I have esee and busse knives as well. I agree w mathieu85. Both are worth the money. If youve never bought a high end knife like a busse or crk you really are missing out on some unbelievable craftsmanship. It prob comes down to whether or not your the type to pull the trigger on that much $$. I dont seem to have an issue doing it!!
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1095 vs INFI ??? Real deal?
- Thread starter rookie4real
- Start date
I have no idea why anyone would compare INFI to 1095... Thats why I mentioned Cold Steels SK-5 I felt that would be a better comparison for ESEE's 1095. I shouldnt have brought the Kukri into thought but whatever. It was about the SK-5 more than it was the knife itself. My bad for making that initial comparison.
I would never buy a Cold Steel knife... don't like this company. Sorry. Don't need INFI as well. I have a knife from niolox. That's one of the best knife steels I've ever owned but for me this "super and high end steel" debates are silly. In the end, I use both knives day by day and I would never part with my ESEE. The warranty is great and the knive is a real workhorse. If it's necessary I would bet my life on.
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2011
- Messages
- 124
How much someone is willing to pay for something is relative to how much they desire it. We all don't have enough money to buy whatever we want. Are certain things worth what they are being sold for?.. No... Would I buy them if funds were available...Yes. Is a 68 Camaro better mechanically, or ride quality better than a 2011 Camaro ?..No.. Would I buy one if I had the Money..Yes! I agree that Busse knives go at premium money, when I get the funds that's where my money is going!!!! Overpriced, probably......... Quality, unquestioned.
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2010
- Messages
- 4,355
You're right it is silly.. how about a more fair comparison, say 5160 vs. INFI??
I also agree they make a great knife.. But I'll also add, I'd bet my life on a Tramotina, perhaps my value of life varies, but its been tried and tested by me and it works just fine..
and its what 1070-1080 at best ??ETA:With that said, I think most things are based on perception.. If it costs a lot it has to be good, whether it be clothes, food, houses or cars.. many live by these standards and most of us know people like this or perhaps 'we' are like this.. myself I like nice things, it maybe crap to the next guy but if I like it and it works for me, its good enough.. now the guy that's driving the Lexus and pisses on Toyota that's just stupid.. and stupid people shouldn't breed >>
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- Joined
- Oct 8, 1998
- Messages
- 8,917
I didn't just "get into" knives when I found Knifeforums around 1997, which then gave birth to this place. I'm 42 and I've been into them for a long, long time. I had my first pocketknife when I was about five years old.
These trade forums, man, they are something else! Back when we were kids, we would bring a box of junk to each other's yard, porch or living room and trade stuff. Among the great horror comics of the 1970s (
) I found some early Soldier of Fortune magazines in one of those trade boxes. Soldier of Fortune was much more Peltonesque, shall we say, than it is today. Adventurous reading for me! And some of the ads were absolutely lurid in later years.Bill Bagwell had a pretty good column in Soldier of Fortune. While his ideas on double-edged daggers were true, that the common Gerber MkI and MkII left a lot to be desired when it came to cutting and slashing implements, what he was promoting was the Bowie and Custom Made Bowies at that. Nothing wrong with that. He is the guy in the "knife mainstream" that started with the one-inch diameter, free-hanging, hemp rope as the mark of a fatal blow to an opponent in a "knife fight." In other words, if your knife could cleanly sever a one inch diameter hemp rope that was free-hanging, no weight on the end of it to make it taut and easier to cut, then you had a knife that could disable or kill with one blow.
THAT is where all of the hemp rope cutting came into play, I don't know if Bagwell was the first to do it, but he was the guy that popularized it and opened the door for it.
There was only one problem with what he had to say. The Custom Made Bowie was not the only knife that could perform that test, Cold Steel was already making their Tanto which could do it. So, a lot of the heat between Bagwell and Cold Steel and the rest of that was just smoke and bullshit.
Bagwell's comments on daggers also didn't apply once Lynn Thompson decided to make daggers which were razor sharp.
So, throughout the 1980s, I continued on and then a Special Edition of SWAT Magazine came out, Fighting Knives. WOO-HOO! And this was the real awakening of all of the stuff that we are "into" now.
I have a great respect for Lynn Thompson and Cold Steel. People can point to his lurid ads and over-the-top advertising and actions, I don't really care. He is the guy that started raising the bar and a lot of other people then met that challenge and they have Lynn to thank for that, even if they don't want to admit it.
As far as the lurid ads are concerned, well, I can remember one ad that had a big-assed knife being held by a skeleton in a casket, does it get more lurid than that?
I don't know about Cold Steel's knives now, but pre-2005 CS are worth the money and very, very good survival tools.
Ok I want to make myself clear I am in no way saying ESEE knives arent good. I believe from the great reviews they get that they are well made reliable knives that anyone including myself could bet their life on. In no way am i saying INFI is the only steel to bet you life on. As i said befor I would put my life behind a Cold Steel Sk-5 TrailMaster or Kukri. i'd put it behind a Ferhman CPM-3V blade. Same goes for Swamp Rats SR-101 and Scrap Yards SR-77. Hell I love my Becker BK-1 Brute as well great knife for the money.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 1998
- Messages
- 8,917
To be blunt, which oftentimes get's me into the shit, "I'd bet my life" on damned near about any knife because I'm not a moron or a monkey that thinks the answer to every survival situation is to bust or pry on something. Simple as that.
If you give me a French, high-carbon Douk-Douk and send me out into the woods, am I going to "like" that when I could have a Kabar or ESEE-3, 5 or Izula? No. However, look at all of the stuff I can accomplish with that stupid-simple little pocketknife.
I oftentimes wonder if a lot of people on forums would just throw their hands up in the air and say, "Fuck it!" and die if they didn't have their favorite knife or one that some dude in a hockey mask on YouTube said was tougher than some other guy's knife or if "NuttinFancy" didn't like it... Again, to be blunt, even if a lot of people on these forums don't really mean it or think that way, that's the way they're coming across in their writing.
The absolute best "survival knife" is what you have right between your ears in conjunction with the real knife you have on your belt, in your pocket or pack and that is that my friends. Everything else is picking gnat shit out of pepper.
You know, you can actually clean a bunch of fish, squirrels, rabbits and squab or butcher a deer with a carpet or linoleum knife. You can carve trap triggers with them, scrape a ferrocerium rod with one. If you have the little plastic box full of replacement blades, you'd have a knife that would do so many things out in the wild, no problem. Can't hack down saplings well with it to make a shelter, find standing dead wood anyway. You know what I mean?
Survival isn't primarily the gear. Survival is mindset, knowledge and then gear. If you don't have the will to survive, all the knowledge and gear isn't shit. If you have all the knowledge in the world and the best gear money can buy and you give up, again, without the mindset, what you have isn't worth a pile of soft, wet, shit.
THAT is why threads like these are amusing. Not because of all of the controversy and who's hype is more over the top than the other guy's hype.
If you give me a French, high-carbon Douk-Douk and send me out into the woods, am I going to "like" that when I could have a Kabar or ESEE-3, 5 or Izula? No. However, look at all of the stuff I can accomplish with that stupid-simple little pocketknife.
I oftentimes wonder if a lot of people on forums would just throw their hands up in the air and say, "Fuck it!" and die if they didn't have their favorite knife or one that some dude in a hockey mask on YouTube said was tougher than some other guy's knife or if "NuttinFancy" didn't like it... Again, to be blunt, even if a lot of people on these forums don't really mean it or think that way, that's the way they're coming across in their writing.
The absolute best "survival knife" is what you have right between your ears in conjunction with the real knife you have on your belt, in your pocket or pack and that is that my friends. Everything else is picking gnat shit out of pepper.
You know, you can actually clean a bunch of fish, squirrels, rabbits and squab or butcher a deer with a carpet or linoleum knife. You can carve trap triggers with them, scrape a ferrocerium rod with one. If you have the little plastic box full of replacement blades, you'd have a knife that would do so many things out in the wild, no problem. Can't hack down saplings well with it to make a shelter, find standing dead wood anyway. You know what I mean?
Survival isn't primarily the gear. Survival is mindset, knowledge and then gear. If you don't have the will to survive, all the knowledge and gear isn't shit. If you have all the knowledge in the world and the best gear money can buy and you give up, again, without the mindset, what you have isn't worth a pile of soft, wet, shit.
THAT is why threads like these are amusing. Not because of all of the controversy and who's hype is more over the top than the other guy's hype.
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,978
Finally, Don's honesty and bluntness came out to point out the most obvious of all. The best tool in the world will do you no good if you don't have the knowledge to put it to work. Well said Don!!!
t1mpani
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,515
Ah, inevitability...
None doubt the value of common sense, nor the foolishness of getting too wrapped up in hypotheticals. Still, though, I have to put forward something here to answer exasperation/amusement with people discussing the attributes of knives on a forum that's dedicated to the discussion of knives.
If you go onto a biking forum, you can find thousands of threads about who makes the best mountain bike, street bike, touring bike, racing bike, biking apparel and on and on and on. Hell, you can probably find threads about who makes the best attachments for sticking a water bottle on your bike frame, and I know there are threads aplenty about the benefits of alloys versus carbon fiber.
And I'm sure, amidst all of that, there is an old grump who'll jump up now and again and say something along the lines of, "Dagnabbit! All of you punks worrying about sweat-wicking fabrics and lightweight frames, there are people in China who rely on bikes every day, not for fun but for transportation, as a necessity of life, and they get by just fine with one speed, steel frames and clothes made out of rice and pain!! It's the rider, not the bike he rides or what he's wearing!! "
And I'm sure that this fellow then imagines that the other participants feel cowed and ashamed of themselves, and then will go forth filled no more with hype-driven views about hardcore biking, but rather with simple, common sense values that they will thank him for forevermore. Perhaps some will. I can just about guarantee that most of them will react more like, "What's he doing on a bike forum if he doesn't want to talk about bike stuff?"
There's no doubt that nobody "needs" one kind of knife or another. However, gather a group of people all interested in one subject, be it knives, guns, food or music, and you will invariably get comparisons going, and die-hards for just about every side.
We can kid ourselves all we like about how truly "practical" we are on the subject of knives and that "they're only tools" but...a screwdriver is just a tool, and even if there was a website somewhere called Screwdriverforums I know for a fact that I couldn't come up with thousands of posts discussing them. Hard as it is to explain, knives are something more to me, and comparing, contrasting, cogitating and contemplating them is something I've been doing for a LOT of years now...as have some others with many thousands of posts.
For once and for all, yes----a Stanley box cutter and a $15 Walmart saw can handle pretty much every cutting need you'll ever have. In fact, I say we create a forum on bladeforums specifically for people who want to talk about how much they don't want to talk about knives or knife comparisons. An example:
**************************************************
Forum moderator: "Today I cut my sandwich in half with my box cutter. Worked just fine and if I hadn't had a box cutter I could have done it with a karate chop. I don't need no damned fancy sandwich cutter-in-halfer, and I could eat my sandwich even if it WASN'T cut in half! I wouldn't just throw my hands up in the air and starve. It's all about the man eatin' the sandwich, not the damned knife he uses to cut it in half."
"Awesome, man---keep it real!"
"Right on, brother!"
"I say Amen. Say, though, just hypothetically, do you think a coping
saw might do even better cutting a sandwich in half? I mean,
assuming the two sandwiches were made out of the same materials
and to the same thickness? I mean, obviously, the best is whichever
I have with me, but just tossing this out there..."
Forum Moderator: Wait a dang-blamed second..."better" did you say? Is that a COMPARISON, sonny?! You know the rules! Infraction issued.
You know, I'd actually participate.
None doubt the value of common sense, nor the foolishness of getting too wrapped up in hypotheticals. Still, though, I have to put forward something here to answer exasperation/amusement with people discussing the attributes of knives on a forum that's dedicated to the discussion of knives.
If you go onto a biking forum, you can find thousands of threads about who makes the best mountain bike, street bike, touring bike, racing bike, biking apparel and on and on and on. Hell, you can probably find threads about who makes the best attachments for sticking a water bottle on your bike frame, and I know there are threads aplenty about the benefits of alloys versus carbon fiber.
And I'm sure, amidst all of that, there is an old grump who'll jump up now and again and say something along the lines of, "Dagnabbit! All of you punks worrying about sweat-wicking fabrics and lightweight frames, there are people in China who rely on bikes every day, not for fun but for transportation, as a necessity of life, and they get by just fine with one speed, steel frames and clothes made out of rice and pain!! It's the rider, not the bike he rides or what he's wearing!! "
And I'm sure that this fellow then imagines that the other participants feel cowed and ashamed of themselves, and then will go forth filled no more with hype-driven views about hardcore biking, but rather with simple, common sense values that they will thank him for forevermore. Perhaps some will. I can just about guarantee that most of them will react more like, "What's he doing on a bike forum if he doesn't want to talk about bike stuff?"
There's no doubt that nobody "needs" one kind of knife or another. However, gather a group of people all interested in one subject, be it knives, guns, food or music, and you will invariably get comparisons going, and die-hards for just about every side.
We can kid ourselves all we like about how truly "practical" we are on the subject of knives and that "they're only tools" but...a screwdriver is just a tool, and even if there was a website somewhere called Screwdriverforums I know for a fact that I couldn't come up with thousands of posts discussing them. Hard as it is to explain, knives are something more to me, and comparing, contrasting, cogitating and contemplating them is something I've been doing for a LOT of years now...as have some others with many thousands of posts.
For once and for all, yes----a Stanley box cutter and a $15 Walmart saw can handle pretty much every cutting need you'll ever have. In fact, I say we create a forum on bladeforums specifically for people who want to talk about how much they don't want to talk about knives or knife comparisons. An example:
**************************************************
Forum moderator: "Today I cut my sandwich in half with my box cutter. Worked just fine and if I hadn't had a box cutter I could have done it with a karate chop. I don't need no damned fancy sandwich cutter-in-halfer, and I could eat my sandwich even if it WASN'T cut in half! I wouldn't just throw my hands up in the air and starve. It's all about the man eatin' the sandwich, not the damned knife he uses to cut it in half."
"Awesome, man---keep it real!"
"Right on, brother!"
"I say Amen. Say, though, just hypothetically, do you think a coping
saw might do even better cutting a sandwich in half? I mean,
assuming the two sandwiches were made out of the same materials
and to the same thickness? I mean, obviously, the best is whichever
I have with me, but just tossing this out there..."
Forum Moderator: Wait a dang-blamed second..."better" did you say? Is that a COMPARISON, sonny?! You know the rules! Infraction issued.
You know, I'd actually participate.
stabman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2007
- Messages
- 21,327
That's not true...I needed a Junglas.
So my wife got me one.
Then I had enough scratch for a Busse, but I needed that Rodent Waki more (more blade length=more fun, right?)
Then recently I needed a Condor Golok machete...and I figured my brother and dad needed one too, so the order went off into the magical interwebs.:thumbup:
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2010
- Messages
- 655
Care to tell us who has a better one?
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2006
- Messages
- 1,895
He was not saying that Busse has a better warranty, but that it is as good as ESEE's.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2010
- Messages
- 436
Now were debating about debating? Funny Stuff
I have been thinking about. 1095 vs INFI
Is this not like comparing Ford and Lincoln. Any products made with either of these two steels can be a good choice as they will both serve their purpose but one is made with higher end materials to serve a higher class of consumer.
Companies have visions some are different than others. Some say we want to build a high end knife of the highest quality materials available, and let the price fall where it may.
Others companies may say, We want to build a high end knife with quality materials with a price that average Joe can afford.
and others may say we want to build a decent knife that people won't mind beating up and a price that anyone can afford.
IMHO if your comparison is of products or materials made or used by companies from more than one of these groups, I don't personally believe it to be a fair comparison.
I have been thinking about. 1095 vs INFI
Is this not like comparing Ford and Lincoln. Any products made with either of these two steels can be a good choice as they will both serve their purpose but one is made with higher end materials to serve a higher class of consumer.
Companies have visions some are different than others. Some say we want to build a high end knife of the highest quality materials available, and let the price fall where it may.
Others companies may say, We want to build a high end knife with quality materials with a price that average Joe can afford.
and others may say we want to build a decent knife that people won't mind beating up and a price that anyone can afford.
IMHO if your comparison is of products or materials made or used by companies from more than one of these groups, I don't personally believe it to be a fair comparison.
t1mpani
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,515
That's debatable...