I am going to reference the North American frontier once more, simply because I know and have historical record of what was used under adverse conditions here and have less knowledge of what was used on the English Frontier, many milieu ago.
The knives uncovered at our Jamestown settlement(1607) were standard pattern English butcher knives.
The knives taken to the wilderness with the American Longhunters, mountain men and settlers were standard pattern English and French butcher knives. (the traders and the HBC shipped them in crates of 100 dozen blades without handles)
The high cost bushcraft/survival knives of today are nothing but very expensive English and French pattern butcher knives and kitchen knives.
Few people realize that Ontario Cutlery makes all their knives from the same steel, from the Old Hickory butcher knives to their RAT series! It is all 1095. 1095 is standard for the issue K-bar combat knife and always has been.
Randall made his first combat knife from a salvaged file, and today the plant uses that same bled of steel (simple O1), now bought new, after 70 years of being one of the most successful names on earth.
A well made knife is essential, high price is not essential. An Old Hickory butcher knife will set me back $10, the K-bar will set me back $50, The RAT series knife will set me back $150. Same steel, different handle material and slightly different shape blade. But the same blade steel, heat treated to the same standards!
And if I were one of you Brits, limited in what knives I could carry daily or use camping, I would have the very best kitchen cutlery money could buy, or at least the best my money could cover! They are the same blades that allowed settlement of North America, Africa and all of Europe back in the dim reaches of antiquity.
Do not ever doubt the capabilities of what you can grab as you shoot through the kitchen on your escape out the back door.
Check out these images and determine if the RAF survival knife is simply a redesigned Hudson Bay Camp knife? And neither one would be a bad choice, but both are simply modifications of a large butcher knife.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=huds...&FORM=IGRE
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