old camp fire I have bought 3 brand new Mora Knives that come out of the box dull I can sharpen my AF survival knife where it shaves and will usually do a complete Elk before I need to touch it up so all I can say it while I have many knives this one is one I can depend on.
This was the issue knife for Army and Marine pilots training at Hunter AAF in the late 60s/early 70s. I took it to Vietnam in 1970 but it wasn't part of my gear as a OH-6 pilot, nor did many of the Cobra jocks carry it. The reason was it did not fit well with the other gear we put on for combat missions. The ceramic chest plate, emergency radio, .38 revolver, extra ammo, and flare pen etc. If you had the mesh survival vest, it came with a Camilus SS pocket knife and butane lighter. Some pilots bought a Gerber Mk1 or Mk2 knife, good for fighting not so good for utility, just as a few pilots wore a pistol belt so that they could carry a M1911. The Camilus fixed blade (mine was made in 6-1967) was not at all well made. the grind was inconsistent, the line of the blade from tip to guard below the fuller was a bit wavey and the heat treatment varied along the blade and from blade to blade. On some the tip was fragile and easily broken and on others edge retention was very variable. I broke the tip on mine just stabbing a piece of softwood to hold the knife while I did some task. And for what it might be worth an observer borrowed my SS Camilus pocketknife and snapped the blade on first use. So, if you asked me then I would have said that both Camilus knives were junk. The fixed blade went with me after Vietnam, and one day I took it out of the drawer to see if I could reshape the point and the profile. The new point is slightly rounded and a bit thicker and still capable of penetrating in a thrust. I used a course waterstone to create a consistent angle from edge to fuller all along the blade, and narrowed the cutting angle, To my surprise it is now a paper slicing, arm shaving blade that holds a decent edge. True it is now a shiny blade below the fuller and there are two shiny spots between the tip and the fuller, but it is a serviceable blade. Recently I got to wondering if anything could be made of those teeth ahead of the guard. What if I used a triangular file to alternately slope the top of each tooth, making the outside corners more like saw teeth.? Remember what I said about the heat treatment? Those teeth are hard, too hard to file easily.
They certainly haven't been perfect through the years which happens but that's the nature of procuring and manufacturing an item such as this. Seems like you made yours work! Thanks for your service and great comment brother!
the indestructible knife with the same looks was the Cattaraugus 225Q Quartermaster,i wish ontario made that modell still they did it in the sp line a long time ago.but you can just get a srk knife today in sk5 for the same price as the pilots knife so only reason to buy one is the looks,its why i bought it because it was common in movies when i was a kid sometimes a knife just have to be cool.
Thank you for unbiased good assessment of this military knife! Anything can break if you're hard on it for abuse. Whatever it is, in this case, a knife ! Like you said, it was issued is the temporary tool and not considered indestructible!
I have an Ontario version for my collection. The most I've done with it is put a slightly better edge on it and put it on a shelf. Same goes for my Camillus Marine Corps Fighting Knife.
20 year Navy veteran, 15 as a P-3 flight Engineer and 5 as a SERE Instructor. That knife was issue in my SV-2 (aircrew survival vest) It was a piece of crap, would not hold an edge, the tips would break and it would snap off at the hilt. I replaced mine with a Cold steel master hunter, only because the SRK was too damn long to fit into the sheath which was sewn into the vest. As a SERE instructor, we would issue these to our students. We had 26 classes a year and at least 2 of the blades would snap every class. If I were to do it all over today, I would get a ColdSteel SRK Mini to replace it. There are still tons of poorly heat treated survival knife in service
Good discussion. It's easy to focus on quality and forget that it's essentially a disposable, low priority item. There's the old Soviet proverb: 'The best is the enemy of good enough' It's kind of funny how quickly some people can go from 'lowest bidder' to 'gold-plated extravagance...
Good Fu***** God get to the point. I've seen that video. He had a brand new knife. Yes they break easily. I've broken a few, people have brought me broken ones hoping I could repair them. It's that pos wire Tang. The Ka-Bar had it too. That's why I make both with full tangs.
