Commando dagger

L

L.T

Joined
Aug 13, 2005
Messages
91
What do people think of the sykes faribain british commando knife? Does anyone know where to get the fairbain or the kbar for less?
 
The Sykes Fairbairn [correct spelling] is sometimes referred to as a "light duty" combat knife !!! The point is weak and tended to break off. There are much better combat knifes including the Kbar.
 
As mete says the brittish commando dagger was rather light duty. For that type of dagger you'd be better off with an Applegate-Fairbairn design. Regardless, a way to find a few "commando knife" variants is to go to Brigade Quartermaster and use the keyword search to find "commando". That will pull up 4 pages of stuff including several daggers and knives. The "Q" knives (sometimes erroneously called Quartermaster Knives) were probably the best Commando Knives that came out of WWII.
www.actiongear.com
 
I'd be interested in getting a dagger, just because. Not for any specific purpose, I don't have any double edge knives. I'd prefer a decent quality "user" rather than a fancy wallhanger or expensive limited edition. Any suggestions as to which ones might be quality? I can just go by price, but thats not as good as a recommendation here!
 
The modern version of it is the Applegate-Fairbairn Combat II made by Boker. Also the SOG Desert Dagger is similar, and is pretty nice.
 
S-F daggers are cool, but are too weak for utility use. A-F daggers on the other hand are so thick that they really aren't any good at slicing anything, only stabbing. However, the single edged A-F dagger is a great work knife. For strictly SD use, the only advantages the Applegate version offer are an improved crossguard to prevent snapping your thumbnail while doing a thrust, and the handle is shaped so you know where the blade is.

The bottom line is any version of the S-F knife is a great SD knife, because it will kill an attacker, and if it breaks in the proccess, who cares?.
 
I would not buy a stainless steel version of the SF dagger, regardless of its quality. Stainless is just not tough enough. I would look for something made of 1085, 1095, or 5160 carbon steel. I would only want it hardened to 50 or so rockwell.
 
Hi There
just to continue this, my last knife from the above supplier was in O-1. he can have the blades made to whatever spec you want. Both the blade maker and the cutler live about 10 mins from me and I can assure anyone wanting to obtain a FS replica for " show or go" that this is it. research, testing and production are all top class, albeit on a small scale.
Phil
 
GarageBoy said:
Just buy the other commando knife, the Ek 1 - 4
Click to expand...

I wonder, how many knives are permitted to be designated as "commando" by the British Ministry of Defense... The S-F is one of them... the Ek is another...
is there some place we can research this?
 
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