Chris Reeve Green Beret?

[muzzleup]

Sorry, I think my quote might have been taken slightly wrong. Bill did not co-DESIGN the Applegate-Fairbairn fixed blade model. The Col. did that with W.E. Fairbairn. Actually, what Bill did was MAKE the thing as a serialized, handmade knife, which is pretty hard to do.
STeven Garsson

STeven, Then if my Boker Applegate/Fairbairns have serial numbers on the hilts then that means that Bill Harsey made the knife?

Ciao
Ron Cassel
rccassel1@comcast.net

 

[Kohai999]

The Harsey made knives say "Bill Harsey, Maker, Creswell, Oregon" on the other side of the blade. The Bokers are serialized, but not handmade.

The production versions of this knife were done first by Al Mar in stainless steel, probably AUS6, made in Japan, then BlackJack, in A2 in the early 90's, now Boker in 440C.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

 

[muzzleup]

STeven,
Thanks for the clarification.

Ron

 

[Kohai999]

How do you like this?

Chris and Bill have been FRIENDS for a long time, and Bill had the idea on paper for the GB, and they decided to work on it together.

That just blows me away! In this supposed age of Corporate heartlessness, the owner of a successful business goes into a project with a friend to make something cool.

The naysayers and dipsticks can say what they want, but to me, that is an even better reason to buy this knife if you like it.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

 

[muzzleup]

I hope this works;
C
:\Documents and Settings\Ron & Cassel\My Documents\My Pictures\imiges\agreat_pair.jpeg.JPG

 

[muzzleup]

[img=http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/4623/agreatpairjpeg9ge.th.jpg]
Does not look like I am doing so well!!!:jerkit:
Still can't seem to post an image here....HELP

Ciao,
Ron

 

[Sword and Shield]

Were not asking you. Cliff is what he is and more than a few people know it. He is more than aware of my dislike for him and his testing. You seem like a smart guy...why jump on the Cliffy bandwagon when you can do the same testing yourself? Or are you afraid to damage the knife you paid good money for? I look at this way...I buy knives based on what my intended purpose of the knife will be. If I need to chop wood, I buy an axe or a good wood chopping knife. If I need to filet fish, I buy a filet knife. If I need to bust up cinder blocks, I buy a sledgehammer. I don't need Cliff and his testing to dictate to me what knife is good and what knife isn't. I'm pretty sure I can do that on my own as I have been collecting and using knives for over 20 years now. Many of those knives have been used in the field and in harsh enviroments when I was in the military. I know what makes a good knife and I know what knives work for me. Everyone takes his testing as gospel and let him do the thinking for them (or lack thereof depending on how you look at it). I am more than capable of drawing my own conclusions. I suggest you do the same.

Man, if only the chiclets were still around... about 50 greens for that.

I've crossed swords with Cliff over on KF more than once, and I come back to the same thing. I can break any knife in the world, and a thin Queen folder will obviously break before a Cam Maxx. I buy knives to cut. If I want to break cinder blocks, I get a shovel. Chop? An axe or large knife. Cut? A thin-blade folder that will fail Cliff's Destructotests.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Let me ask you this Cliff....did Chris Reeve approach you to conduct a test on his knife or did you just take it upon yourself to test it?

It was donated by a user, since this very thread started I have been asked to do almost a dozen reviews, every time one of these threads explodes it always has the same result, which is kind of ironic considering the obvious considered purpose.

Some of the work requested is as noted likely to damage the knife, many people are interested in this specifically, most of the makers ask for confirmation because you are always leary of being baised about work you are selling, especially when you are comparing your product to direct competition.

I am in an email exchange now with a S30V maker who is sharing what it takes to damage the edges on his knives and I intend to duplicate it and try some more things and see what happens. Then you compare this to the edge retention peformance for abrasion and hardness and settle on a compromise of toughness, strength and wear resistance and corrosion resistance, you can't have them all maximal at the same time.

... in honesty and knowledge.

There are lots of guys on the forum very high in both, most of the work I do in regards to cutting/edge retention and such is based on work done by Joe Talmadge and Mike Swaim, Joe is still active. There are lots of guys that give honest feedback and don't let a personal bias have much influence, ask Jeff Clark for example about sharpening. There are lots of people with neither but they are trivial to spot because they never apply the same criteria consistently.

[secondary hardening]

...we do not temper in the heat range that causes that to happen.

There is the same concern with under soaking, you need a high Cr% percentage in the austenite to get corrosion resistance and if you under soak to reduce the carbon percentage so as to drop the as quenched hardness you also risk losing corrosion resistance because you will leave too much chromium undissolved. You get optimal corrosion resistance with high hardness generally, see Verhoevens work where he discusses this in detail refering to the austenite solute percentages. I asked Crucible about this last year and got the same responce, underhardening to 55 HRC does risk corrosion resistance loss in S30V. I have soaked a Green Beret and harder S30V blade recently and noticed the Beret rusting significantly quicker, corrosion is random though, you need to repeat that kind of thing a few times. Of course reduction does not mean reduce to zero, just less than optimal.

Mild steel DOES NOT hold up when making a game animal of any size into usable food when used from the kill to the finish work that puts meat in the freezer. That statement is simply naive.

I have used mild steel blades, with proper sharpening you can easily cut 126 pieces of 3/8" hemp on a draw with an increase in force from 20 to 40 pounds on a draw, the knife still of course has lots of edge left in it and would still readily slice flesh. Kevin Cashen has noted that a properly prepared mild steel blade can chop through a 2x4 and still shave, not simply still cut, but still shave arm hair, now if it can still violently chop into wood and still shave how much flesh could it cut before it would fail.

Mild steel is very strong compared to many of the blade materials used for a long time for such work which even includes bone and some really soft metal alloys. I know traditional makers who use mild steel and aluminum alloys for small blades for food work and wood carving and such. While mild steel is soft, is it still a lot harder and very wear resistant compared to flesh, it doesn't tend to work well for cutting bone, but lots of well respected hunting knives won't do that either.

I have no and by this I mean absolutely NO interest in testing any other makers work.

This is necessary in order to debate the origional comparison I made to the other knives listed.

Since you have such a vast expertise in the field of knives, alloys and testing procedures you should do the knife world a service and start producing your own line of knives.

I work with lots of makers who are interested in feedback to improve their product. I like using knives, they like making them, it seems ideal to me. You can of course buy any of those knives I listed as alternatives and compare them and thus illustrate why the Green Beret is superior and why the origional comparitative statement I made isn't well supported.

As for it being selected, for this to be meaningful it needs to be known what the other knife choices were and what were the selection criteria. Hilton Yam duplicated a series of Seal Trials on a bunch of knives and showed that the knife which was actually selected had very poor performance across the board, in many choices being outperformed several times to one by other knives.

Very few people on the forums (none that I have read) would actually pick the one that was chosen as the knife of choice if the others were available.

-Cliff

 

[T.K.C.]

How do you like this?

Chris and Bill have been FRIENDS for a long time, and Bill had the idea on paper for the GB, and they decided to work on it together.

That just blows me away! In this supposed age of Corporate heartlessness, the owner of a successful business goes into a project with a friend to make something cool.

The naysayers and dipsticks can say what they want, but to me, that is an even better reason to buy this knife if you like it.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

And how cool is that??? I would LOVE to get one of these babies someday!

 

[gunnerjohn]

Bill Harsey here,
Mr. Stamp, your listening and perception skills might need some work. I said I have no interest in testing other makers or companies knives. This also means I don't want to spend time talking about it.
There are many reasons for this, one of which is I do and am responsible for my own work and another is, how other companies make knives is none of my business and if I was to publish results that may be taken as negative comments about their product that could or would be actionable in a court of law.

You obviously have no such constraints.

Please note the United States Army Special Forces Yarborough knife was not chosen by members of an internet knife forum but rather by a group of combat and field experienced Special Forces men who have honorably earned the right to wear a hat called the Green Beret in their day and night job and are willing to die to protect the freedoms of many in this world, not just US Citizens.

If they picked the wrong knife, it's their problem to solve, not yours.

How this knife was chosen is certainly none of yours, anybody on any internet forum or my business.

You can say or do anything you want with any knife you want because you have no responsibility in the actual manufacturing or final result. This must be a nice position to operate from.
I do not have that luxury.

One last thing and please do this for the guys who graduated from BUDS and serve in special warfare, whenever you spell the term that stands for the members of the United States Naval Special Warfare combat swimmers, please use caps, the correct spelling at all times is SEAL.

 

[Twindog]

Hey Bill:

Thanks for posting here. I've never heard anything but good about you. And you can certainly be proud that your knife was chosen by special forces.

When I went to Vietnam in December 1967, I was just teenage fodder for for a war machine that chose the M16 as its primary infantry weapon. My rifle jammed the very first time I fired it in battle. Pretty crummy feeling when my only back-up weapon was the cleaning rod stored in the stock. The problem was that the military or MacNamara or someone decided not to chrome the chamber, so rounds tended to jam, even though this rifle was "selected in a rigorous competition by miltary experts."

What I quickly learned -- and what we're also seeing in Iraq -- is that the average dog face will quickly figure out what works in real life, regardless of what the experts say.

So I really like Cliff's tests. I was glad to see you post about one of the potential problems with S30V that you have taken pains to avoid. That tells me you know this steel and the capability of this knife. Thanks. But other knifemakers haven't learned that yet. Cliff's tests on an RSK that he resharpened several times, specifying exactly how he resharpened it, were really useful. His "destructive" test was just light whittling of hardwood, and the blade failed badly. Cliff's tests match my experience with some knives in that steel, but not others.

From your posts and what I've heard about you, I expect the Green Beret is an excellent knife and you have figured out how to make a great knife out of S30V.

I also was really interested in the website for Trident knives that was linked in another thread, which shows the knifemaker hammering an S30V blade into an anvil and carving a notch out of it. No damage. I'd love to see Cliff duplicate that test. The Trident website also linked to an independent magazine that took its knife to failure just to show how strong it is compared to other knives. I'd like to see every maker showing some level of hard testing of their knives -- and not the cheesy stuff that CS does -- so we buyers know what to expect. Until that happens, we have Cliff and a few others on this forum.

 

[muzzleup]

Hey guys, who like the Green Berets and the Neil Roberts take a look at my photos of the G.B. 5.5" and the N.R. leather sheaths that I got from CRK.
I just posted the pics. a few minutes ago.
Here I will put it up here too.

Ciao
Ron Cassel
:thumbup:

 

[3Guardsmen]

Bill Harsey here,
Mr. Stamp, your listening and perception skills might need some work.

Not from where I'm sitting, sir. If anything, Cliff strikes me as a very astute individual. The quantity and substance of his posts accurately reflect that, to me at least.

I said I have no interest in testing other makers or companies knives. This also means I don't want to spend time talking about it.
There are many reasons for this, one of which is I do and am responsible for my own work and another is, how other companies make knives is none of my business and if I was to publish results that may be taken as negative comments about their product that could or would be actionable in a court of law.

You obviously have no such constraints.

Of course not, sir. After all this is a forum for open knife discussion, is it not? Cliff answered the pointed questions you raised, and now you seem to be deriding him for doing so. If you did not want to hear his answers, why did you ask the specific questions you did?

Please note the United States Army Special Forces Yarborough knife was not chosen by members of an internet knife forum but rather by a group of combat and field experienced Special Forces men who have honorably earned the right to wear a hat called the Green Beret in their day and night job and are willing to die to protect the freedoms of many in this world, not just US Citizens.

If they picked the wrong knife, it's their problem to solve, not yours.


How this knife was chosen is certainly none of yours, anybody on any internet forum or my business.

I sense a mild disdain, in the tone of your post, not only for Cliff, but for people on "internet knife forums" discussing the knife in question? Is this an accurate assessment, sir? If so, I would like to know why that is? Isn't one of the "freedoms of many in this world" the right to openly discuss knives on an "internet knife forum"?

You can say or do anything you want with any knife you want because you have no responsibility in the actual manufacturing or final result. This must be a nice position to operate from.
I do not have that luxury.

I can certainly appreciate what you are saying, however, I also appreciate the fact that there are a few people, on this very forum, who are willing to subject their knives to tests for the benefit of the many. I would think that would be looked upon as a good thing, since we, the members of an "internet knife forum" should not be privy to, by your own statements, how a certain knife is chosen for a specific designation.

One last thing and please do this for the guys who graduated from BUDS and serve in special warfare, whenever you spell the term that stands for the members of the United States Naval Special Warfare combat swimmers, please use caps, the correct spelling at all times is SEAL.

I absolutely agree with you here, The U.S Naval Special Warfare Teams, when referred to by acronym, should be written, SEALs. However, the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, when referred to by acronym, should be written, BUD/S, not "BUDS".

I am actually a fan of your knives, Mr. Harsey. However, I do not like seeing Cliff or any other members getting trashed on for expressing their opinions. Just because Cliff noticed and documented specific behavior in a certain knife, it doesn't mean he is trashing the Designer/Manufacturer of that knife. He tests knives, plain and simple.

Best wishes,
3G

 

[gunnerjohn]

3Guardsman,
Harsey here,
Sir, I'm stating exact fact when I said that the knife in question was not chosen by members of an internet forum.
If I wanted to show disdain, I simply never would have replied here.

I never asked Mr. Stamp if I should test other peoples knives and he said I should do so after I already stated I wouldn't. Listening skills?

If I choose to state an opinion trashing Mr. Stamp on an internet forum, my posts would leave no uncertainty. To date this has been a polite conversation.

Please understand one thing, after well over thirty years of working steel, I have done my share of testing and observations.

When "work" like Mr. Stamps is published via the internet, it is then properly subject to scrutiny which I think is something he should know about given his schooling.

I have been exposed to enough science to know that many normal controls for testing are not present in Mr. Stamps testing procedures and I know enough about steels and edges to question things that you guys haven't.
Here's an example: If one uses rock to judge the chopping ability of a knife's edge, is the same rock used for all knives? Many rocks have many hardnesses ranging from quite soft to extremely hard. In the interest of science I'm surprised that none of you have asked this question.

Mr. Stamp has done more than just test our knife, he published his stated opinion which was a "thumbs down" on the purchase of the Green Beret Knife.

He is no longer a neutral "scientific observer" as he claims.

Mr. Stamp,
Good news that you are getting more requests about testing from this thread. Stick with me, I'll make ya famous.

Bill Harsey

 

[banthony]

Just my opinion, yours may well vary:

A comparison of the content, clarity and sensibility of Mr. Harsey's comments versus Cliff's comments is like comparing a comment on physics by Einstein versus Hulk Hogan.

This does not mean I do not find Cliff's reviews interesting nor that I do not respect Cliff for what he contributes. I do.

Thank you Mr. Harsey for explaining the research behind selecting S30v for a fine knife.

 

[DaveH]

Many Cliff's detractors claim 1) He's not scientific 2) he has an agenda. IMO all those people who say that, need to shutup. I see very few of them lifting a finger or spending even a dollar of their money to provide ANY kind of tests.
Cliff is the ONLY person that "tests" knives in an organized manner. If you don't like what or how he does, why not instead of complaining, offer us an alternative source of information?

I'm a little surprised at the attitude that how other people make knives is not your business, personally I'd like to see what others are doing, especially if it's a good idea in implementation or technique that I can use or share with others. It seems that openess and the sharing of ideas is a good thing and should be encouraged.

 

[Twindog]

The reason that these types of threads commonly devolve into personal attacks is that there is no independent organization doing standardized testing of knives.

A knife like the Green Beret should be tested as a member of fixed-blade survival/tactical/utility, or some such category. It sould be compared to SR Camp Tramp, Busse Natural Outlaw, Gerber BMF, etc. Then an independent organization, something like UL for Knives, would perform standardized tests for how well the knife holds an edge, how well it cuts, how easily it can be resharpened, how well it resists edge deformation, how well it resists lateral forces before breaking, etc.

Obviously, gentleman's slip joints would be in a different group from tactical knives.

But we buyers need performance information about knives just as much as we do about tires.

Until the knifemakers themselves organize and help fund an independent testing organization, all we have to go on is the tests of individuals, even if some of those testing efforts are imperfect.

 

[hardheart]

no one is going to accept that their knife got last place in an independent test, the controls and testing will never be adequate. You'd have to repeat the results a thousand times to counter complaints about sample sizes, manufacturing variances, bad heat treat, difference in the composition of the cardboard and hemp used to test the first place knife because the last place blade had to cut through a box that was 90% clay and rope littered with small pebbles in the lay, bias and favoritism if the one of the testers had a beer after a knife show 15 years ago in Podunk, ufo keys hidden in the tang, etc.

 

[Denix]

I always hesitate to post in these threads.

First of all, most people here know far more about knives than I ever will, and I certainly don't know much in terms of steel. Second of all, I have tremendous respect for the vast majority of you here. I've been on bladeforums almost daily for the last 5 years, and I like almost everyone here. I just enjoy reading more than writing

I like to think things logically though, and throughout this thread something kept bothering me: numbers.

Lets look at some numbers:

CRK has been using S30V for what, 4-5 years now. Lets say that means over 5000 knives (no idea what the actual production is, but it can't be lower than that).

Spyderco has used S30V since the Native I believe. You have Native, Military, Paramilitary and probably a few more. Lets say 10,000 knives (probably much more).

Benchmade, lets use the same number, 10,000.

How about the others? Would 20,000 be fair?

I'm coming up to almost 50,000 knives using S30V, by being deliberately cautious. If the steel had an inherent weakness, we wouldn't hear of a "few" reports of chipping. The steel would have gone the way of the dinosaurs years ago. I mean we would have had massive posts on the subject, and with all the choices, the manufacturers would have stopped using it. They would have no logical reason to "hide the truth" and make us believe that S30V is better. Just look at Spyderco. Sal can probably get all the VG-10 he needs, and has used AUS-6, AUS-8, 440V, ZDP-189, ATS-55, MBS-26, and I know I'm missing some. Why stick with a bad steel with all those choices? Not logical.

I wouldn't be surprised if over a third of us here have an S30V knife. I have one (Sebenza) and I bought an S30V Native for my father in law for his birthday about 3 years ago. My Sebenza doesn't get much duty, but my father in law uses his Native for everything, including prying I've sharpened his knife a few times and never noticed any chipping. With that many around, I just don't buy into a steel defect, unless my estimates are really wild on the high side, and I just happen to be one of the very few that have S30V.

If we tally all the authentic S30V chipping posts, what do we come up with? 20? 50? I think that's high. Cliff has documented 3, I believe (1 Sebenza, and recently 2 RSK's). I've read of at least 5-10 others here, maybe a bit more. Then add all the ones we don't know about. 50 may be a good working number.

So, by my undoubtably poor math, we get 50 problems out of 50,000. that comes to .1%:jerkit:

I think it would be fun if someone could actually do the math correctly and try to find the real percentage. I honestly believe it would help determine if we have a real problem or not.

Long live BF :thumbup:

Guy

P.S. I do believe this is my longest post ever

 

[Temper]

This surely is a vexing one.

Everyone in Knifenutdom knows of Mr. Harsey and Chris Reeve, their reputation is as solid as a foundation stone. I have spoken to Anne on various occasions and the impression that she left me with of Mr. Reeve is one of acute attention to detail and a thorough design and thought process before commiting to a specific design.
We all know who Crucible is, they are not exactly a fly by night operation and I suspect that Mr. Reeve would not use their material for any other reason than it suits the design of his and Mr. Harseys knife the best.

So in short, 2 guys at the top of their game made a knife.

Then we have Cliff, an independent knife tester.

Let me say this, I appreciate what Cliff does, I don't like seeing stuff being beaten to hell and back for the sake of it, as I view most knives as having a limited scope of intended work. However, if we dont see how far it can go we can't have a mental benchmark.

So, whats the deal here? Something isnt 'Jake' Cliff's tests may lack some consistency in terms of medium being cut but we shouldnt dismiss them out of hand.

Personally I dont think that 'IF' there was a problem with S30V the design of the blade or the HT that the key players in this would'nt have the integrity to correct it.

So, does this leave us with an 'Agenda' or just 'Calling it as its seen'

vexing..