Survival knife: Mora Clipper 860MG

New Swedish Mil. Mora Knife

As I write this I have three other knives in my desk. Stashed in several other places there are over 50 knives that I own. Other than a few that I got for collecting, most of them have been used some even though only a couple get used a lot at a time depending of circumstances. Most of them are well known brand and models so I’ll occasionally write reviews of what I have and what I think of it.


The Mora Clipper 860MG

I’ve always been curious about Mora knives(merged with Frost brand). These small utilitarian Sweden knives have a stellar reputation that is indirectly proportional to their price, which is the first thing you notice when you contemplate buying one of these. Truly impressive value.
The design closely follows the Finnish pukkoos, which are general purpose utility knives. A basic handle and a short blade with a clip or drop point, it closely reassembles what you’d expect to find in a kitchen drawer. If the Mora ended up being the only knife you’d use for the rest of your life, you’d appreciate it at dinner time.

                                                     Mora 860MG with its sheath.

The Mora 860MG comes with a very practical plastic sheath that is much better than some of the ones that come along with knives that cost ten or twenty times as much. The plastic protects the user from the razor sharp blade and the knife stays in place snugly when pushed all the way in. You have to push a bit with your thumb to take it out of the sheath, and that’s a good thing.

This Mora has the most comfortable grip I've seen in a knife in  along time.

The grip is clearly the second best thing of this Mora model, right after the famous Mora steel. The handle is made of hard green plastic (MG stands for military green) that encloses the narrow tang. The tang goes almost half way into the grip, which makes for a more than enough solid construction. You’ll snap the blade before breaking the hard plastic handle. The hard green plastic that is injected around the narrow tang is covered with nice checkered black rubber, making for a soft, non slippery grip that is very comfortable.

Stainless Steel for a Survival knife?? Madness! Madness I say!

Occasionally you find survival “experts” that will assure you that no good survival knife should be made out of stainless steel. Usually when I hear such stupidity I remember my stainless steel Buckmaster 184 which is the father of hollow grip survival knives, I remember the Swedish Fällkniven, made out of ATS-34, ATS-55 or VG-10, all Stainless, including their black models S1 and F1, tested and approved for U.S. Marine and U.S. Navy air crew… but the survival guru wannabe will say Stianless is no good of course.
Truth is, people saying that don’t really know much about knives or steel, so they only repeat something they’ve heard before, which has stopped beign true almost 30 years ago already. If you cant sharpen stainless steel, having carbon steel wont make a difference and if you think stainless isn’t as sharp as carbon steel or keeps its edge as long, try remembering that both scalpels and razor blades, two of the sharpest objects on Earth, are made of stainless steel.

The Mora 860MG is of course made of stainless steel. Why? Because the nice Swedish people of the nice town of Mora have been making laminated blades since the middle ages and known that the BS about stainless steel being no good is just that. Stainless is of particular interest for a true utilitarian/survival knife because it means your knife wont rust to pieces when you have to abuse it and you cant run home to dry it up and oil it.

I remember one Opinel pocket knife I once had. I took it camping and used it to cut some wood to start a fire, left it in a jacket pocket after the trip. A few weeks later I used that jacket again and found the little pocket knife, the high carbon steel blade has rusted beyond repair, I had to throw that knife away. While I should have oiled that little blade, this is something you wont be able to do during emergency situations. Even if you chose carbon steel, avoid these high carbon steels that, while a bit easier to sharpen, the slight advantage doesn’t put a dent on the disadvantage of being so needy regarding maintenance.
The Mora stainless Steel is the best thing you get from this knife. The blade is laminated and you can see the 3 different layers of steel, the one in the middle with more carbon, the other two more resistant. The hardness is 59 Rc. , which is ideal for ease of sharpening and sharpness retention. This is prime laminated steel we’re talking about. Again, something you usually don’t even find in +100 buck knives. The three layers shouldn’t be visible since this means dust and humidity can get into the cracks and cause pitting (yes, even in stainless steel) so it’s a good idea to take a few minutes to sand and then polish the spine of the knife.

 The spine of the Mora shows its 3 layers of stainless steel. Laminated steel is rarely found in knives at budget prices, and only Mora offers this quality for such a price. Expect to spend several hundred dollars  for such a thing when offered by other brands.


The knife was razor sharp out of the box, but I still touched it up and polished the edge with a nail polish file. After a couple minutes, the knife was still razor sharp but now it would cut through hair with frightening ease. Very, very nice edge.
If you don’t want or need the resistance of stainless steel, Mora also offers the knife in excellent carbon steel. The orange plastic would make it easier to spot if you drop the knife in the outdoors.





 Size Does Matter

There’s an old saying in boxing that says big and bad beats small and good. Given a small enough difference of skill, the slightly bigger boxer will often win even if the smaller one has better boxing technique. Funny but true. Something similar can be said about knives. The big knife can do most of the cutting tasks that a small knife can do, but the smaller blade wont become bigger any time soon.
These days it seems that the new wave of Bushcraft aficionados carry the smallest knife they can get their hands on. This of course makes no sense, not when a ka-bar size knife is just as practical to carry yet can do much more. Some people will say you don’t need a bigger knife. Soon enough someone mentions building shelters, chopping wood, and even though you can do such things with a small blade, then bigger one makes the job easier. As for fighting, while any knife can cut, something like a machete can crush bone as well and very much chop through any body part that gets on its way. Even in a more practical sense, have you ever seen the kind of knives butchers use? Its often a 10” razor sharp blade. They use it for chopping and slicing. Try cutting a nice steak or filet with a small knife and you’ll see what I mean. You simply need the extra length and a small blade will make the job impossible or at the very least, much harder. Give me a bigger knife any day of the week.

 The Mora looks punny compared to 14" Facón knife. The Facón shows lots of pitting but it still gets the job done after a century of hard work.

 The Mora compared to a custom knife owned by the author. While the custom knife has a wider and ticker blade, they are both very much intented for te same type of use.

Having said all this, the Mora is a very good survival. Not excellent but very good. For ideal size, I’d prefer six or seven inches or bigger, something like a Cold Steel SRK or Recon Scout. The Mora Clipper 860MG is 4” long, sharpened to the complete extension of the blade. This makes it a practical blade, perfect for daily chores and good enough for 95% of the tasks required for survival, food processing and fighting. One final mention regarding its use as a weapon. This little knife clearly is one terrific fighter if the need ever arises. Its razor sharp, just long enough to make considerable wounds, and the handle grip is one of the most comfortable ones I’ve ever used. This means a lot when it comes to defensive knives since knife retention is a much more important issue than people realize. The only weak point for defensive use (and tough work as well) is that it lacks a more aggressive finger guard. There is a bump there but I’d prefer something more significant just in case my hand slips forward.
Highly recommended, the Mora Clipper is a very nice survival knife. Outstanding if you consider the 15 price (or lower) in most stores on-line.

FerFAL

Bushcraft videos… someone please poke my eyes out with my Bushcraft knife.

If you thought the tacticool fashion community was the silliest thing on Earth you’ll be surprised when you looked into some of the weirdos you can find in the new breed of wilderness survival, these days now in vogue and known as Bushcrafters. Not talking about Lofty Wiseman here and some others that are the real deal, I’m talking about these 20 year old something or older that just last year picked a knife for the first time in their lives, cut away a few chips of wood and discovered a new age lifestyle of some sort in what used to be called camping, hiking and wilderness survival.

I wont be mean and link to some of the posts and videos I’ve found on youtube under bushcraft, but how stupid can a person be? No offense meant to the guys over at UK, but some of the ones I saw by British folks are some of the most ridiculous. They talk about the innocent little Mora knife as if it were almost a nuclear explosive device. Folks, it’s a knife no bigger than a steak knife!… less than half the size of a cook knife, for the love of God if you’re afraid of falling over it and stabbing your femoral artery as you make a pointy stick just don’t use knives, or pointy sticks, or forks. I’ve watched some of the most stupid, most ridiculous techniques used to sharpen a stick, a soft and green one at that, as thick as my thumb. Warnings about Tennis elbow risk (when making a pointy stick with your green twig) were almost more than I could take. I’m not Mr. Bushcraft buy both my grandparents were carpenters. I’ve used knives and sharp objects for as long as I can remember, sharpened them (which seems to be a mystic lost art , even among these sort of bushcrafters) Helped my grandparents and my father make enough pieces of furniture, made and fixed some of my own (oh yes, I’ve even sharpened sticks once or twice) yet I don’t have tennis elbow. All this nonsense being said and done while dressing frontiersmen clothes. Videos on how to make a notch? What the hell? I understand that this silliness has a lot to do with the so called “knife crime” paranoia over there. As ridiculous as it is, it is being drilled into their brains and its understandable that this may happen after a few decades of such insanity. Sorry for the rant but its just amazing to hear people talk about knives as if they were loaded guns, specially when every kitchen in the planet has a dozen knives just as big. Seriously folks, the tacticool fashion queens have nothing to be ashamed of after what I just saw over on youtube.

The Bushcraft dude.


*The bushcraft guy Wears buschcrafty clothes of course. Earth tones and such for when in the woods. Makes sense. That way no one finds you if a stroke drops you there among the bush and leaves while you go camping and you need help.

*Buschcraft ego is indirectly proportionate to the size of the knife used. The smaller the knife, the bigger his bushcraft gonads will be. Preferably the knife will be a small necknife, 2” blade tops and replicating prehistoric stone knives. Cavemen had those small knives so that’s the best thing, right? Lets better not take into account that they were made of stone and anything bigger would have shattered when put to use, not to mention, they didn’t HAVE anything better to begin with. Everyone knows that stainless steel knives are no good. ATS-34, VG10, none of those steels are any good for bushcrafting, you have to use carbon steel.

*For starting fires, a firesteel is used. God forbid you from using lowly matches and lighters. Firesteel are more bushcraft type. Doesn’t matter that ferrocerium rods (Firesteel is one commercial brand) wasn’t invented until after 1880 and even common safety matches already existed by 1844. The firesteel throws sparks and stuff and looks cooler, like a caveman. But the real cool bushcraft guys use flint and steel (made by a bushcraft blacksmith of course) or fire bows. Of course this is a pain in the butt to use, starting a fire this way requires desert try tinder and the kit itself uses up ten times the space needed for a pack of 25 storm matches, a lighter and a Firesteel as backup, al put together.

As for knife safety,

1)The hardest part, an specially for some of the new Bushcraft types: Don’t be an idiot. This basically means, understand that sharp objects cut. Understand that if you do lots of strength against a particular stubborn knot you’ll likely end up moving the knife further away than expected when you get through it. That people shouldn’t be around, specially in front of you, when working with a knife.

2)Cut away from you and not towards you. Always. Your hand is still “you”, so your hand should not be ahead in the direction you’re cutting.

3)Always keep your knives and cutting tools sharp. Knives that aren’t sharp are more unpredictable and require more force to compensate for the lack of cutting ability.

FerFAL

American housing?‏

FerFAL,

It is very interesting to hear you are planning on moving to the United
States.  I look forward to hearing about your experiences in your usual
detailed and informative manner.

My question is what kind of housing do you think you will wind up in?
You have talked about architecture and things like the advantages of
solid brick construction over sticks frame and features like a courtyard.
(BTW, my parents had a private courtyard where we lived when I was young
and it was really helpful.)  I also assume anyplace with a HOA would be
right out.  However, life is always full of compromises.  What do you
think you get from your must have and nice to have lists?

Thank you for the blog,


M

Hi M, as you well say life is always full of compromises. I’ve heard of people losing their homes to evil HOA, but some also think it brings a minimum level of agreement to a neighborhood. I’ve learned that you cant count on people doing the most reasonable thing, lets alone the smartest. A neighbor who always lets his dogs run wild would be more than a problem, he would actually be putting small kids like the one I have in danger. A strong argument for HOA is that it stops a neighbor from collecting garbage in the front lawn, bringing prices and the quality of the neighborhood in general down. And then there’s actual freedom to be considered: Its your home, how far can they go regarding what you’re allowed to do or not? At the very least, I’d check 10 times before signing any HOA agreement. 

The freedom loving individual will raise hell at even the mention of a HOA, but at the same time we have to accept that we live in society. It may be your land, but does the neighborhood belong to you as well? Again, a rat infested neighbor, someone who’s carelessness may affect me, that’s something I’d like to avoid. Even if you look before buying, what’s stopping a slob or idiot from moving next door next year. An agreement that, after reading careful, I believe it to be a sane balance between restrictions to my liberty and benefits, that’s something I can live with.

Just an example of why this may be important in the long run. We don’t have HOA here, and when the time came to hire security, no one had a right to force you to pay if you didn’t want to, and that’s just how it should be right?

Well, it soon became pretty obvious that having security was a priority. Neighborhoods that didn’t have it were going down, more petty robberies, more home invasions, more scumbags looking for easy victims, kids and older peopl. Most of us agreed we had to get security. But what about those that didn’t? What happened was that we got it in the end, most of us paying for it, but a few lowlifes in the neighborhood aren’t paying, but do benefit from it. And its not a moral argument about freedom. These people new it would make a difference to have security in the neighborhood, but they knew that there were still enough of us that would pay so as to have the security in the end, even if they didn’t pay for it. So basically they get a free ride. So again, I’m not entirely against a home owners association, I’d go along with one that makes sense to me, that has a minimum amount of like minded people, and I’d take the time to be involved and be part of the community. 

About the home, there’s a difference between what we want and what we can get. Most homes in USA are wood frame or metal frame, over here they are much more solid brick and mortar, with poured reinforced concrete independent structure. It’s mostly because that’s traditionally how we make houses here, but it is obviously much more resistant than wood frame ones. That’s what I’d like to go for. My ideal house wouldn’t be too big, but it would have a basement and two floors. The kitchen would be centrally located (as much in the center as possible) , with a wood burning cooking stove in place besides the typical gas or electric one. In a small enough, WELL DESINGED home, a cook stove can do most of the heating. Maybe not fuel hog type warm, but cozy enough in the kitchen and warm enough to sleep ok with enough blankets in the bedrooms. Its all a matter of how well designed the house is. While water heating can be done too, it can be dangerous if done improperly. The courtyard would be ideal. I like the idea of enclosed open space which you have better control of.

FerFAL

Reply: The Gray man concept

 In reply to The Gray Man Concept post:

Fernando,

I just read your grey man piece and wanted to share something I have been doing as of late. I picked up an "diaper bag" at a thrift store for .50 cents. It's black and pretty large and is made with a lightly insulated material that seems waterproof. It's big enough to carry what I need and has two mesh bags on the side for carrying bottles. I keep two water bottles there. It's my vehicle bag. When I am just leaving it there I replace the water bottles with half full baby bottles and wad up an old disposable diaper and lay it beside it. I also open the bag slightly and have one of my daughters old shirts sticking out. Obviously the bag has other items in it. I figure here in the US (for now) no one would risk breakimg in a car for that. I also thought that in an emergency evacuation situation it would look less obvious than a "tacti-cool" bag with all the bells and whistles and would not scream "wealth,guns, and grub" either. My daughter is now 6 so I don't know how long this will work but she still rides in a car seat and will for 2 more years. I just casually toss it in the back seat by her car seat.

Regarding clothing: I spoke to a guy that had just returned working security in Iraq. Many of the guys in the gun shop knew him and felt comfortable asking him questions that were firearm and security related. One guy asked him what kind of clothing they wore and what he thought of 5.11 pants. He kind of smiled and said, "You know what we found works best? Dockers with the pockets." He didn't say they were better. He said they worked best. I asked him to clarify. He said everyone from aid workers and Doctors to contract electricians and reporters wear a form of loose fitting khakis and that the Dockers seem to hold up the best. He said if you are wearing 5.11's they know what you are there for and you get shot first. I don't know how true it is but he seemed genuine.

Indiucky

Thanks good info. I suppose that over there the fit guy with the 5.11 pants and awareness look would quickly imply contractor. Again, location, location, location. It will dictate if you’re gray man or not and what work in some areas may have the complete opposite result in others.
I like the tactical diaper bag idea. Some of those bags are pretty resistant, just try not to overload it with too much weight.

I will say it more simply. You wear clothes that are durable,
comfortable and don't stand out.

You can go buy durable clothes where the auto mechanic, the UPS
deliveryman, the gas company employee buys his or her clothing.

Boots are overrated I once had to do three days in Southeast Asia My
choice was not boots, it was sneakers. When you have to lift your
feet up and down multiple times in the mud, you really don't care to
have the extra weight Moreover, if you have a definitely time period,
you don't have to have the best.

Ditto on other gear. Given the choice of two blankets or one, I
carried one. When you have 11 people sleeping in one room of a two
room hut, you don't need two blankets to carry all day.

And, you don't carry a rifle. I didn't carry a rifle in Columbia,
only a .22 short Beretta that fit in my hand so I walked with it
concealed in my palm. Surprise counts for more than firepower in a
lot of instances.

I guess it’s a matter of getting used to boots. I wear mine all day and for me its not that big a deal. Some of the high end working shoes, sport like boots, they are terrific value, well made and light too. 
Caterpillar Men's Hydraulic Mid Cut Steel Toe Boot


FerFAL

327 Federal Mangnum Revolvers

The .327 Federal Magnum is one of the newest cartridges, created by Ruger. Unlike many of the cartridges purely created for commercial hype sales, this one actually has a few things going for it since the idea of hot rodding what is basically a 32. H&R Mangum with a longer case has been around for a long time. It started with the old .32 S&W, then .32 S&W Long, then .32 H&R Magnum and the .327 Federal Magnum is the last one in line of .32s that added a few mm of case during each stage of evolution. You can fire all the previously mentioned calibers in a .327 Federal Magnum revolver, since its basically the same thing but with shorter cases.

 

 Ruger SP101.327 Magnum

Power? While not quite a real 357 Magnum, it is considered a bit more powerful than a 38 Special +P or 9mm, so we’re talking about some nice stopping power. The interesting thing for me is that it delivers good stopping power, and does so with half the recoil of a 357 Magnum, in a small frame revolver. This also means that you get one more round in small frames, 6 shots vs. 5 shots of 38 special which is also less powerful per shot.

                                                  Smith & Wesson  632 .327 Magnum

This revolver fills the niche for either young adults or other people that are sensitive to recoil or that lack the training to use an auto under stress and would benefit from the mechanical simplicity of a revolver.

Many of us have wives that hardly visit the range a couple times a year. For them the 327 Federal Magnum revolver is an interesting alternative.

FerFAL