Battle Rat Bested by T-Bone

Cheer up Blaine. I can understand your pain at damaging your knife (but not perhaps your anger). Anyway Jennifer made you an excellent and fair offer. Send the knife back and trust that it will be made right. It could have been worse. The response could have been "what knife?" The guys will probably rattle your chain for a while ( e.g. marshmallow parody thread) but hey we all learn (painlessly) from others' mistakes. So we have all benefitted from your experience and suffering. That's one reason I visit the forum - to learn. I doubt I'll use my knife on chopping up bones without adjusting the edge bevel at least. Oh and by the way you might want to be cautious of coconuts. I just read where a guy broke the tip of his Kershaw Vapor trying to cut a hole in one. ;)
 
Anything can be broken. The Army used to be so paranoid that they would continuously test and retest things until they broke and then say "see, it did fail". In this day and age of "sharpened prybars" this kind of "test" was and is inevitable by someone who doesn't understand the statement "the right tool for the job". Wanna cut bone? use a bone saw. in a survival situation, your knife would have done the job, (it did cut through the bone) and would have still been able to be used for other tasks. like assaulting cutting boards. Anyway, as usual, team swamprat stands behind their word. It's no wonder we all buy knives from such a decent company. I hear that the "other" company that uses swamprats stuff in the daytime makes some pretty good stuff too. ;) :D
 
Chopping up Stormtroopers is covered by the warranty? :eek: Cooool! :cool: How would my BR hold up against a lightsaber? :confused: Would SR still cover me? ;)
 
It is impossible for anyone to make one tool that will do every job imaginable perfectly. Only a simpleton would expect to be able shave with a brick chisel or cut bricks with a straight razor without disappointment.
 
I didn't swing the blade down on concrete in a rage to break it, I swung it at the bone in a rage to break it with one blow. The resulting impact shattered the bone, the cutting board, and cut through a bit of the concrete floor.

Not sure why it would chip, though.
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Uh, gee - I just hacked my way through a bone, a cutting board and a concrete floor and my knife's edge CHIPPED! Holy crap! Who would have thought!

I'd like to add that in my experience the quality/density of a cinderblock is quite a bit lower than most concrete slabs used for subfloors.
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That's true from what I've seen too. Solid concrete slabs are a *LOT* harder than cinder blocks!

What it boils down to is this: ANY knife blade steel will chip. No steel is magic. No steel will chop through metal, concrete, bone, etc. all day and just require a light sharpening. Sure, Busse and Swamp Rat knives are great! Are they mystical or magical? Nope. Just sharpen your knife!

Should you send it back to the factory?! Damn! How screwed up is it!?!? I'll bet 20 minutes on a stone would have it right back to where it was before. I doubt any knife will cut through the materials you describe with one blow without suffering any damage whatsoever. Sheesh - next time you try to cut stuff like that, use a chainsaw or a cutting torch!
 
AntDog said:
What it boils down to is this: ANY knife blade steel will chip.
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hate to mention this :rolleyes: but i beleive the statement made by jerry still stands that they have never had one of their knives (busse {infi}) chip out, they always iether dented or rolled...
 
i beleive the statement made by jerry still stands that they have never had one of their knives (busse {infi}) chip out, they always iether dented or rolled
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Really? I have never heard that. So nobody has ever chipped a Busse knife, ever? INFI is an absolutely GREAT steel, but it is after all just steel...
 
It is steel with absolutely incredible ductility, though, that is really reluctant to fragment. It can be damaged, do not doubt, but as has been said it will roll, dent, and twist all out of shape rather than chip--which is impressive at 60RC. :cool:
 
the term used on the busse site is "mealiability at high hardness"

definitely - you'll mess up your edge, BAD, but it wont chip (lose a chunk of blade from fragmentation)
 
Hmmm I have chipped INFI on bone,wasnt big chips but small ones that I could see, it dented on a nail but on bone I managed to get 3 small chips for what its worth.
 
Featherstone,

So you chipped INFI on bone? What blade was that? Can you post pics? I'm not trying to question your integerity, but, I would have to see it to believe it.

Thanks
 
What about the SR101 that Swamp Rat uses? Is it as ductile as INFI? Have any tests been made on both steels testing them head to head? I'm only asking because if they really are THAT good, I'm planning on buying at least a couple.

INFI is my favorite blade steel by a long shot, and if SR101 can even come close to it's performance I'll be happy with it.
 
Hi kuanomar,

I dont have any pictures of it,I dont even own a digital camera,The blade was my buddies straight handle Battle Mistress,I use to own one but traded it a while back.

When I say chips I dont mean large chunks of steel,They were small chips that sharpend out over time(couple of sharpenings) and didnt ruin the cutting edge.
What was strange is on hitting a nail the edge dented,but with bone it chipped.

These were very small chips,I mean the size of a pen head. Trust me I was shocked as you are and didnt want to believe it as we had chopped alot of wood(hard wood) and other materials without any problems,but on that first swing on bone it chipped.
 
INFI is my favorite blade steel by a long shot, and if SR101 can even come close to it's performance I'll be happy with it.
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You will be happy with SR101,It got me out of a bad wreck.Its strong stuff and holds its edge very well.
 
SR-101 (expertly treated 52100) is an extremely tough steel--I have never exceeded a Swamp Rat's limits. I put it on the same level as similarly tempered O-1 as a hard use, high performance steel--and the Swamp offers that in knives that cost little more than other factory knives and far less than most customs.

That said, the price climb to Busse INFI is not just for the name. The only steel (in my experience, which is admittedly limited) that performs like INFI in terms of being so tough and still holding an edge so well is 3V, and it doesn't have INFI's corrosion resistance.

Most of that difference, though, becomes apparent only after truly extensive testing and abuse, not typical use (again, in my experience). I have several Busses and Swamp Rat's, and which I use depends on what I feel like using at the time. You'll be happy with a Rat. :)
 
Hi, Blain,
Thanks for info. I thought to buy Battle Rat for my wife’s kitchen. Well, not any more. Nevertheless, don’t be too disappointed with your knife. I also dented my Busse and was as much surprised as you because when you read information about Busse knives you get impression as if you cannot destroy them. But now I know what is the limit of my Busse and look after my knife better.
As you could see from this forum, many people would agree that these knives are made mainly for survival and military use. IMO it meets this criteria very well because it is tough enough to chop and small enough to use as a knife. And you can rely on it 100%. Yes, it may dent, but it will still cut and shouldn’t break. Of course, some people might also mention that combination of an axe and Scandinavian knife would do the job better, but I think Busse and Swamp Rat are made for people who for some reason don’t want or cannot to carry both axe and knife. In civilian life it might have quite a limited use. But I feel much more comfortable by having Busse as a backup when I travel.
Regards,
 
on my howling rat, it got several dings in the edge that i tried to burnish out, but couldnt (mainly because i dont have a clamp set up to give me a nice area to work worth. its really difficult to do any kind of burnishing when holding the knife in your lap)

they look like chips taken out of the blade, but when you let the light play over it, there is a circular flat spot where they are on the edge, idicating that its not a chip, but a dent. the hard core kind that you can really see whats going on are when you hit a nail really hard on accident, and you can actually see the steel mushroom out on the sides of the dent, then you can see where the steel is going. but on the smaller ones, it just looks like the steel is missing because the mushroom effect is so small.

at least, thats what ive found
 
OmegaA,
The BR would still work, but you would do well to do as Jennifer said and tell Eric what you plan on doing with the knife, so that they can increase the edge bevel if needs be.
Warren
 
Funny thing is that I have a chinese cleaver that chops pork bones (normally ribs and thinner leg bones) and everything else regularly w/o damages. I just resharpen it on my steel and it slices tomato! It stains a little so I don't think it is Stainless and I won't say its cheap but not anything that is past $25 and under 10. I won't chop bones with any of my knives maybe a saw if it is too thick.
About coconut, don't poke it, just put a triangular piece of rock or small sharp point object on floor and smash the coconut down on it. The force of gravity will cause the point to pierce through and break the shell. Then you use a blade to peel out the shell and husk. 100% works!
 
I think that you hit it with the "won't chop if they are too thick" comment. The different bones of a body are as different as the different cuts of meat. Large, central, structural-core bones are much tougher than the smaller ones. Plus, not being ridiculous with how much force you put behind the swing is also a good idea.
 
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