- Joined
- Sep 30, 2009
- Messages
- 2,351
As some of you may have seen, John at JK Knives created a blade for the sole purpose of abusive testing. He's allowed 11 lucky friends to beat, bend, run over and generally throw whatever we could think of at. John's instructions were simple, treat the knife as if it belonged to your ex-wife's new lover, your former pool boy. I took this to heart. While I don't have a pool, I do have a wife and the thought of her with this pool boy has me enraged! Where did he leave his knife??!!?!?
The Specs
I really did not concentrate on the materials, style or functional aspects for my review as I was blinded by my rage at the pool boy and wanted to beat, no break, this knife.
Here's a few basic facts
9.5" OAL
5" O1 Blade
Oak Handle
Stainless Pins
The design overall would be an excellent all-around traditional styled hunting and outdoors knife. It has lines that, to me at least, harken back to the days of flintlocks and buckskins. It performed well in the kitchen, cutting meat and veggies and would make a great camp knife. There is a bit of a curve which would lend itself well to skinning, plenty of point and a nice sweeping belly.
The Abuse
Let me preface this by saying that this exercise has taught me the limits between hard use, abuse and outright foolhardy attempts at breaking a knife. There may be other blades out there that would have fared slightly better at some "tasks" but I would venture to say that the ViKtim is near the top of the list for strength and durability. Keep in mind I WAS TRYING TO BREAK THIS KNIFE! There were numerous times that I thought the blade was going to snap, but it did not. Numerous times that I thought I had bent it too far and it would take a set, it sprung back to true each and every time.
After I received the knife, I had both my wife and daughter use it in the kitchen to prep for a family BBQ. As I said, kitchen duties were successful and the edge remained hair popping after, meat, potatoes and veggies were prepped for the grill. I started "my" testing out by repeatedly whipping the knife into a log and prying it out sideways. I had the blade bent at an insane angle, sure it would bend or break, but it would not. Repeatedly, an inch or two of the point would pop free sending chunks of wood flying. As I was doing this, I attracted the attention of my father-in-law's 12 year old neighbor. He's that kid that is banned from every house in the neighborhood because he is, let's call it.....a menace?!??! He was interested in both the knife and what I was doing with it and I explained I was trying my hardest to break the knife as a test. He thought this was very cool and asked if he could help. I showed him how to throw the knife and stick it into the ground and he was all over it. He winged the ViKtim countless times-over and over and over-into the ground, point first, butt first, sideways.....pretty much however he could. Still the ViKtim was unscathed, mocking me with it's toughness.
Several "barley pops" later, I decided that I would have another go at it. I began some knife throwing practice at a large tree. This truely was "knife throwing" in the sense of whipping it as hard as I could at a tree, not really trying to hit point first and make it stick, more to hit the tree as hard as I could and break the knife........finally.........first blood!
The endless impacts jarred the oak slab loose. I am the 11th person to beat on this thing and I know one of the other testers ran the handle over with his truck. Pretty impressive performance!
The damage was quickly "repaired" by beating the slab back in place with my handy Tram Bolo.
I then wanted to see what would happen if I put the ViKtim in a vise, edge up, and hacked it with a hatchet. ViKtim 1, hatchet 0!
Here's the hatchet, the ViKtim was basically unscathed
I batonned seemingly endless pieces of wood with the ViKtim and it just laughed and said "Is that all you've got?". I said "How about some metal then?" and the ViKtim said "Bring it on"!
A bolt
The ViKtim held it's own as I repeatedly pounded it on the bolt. I started out with the bolt on top of a log that I use as a base to baton things on. It drove the bolt into the face of the log so far that I had to use the ViKtim to pry it out. I then put the bolt on a small anvil and continued. This did damage the edge but did a number on the bolt as well. Bolt vs. ViKtim, ViKtim takes it with less overall damage.
As if this was not enough, I then decided to assault a metal pole that was the base of an old punching dummy. This pole was very tough and I held nothing back beating the ever-loving crap out of the ViKtim and the pole.
Here's what happened
As you can see, the knife cut deep gashes in the end of the pole but suffered a pretty deep wound itself. If you look closely, you can see the metal chip is wedged into the pole.
Here's another view of the damage
With the ViKtim stunned and bloodied from its run in with the pole, I thought I had it on the ropes and could show that poolboy a real lesson! Back to the vice as I was going to put this thing away for good!
And, guess what, ViKtim 1, outdoorsfan 0. I coudln't break it.
This knife was simply incredible. There is no way that it could be damamged by any task that is even remotely associated with knife use. Break a pelvis, baton a knotty old oak log, cut light metal.......this blade will do all those and still come back for more. It was superb in every respect and I now have even more confidence in my JK's than I had before. While this might not be the vorpal blade of our collective knife imaginations, it surely must be a close second.
The Specs
I really did not concentrate on the materials, style or functional aspects for my review as I was blinded by my rage at the pool boy and wanted to beat, no break, this knife.
Here's a few basic facts
9.5" OAL
5" O1 Blade
Oak Handle
Stainless Pins
The design overall would be an excellent all-around traditional styled hunting and outdoors knife. It has lines that, to me at least, harken back to the days of flintlocks and buckskins. It performed well in the kitchen, cutting meat and veggies and would make a great camp knife. There is a bit of a curve which would lend itself well to skinning, plenty of point and a nice sweeping belly.
The Abuse
Let me preface this by saying that this exercise has taught me the limits between hard use, abuse and outright foolhardy attempts at breaking a knife. There may be other blades out there that would have fared slightly better at some "tasks" but I would venture to say that the ViKtim is near the top of the list for strength and durability. Keep in mind I WAS TRYING TO BREAK THIS KNIFE! There were numerous times that I thought the blade was going to snap, but it did not. Numerous times that I thought I had bent it too far and it would take a set, it sprung back to true each and every time.
After I received the knife, I had both my wife and daughter use it in the kitchen to prep for a family BBQ. As I said, kitchen duties were successful and the edge remained hair popping after, meat, potatoes and veggies were prepped for the grill. I started "my" testing out by repeatedly whipping the knife into a log and prying it out sideways. I had the blade bent at an insane angle, sure it would bend or break, but it would not. Repeatedly, an inch or two of the point would pop free sending chunks of wood flying. As I was doing this, I attracted the attention of my father-in-law's 12 year old neighbor. He's that kid that is banned from every house in the neighborhood because he is, let's call it.....a menace?!??! He was interested in both the knife and what I was doing with it and I explained I was trying my hardest to break the knife as a test. He thought this was very cool and asked if he could help. I showed him how to throw the knife and stick it into the ground and he was all over it. He winged the ViKtim countless times-over and over and over-into the ground, point first, butt first, sideways.....pretty much however he could. Still the ViKtim was unscathed, mocking me with it's toughness.
Several "barley pops" later, I decided that I would have another go at it. I began some knife throwing practice at a large tree. This truely was "knife throwing" in the sense of whipping it as hard as I could at a tree, not really trying to hit point first and make it stick, more to hit the tree as hard as I could and break the knife........finally.........first blood!
The endless impacts jarred the oak slab loose. I am the 11th person to beat on this thing and I know one of the other testers ran the handle over with his truck. Pretty impressive performance!
The damage was quickly "repaired" by beating the slab back in place with my handy Tram Bolo.
I then wanted to see what would happen if I put the ViKtim in a vise, edge up, and hacked it with a hatchet. ViKtim 1, hatchet 0!
Here's the hatchet, the ViKtim was basically unscathed
I batonned seemingly endless pieces of wood with the ViKtim and it just laughed and said "Is that all you've got?". I said "How about some metal then?" and the ViKtim said "Bring it on"!
A bolt
The ViKtim held it's own as I repeatedly pounded it on the bolt. I started out with the bolt on top of a log that I use as a base to baton things on. It drove the bolt into the face of the log so far that I had to use the ViKtim to pry it out. I then put the bolt on a small anvil and continued. This did damage the edge but did a number on the bolt as well. Bolt vs. ViKtim, ViKtim takes it with less overall damage.
As if this was not enough, I then decided to assault a metal pole that was the base of an old punching dummy. This pole was very tough and I held nothing back beating the ever-loving crap out of the ViKtim and the pole.
Here's what happened
As you can see, the knife cut deep gashes in the end of the pole but suffered a pretty deep wound itself. If you look closely, you can see the metal chip is wedged into the pole.
Here's another view of the damage
With the ViKtim stunned and bloodied from its run in with the pole, I thought I had it on the ropes and could show that poolboy a real lesson! Back to the vice as I was going to put this thing away for good!
And, guess what, ViKtim 1, outdoorsfan 0. I coudln't break it.
This knife was simply incredible. There is no way that it could be damamged by any task that is even remotely associated with knife use. Break a pelvis, baton a knotty old oak log, cut light metal.......this blade will do all those and still come back for more. It was superb in every respect and I now have even more confidence in my JK's than I had before. While this might not be the vorpal blade of our collective knife imaginations, it surely must be a close second.
