buck 119 chipping first time out???

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GuyWithaFewKnives

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i love buck knives and their heat treatment, but after getting a new a buck 119bks, and using it too baton through some firewood, it ended up with major edge damage, some serious denting in not 1, but 2 different spots, i really had more faith in buck knives, but this event has shaken it, is this a fluke event, or are buck 119s really just not that good of a knife, only people with years of experience with a buck 119 please
 
Not sure that using a hunting knife to baton wood and getting less the perfect performance is a quality issue. Some members on the Buck forum have posted that they have used their 119 to baton without issue so maybe it's a technique thing or maybe it was a knot in the wood. I have a number of 119's and have never had an issue with them but I also don't use them to baton wood. IMHO they just aren't designed for that use. Can you just not sharpen out the dents?
 
well, ya i can sharpen out the dents, but not without taking significant metal off, which after the first use, just doesnt feel good, maybe youre right, maybe i just have sh-tty technique, but i test all the new knives i get out in the same way, and havent seem to of had the same problems with other knives, even cheaper smaller ones
 
and just for reference were talking about 2x6s, 2x8s, and 2x10s from home depot, ya they have a few knots, but in my opinion fairly soft wood compared to the chunks of pine i have out there
 
Pictures would help. Not sure what you're testing for by batoning. Do you baton a new fillet knife? Batoning through lumber shouldn't be that hard on a blade so perhaps you 119 was ground a little thin at the edge. They are done by hand. To each their own but I feel a better test for a knife would be to use it as intended and see how it performs.
 
Badhammer said:
Pictures would help. Not sure what you're testing for by batoning. Do you baton a new fillet knife? Batoning through lumber shouldn't be that hard on a blade so perhaps you 119 was ground a little thin at the edge. They are done by hand. To each their own but I feel a better test for a knife would be to use it as intended and see how it performs.
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lol, no bud, i wouldnt baton a new fillet knife......i guess i dont test "every" knife the same way, but the ones i would hope to take out in the wild for hunting/survival i do, and for me, theres just something discomforting about so much edge damage on the first run through home depot lumber, maybe it was ground a little thin start with, it was very sharp
 
The 119 is a decent knife. It performs better in real life than it should on paper. Buck really gets the best possible out of that steel.

However, its a "hunting" knife. Its intended mainly for skinning and cutting meat, with some light camping chores second. As such it has a relatively thin hollow ground edge bevel despite having a fairly thick spine (just eyeballing it appears ~4.5mm). Its clearly designed as a slicer and battoning with it was a bad move in my opinion. That is outside its design intentions.

If you want to baton I have no issue with it, but try it with a knife designed for it, like a heavy duty chopper/camp/bushcraft knife.

Also there are ways around battoning. I can split 2-4 inch logs with a Victorinox using the saw. Saw half way through a log and then bang it against a tree or a rock and it will split down the middle. Its actually pretty efficient. I was surprised the first time I tried it after seeing it done.
 
solid advice collim, im sure im guilty of having too high of expectations for knives at times, and ya, real world i use a saw, but for not for "testing", and i probably overly abuse some knives first run out, but i had hopes of the 119 being the one knife i need for an outdoors emergency situation, so i wasnt careful with it during my test run
 
The Buck 119 is meant for skinning and cutting meat, it's not meant to be a camp knife or a "survival knife". You should no more baton wood with a 119 than you should enter the Daytona 500 with a Ford Focus.
 
Can you imagine a Ford Focus out there on the track amongst 800 horsepower screaming machines? Boy, that is a picture and a half. I agree that the Buck 119 is a good hunting blade. The edge is ground very fine even though the spine is 3/16th of an inch thick, so in theory, it is not a survival blade by any stroke of the imagination, simply a superb all-rounder chiefly used in the role of meat processing and general camp chores. The 119 is a classic piece that has great balance in the hand. It also benefits from a decent price point. I have never had issues with chipping, but then again, I am not an advocate of using this knife in conjunction with any type of mallet.

These days, I use a Silky saw for most of my wood processing!
 
I've used my older model to chop hardwood limbs with no edge damage. The worst thing about it is the slick plastic grip when doing so, as it came out of my hand a few times. So, I do not use it for hard chopping any longer.
 
How many Years have you had malleting a knife thru something (wood)?
This sort of thing is in vogue right now.
The early Buck knives would fair better at this activity. They were designed with a thicker edge. Once you find a knife that will withstand malleting, don't expect it to excel in slicing tests. DM
 
Yes, Batoning with the 119 was the wrong move, but hey, you learned something from it. Small mistakes only become a problem if we don't learn from them. If you want to baton with a knife, a flat ground carbon steel knife is a much better candidate.
 
GuyWithaFewKnives said:
i love buck knives and their heat treatment, but after getting a new a buck 119bks, and using it too baton through some firewood, it ended up with major edge damage, some serious denting in not 1, but 2 different spots, i really had more faith in buck knives, but this event has shaken it, is this a fluke event, or are buck 119s really just not that good of a knife, only people with years of experience with a buck 119 please
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On a Buck thread something like this came up -- not in regard to the Buck 119 but in regard to the more formidable Buck 124: Would it do all the camp-craft stuff, baton wood etc? I recently came from the Becker Forum during which I acquired every Becker knife I thought suitable for hiking -- not camping -- but I absorbed the mind-set to some extent of Ethan Becker's philosophy. His "one knife that would do all things during an Armageddon situation" was his BK2; which I acquired -- an awfully heavy knife to hike with but I've taken it out several times. It is a bit short to do constant batonning, but the BK7 with a blade a bit longer than the 119 but about the same as a 124 would do better. Just about all the survivalists praise the BK7. The blade thickness of the BK7 is about the same as the 119 and 124, maybe slightly thicker but the design of the BK7, as Badhammer might imply, is suited to batonning. Any knife can be broken but you'd have to work at it a bit harder if you are using a BK7.

As to the 124, I'm sure it will do the chores you have in mind better than the 119 but it is more expensive; so why not get a BK2 or BK7 or some other such knife (for less money) that was built to satisfy the current fad for making fire without matches?

As others indicate the 119 is not a do-everything knife. Maybe only the BK2 qualifies in that regard. The 119 satisfies my need for a do-everything-I-can-think-of hiking knife. If I wanted to start a fire -- not something allowed in drought-ridden Southern California -- I'd probably use matches.

Just yesterday I watched a video of someone beating the heck out of a Buck Hoodlum, trying to pound it through the middle of a stout piece of what looked like hardwood. He broke the knife at the point where there is a little groove -- a feature I wouldn't like in any knife -- and broke the knife. He then ranted at Buck for producing a defective knife and cursed Buck in advance for not intending to live up to its warranty. I'm sorry but I don't agree with that sort of thinking. Any knife can be broken. For example, Ethan Becker created a BK3 as a tactical tool -- a pry-bar with an edge. He intended it to be nearly unbreakable and speaks of only two reports of one being broken. One occurred during Hurricane Katrina. The Police had lost the keys and were unable to unlock cells to get prisoners out before the area was flooded. They used a BK3 to pry open the door. Just as the door opened the BK3 snapped in two. Becker sent them a new BK3 even though the police reporting the incident were praising the BK3 as doing something beyond their expectation. The 119 of course isn't like a BK3. In my case I hike and don't need a heavy-duty pry bar so I have a 119, several in fact, but no BK3. And I probably won't be using my Becker knives on hikes as often as I do my Buck knives, but I like having a knife for every purpose as opposed to having just one knife I want to do everything with.

Lawrence
 
all good advice, but from the sounds of it, the main problem is the thin edge not the actual batoning, hell ive even batoned my little 110 through some small pieces before without problems, im assuming if i spend some time putting on new edge that isnt so thin, it would be more of what im looking for out of it, although the false edge on top doesnt lend it to being a great batoner even with a thicker edge, so ill probably just leave well enough alone, resharpen and use it the knife as intended
 
Hey, the 119 was one of my very first fixed blades ever. As a kid I would go on hunting trips (my dad, friends and their dads), I saw them bag a White Tail and use the old 119, for processing and skinning. As a 10 year old seeing that for the first time, I was very impressed and developed a deep appreciation for hard working cutlery. :thumbup:
Regardless of what happened to your 119, it's still one heck of a good value and has a lot of history.
 
RevDevil said:
Hey, the 119 was one of my very first fixed blades ever. As a kid I would go on hunting trips (my dad, friends and their dads), I saw them bag a White Tail and use the old 119, for processing and skinning. As a 10 year old seeing that for the first time, I was very impressed and developed a deep appreciation for hard working cutlery. :thumbup:
Regardless of what happened to your 119, it's still one heck of a good value and has a lot of history.
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Yeah, the 119 has been around for along time and has processed a lot of game over the years, that and the 110 are for the most part extremely popular and easy to get.

Still remember a lot of guys had them in the USMC back when I was in from 82-86, either those or K-BAR's for the most part.
 
Agreed, the 119 still has a good reputation on many cutlery activities. Thank you for serving Jim. Here is my 119, a 1981 model. They have gone thru a few changes since then. DM
 
GuyWithaFewKnives said:
i love buck knives and their heat treatment, but after getting a new a buck 119bks, and using it too baton through some firewood, it ended up with major edge damage, some serious denting in not 1, but 2 different spots, i really had more faith in buck knives, but this event has shaken it, is this a fluke event, or are buck 119s really just not that good of a knife, only people with years of experience with a buck 119 please
Click to expand...

you should of used a hatchet or axe.
 
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