When I first saw the BK16, it was a saber ground version at the first Gathering over at Ethan's. At first, the saber ground version was the version for me. I wanted it because it was a smaller BK2, not a larger BK14. At the last gethering, Moose let me see his 16, which was a FFG, and had liners and micarta. The liners made the handle go from great to perfect, but Moose kept touting the virtues of the FFG over the Saber version. I got on board. Quickly after that, I started carrying just the FFG version and kept it that way for a few months, but ultimately, I went back to the saber ground version. It was a hard decision given the benefits of the FFG version, but it was the choice I made nonetheless.
1. Peace of mind. That's the biggest reason. Simple peace of mind. I can flex the FFG 16 in my hands. I can't do that with the FPR version. More meat in the blade means more strength, and that is a direct correlation between the BK2 and every other knife out there. If it is a heavy chunk of steel, it will take more damage in my mind. It might be right, it might be wrong, but to me, I feel better knowing the FPR version is the one I carry for that tiny reason alone.
2. Chopping. Yes, chopping. The FPR 16 has more weight, which means less chops when chopping with the knife. Now I am not talking about cutting down 8 inch trees, but chopping on something smaller has been a lot easier with the FPR over the FFG. Think limbing a smaller branch type of chopping. Obviously the FPR is not going to excel at this task, it just isn't made for that, but with the added little bit of weight and a two finger grip, it can do some chopping. (And it will do it a heck of a lot better than a BK14!)
FPR
FFG
That being said, I feel it definitely needs mentioned that while I see the FPR as having more integral strength, that does not in any way mean that I think the FFG one is weak. In the pic above, you can see some marks on the FFG blade towards the middle. Those marks specifically come from cross-grain batoning the FFG 16 through a 2 inch branch. Now when I started, I made the decision that I was only going to use a reasonable amount of force, and try to achieve what I was after without beating on the knife like it owed me money. To date, the only knife I have ever beat on like that is my BK2, and as we all know, that is not going to be a problem for it. However, after getting approximately 3/5 of the way through the branch, the knife stopped cold. It would not move any further through the wood. It had binded up or pinched or whatever, but it most certainly was not going to be going anywhere for awhile.
Now I can't say if it was the way the stars aligned, or frustration, or just plain silliness on my part, but I grabbed that baton and beat that knife like it had killed my mom. I beat it as hard as I have ever done on my BK2 and I didn't stop until I had to. The knife didn't go much further, but it did stand up to the beating it took like a champ. That truly amazed me, and more than ever reinforced my view that BK&T makes some of the greatest blades out there.
