I learn to associate the acronyms with a certain shape/design, but no real logic to it that I see. Steel Hearts, Battle Mistresses, Jacks, Streets, etc.
I think the base names are more inspirational than specifically descriptive. I'm coming to this from the perspective of having bought a (really lovely) Mean Street back in the late 90's, and just now wandering, wide eyed, into the modern world of hundreds of Busse permutations. Back then,
from a novice outsiders view anyway, there were a few basic models, in increasing size: Mean Street, Badger Attack, Steel Heart, and (eventually) the Battle Mistress. (I think there was a smaller knife without scales too - the Recruit?). And the names were "just" names (i.e. what does "Camaro" really mean anyway?). And one blade finish, black epoxy. And one handle scale, black canvas micarta. And one steel, A2.
Come back now to find that things have evolved...
a lot. The prefixes are indeed modifiers (e.g. NM = Nuclear Meltdown = radiused edges all around the blade), but there's been a whole lot of
begating that's gone on, too: the Mean Street begat the Meaner Street and Leaner Mean Street, the Badger Attack begat the BATAC and the SOB, etc. And yeah, it's a lot to keep track of. I'm guessing there's a lot of inspired "what if" that goes on in front of the grinders. I'd love to see a Busse knives "family tree" chart, with lines showing what came from where, and names, thumbnail pics, and descriptions of what variation happened.
(And I really wish I'd bought a Badger Attack back then, lovely iconic shape with the gently dropping spine, really tall blade, straight handle with really substantial stops fore and aft, canvas micarta and smooth black epoxy coat. The modern Badger offspring just aren't the same.)
