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CS Recon Scout Fails Miserably
- Thread starter Nutnfancy
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Cliff Stamp
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This is only an issue if the handle is rubber, or wood or something that can't stand the impacts, and you are concerned about the grip material failing. The steel itself should never fail regardless of where you hit it with a piece of wood. In order for this to break the impact toughness of the steel would need to be near the as quenched level.Peoria46 said:
-Cliff
Questions for Cliff, everyone:
1. Cliff mentined that GB has 5160 steel. I guess, GB stands for Gränsfors Bruks. Is that true? I couldn't find any info about the GB steel. What is Rc hardness of the GB steel at the edge?
2. Compared CS Recon Scout and Fällkniven A-1, which one is supposed to be thougher? I guess Recon Scout, because of carbon steel (assuming a neither one is a lemon).
Franco
1. Cliff mentined that GB has 5160 steel. I guess, GB stands for Gränsfors Bruks. Is that true? I couldn't find any info about the GB steel. What is Rc hardness of the GB steel at the edge?
2. Compared CS Recon Scout and Fällkniven A-1, which one is supposed to be thougher? I guess Recon Scout, because of carbon steel (assuming a neither one is a lemon).
Franco
Even before seeing Nutnfancys pictures I didn't doubt that a good knife could dismantle a tree (never tried it in the winter though), but I will say that my personal choice of tools would be different: A decent size folder, small axe (hatchet) and a small saw. As to weight: the Scout Recon weighs in at 15 oz., a small axe weighs in at 10-15 oz (the small axe from BRKT, 1080 steel, convex polished edge 54-55 Rc, I just got to try out). So you might actually even save some weight! Have to correct myself...the BRKT is probalby a bit small, I guess I would go with a 1lb head
Lets state it this way, if you are afraid to hit the back of the knife with a wooden baton, how do you dare to hit a log with your axe, the situation is kind of symmetrical.
"If you even don't know that you don't know, you are in deeper trouble than it is possible to explain to you."
TLM
"If you even don't know that you don't know, you are in deeper trouble than it is possible to explain to you."
TLM
Cliff Stamp
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The edge is quite hard, ~ 58 HRC, as spec'ed. Most axes are in this range, usually made of of plain carbon steels, very similar to large knives. They usually used 5160 or L6 or some similar alloy with a different name.
As for not wanting to try it out, the whole reason you get a knife made like the Recon Scout (geometry wise) is so that it can hack and pry, all that metal drastically lowers its cutting ability, and the lower hardness loses edge retention. It is all about toughness for that type of blade.
If you don't want to do this, there are *much* better knives out there that will out cut the Recon Scout many times over. Now you can't baton them hard, the edge will just ripple, however the knife won't crack in half.
-Cliff
As for not wanting to try it out, the whole reason you get a knife made like the Recon Scout (geometry wise) is so that it can hack and pry, all that metal drastically lowers its cutting ability, and the lower hardness loses edge retention. It is all about toughness for that type of blade.
If you don't want to do this, there are *much* better knives out there that will out cut the Recon Scout many times over. Now you can't baton them hard, the edge will just ripple, however the knife won't crack in half.
-Cliff
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Franco G said:
Cold Steel's like a box of chocolates. Their QC makes it hard to say which knife will be tougher. With the A1, at whatever toughness it has, you should be able to get another A1 that's practically identical.
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Franco G said:
Just a note. Several here have described the SRK as 5/16" thick or as thick as a Trailmaster (5/16"). CS site says SRK is 3/16" thick. That is corect, right - 3/16"?
As to the question, you are comparing almost 1/4" thick laminated blade of softer/tougher steel and a harder core (420J and VG10 core [currently]) to a 3/16" single-tempered blade. Also heat-treatments are presumably different and final stated RC hardnesses are different. A-1 is shorter by about an inch. Not an easy comparison except by actual testing. Reviews of the A-1 after pretty extreme tests have not complained about toughness.
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4 Ranges said:
it didnt fail miserably because it was expected to do more then one task and failed to accomplish it. it failed miserably because it became basically unusable after the break. you could use it as a knife with a little reworking of the edge and some wrapping, but still, such a break = possibly doom.
id rather have 2" of the tip break off then have the handle break off. that is a catastophic failure of the knife, just like having the thing shatter would be a catastrophic, or "miserable" failure.
no knife meant for outdoor use, or "survival" use should ever break like that. it failed in a miserable way, so it failed miserably.
DaQo'tah Forge
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TLM
....well, my answer to your question is this:
That it is always best to be carefull in whatever you are doing when working with anything sharp...and so I would not use a knife to split wood, as that job is what my axe is better designed to do...
and in the same way, I don't think I would try to cut up the meat for my dinner guests with an axe, as my knife is better designed to do that.
so I would not be all that concerned that something would fail if I were useing a tool in a way and for a job it was designed to do. Cutting paper, cutting meat,,,,cutting many things is a good job for a knife.
But what about useing a knife for some heavy outdoor needs you have?
In that case, If there is any doubt as to the use of a tool for a job you need done, I would suggest you just write or call to the maker of that tool,,,(be it a hammer/knife/screwdriver,drill etc) and ask them if they intended their tool to be used in that manner....
EXAMPLE; I while I go I was reading in the Forum History of the testing of a knife. During the testing of a blade, the tester placed the knife in a vice, and put a pipe over the end, and then bent the blade.
Later the tester felt bad that he had bent another man's knife this way, so he attempted to blame the maker of the blade for what he felt was a design faw...
As I read this and thought to myself, "You take someone's knife, stick it in a vise to try to bend it over, and then act stunned the blade actually does bend?"
well...duh....
Thats like taking a knife up to the top of the roof and dropping it and yet being stunned that "It fell"...
When you do work with any tool that that tool was designed to do, then the chance that the tool will fail are lesser...But whenever you knowingly use a tool in a manner that you know has a higher chance of causeing the knife to fail, then you got to expect this.
Lets say you have a knife that is designed by the maker to cut paper...
Cutting one sheet of paper at a time might have a 1 in 100,000 chance of causeing the blade to fail...But Cutting 2 sheets of paper at one time, has a slightly higher chance of leading to a problem ,,,(even if its a small rise in %, still, it is higher)
attempting to cut 100,000 sheets of paper at a time has a much higher rate of breaking your knife...
Any ourdoor user knife is designed with many ways to use it in mind,,,But just like with the knife made to only cut paper, the chance of the blade beginning to fail go up as we attempt to do things we know are going to raise the risk to it...
This is to be expected...
....well, my answer to your question is this:
That it is always best to be carefull in whatever you are doing when working with anything sharp...and so I would not use a knife to split wood, as that job is what my axe is better designed to do...
and in the same way, I don't think I would try to cut up the meat for my dinner guests with an axe, as my knife is better designed to do that.
so I would not be all that concerned that something would fail if I were useing a tool in a way and for a job it was designed to do. Cutting paper, cutting meat,,,,cutting many things is a good job for a knife.
But what about useing a knife for some heavy outdoor needs you have?
In that case, If there is any doubt as to the use of a tool for a job you need done, I would suggest you just write or call to the maker of that tool,,,(be it a hammer/knife/screwdriver,drill etc) and ask them if they intended their tool to be used in that manner....
EXAMPLE; I while I go I was reading in the Forum History of the testing of a knife. During the testing of a blade, the tester placed the knife in a vice, and put a pipe over the end, and then bent the blade.
Later the tester felt bad that he had bent another man's knife this way, so he attempted to blame the maker of the blade for what he felt was a design faw...
As I read this and thought to myself, "You take someone's knife, stick it in a vise to try to bend it over, and then act stunned the blade actually does bend?"
well...duh....
Thats like taking a knife up to the top of the roof and dropping it and yet being stunned that "It fell"...
When you do work with any tool that that tool was designed to do, then the chance that the tool will fail are lesser...But whenever you knowingly use a tool in a manner that you know has a higher chance of causeing the knife to fail, then you got to expect this.
Lets say you have a knife that is designed by the maker to cut paper...
Cutting one sheet of paper at a time might have a 1 in 100,000 chance of causeing the blade to fail...But Cutting 2 sheets of paper at one time, has a slightly higher chance of leading to a problem ,,,(even if its a small rise in %, still, it is higher)
attempting to cut 100,000 sheets of paper at a time has a much higher rate of breaking your knife...
Any ourdoor user knife is designed with many ways to use it in mind,,,But just like with the knife made to only cut paper, the chance of the blade beginning to fail go up as we attempt to do things we know are going to raise the risk to it...
This is to be expected...
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Thomas Linton said:
I think you may be a bit confused in regards to the acronyms. SRK does not equal Recon Scout. The SRK is a 6 inch, 3/16 thick small clip point fixed blade, way smaller than the Recon Scout is at over 7 inches of blade and 5/16 thick. The RS/Recon Scout is basically a shorter version of the Trailmaster, same handle, same construction, same steel, etc.
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in regards to the idea that an ax is always better for cutting wood then a knife - if you have the energy for it (question below) and you've got it on you, sure, its better.
in the middle of the woods, with no one for miles, getting lost from your pack is a danger that everyone faces, especially in heavy snow fall. if your ax is with your pack, you dont have an ax anymore.
i always carry a lighter *2 in fact*, and a knife *4 bladed objects total
* on my belt, so id have to lose my pants to get seperated from them. my knife has to perform the job of an ax and not fail, as i'm currently in a survival situation sans "proper" wood splitting tool. it needs to be able to take the task without failure, and by geometry and steel with a proper heat treat, there is no reason (unless improper heat treat or qc issue) for the rsk to fail like that.
my question about wether or not an ax really is better in that situation (pointed towards Nutnfancy or cliff or anyone who has done this kind of work a lot (cliff lives in a winter wonderland from what ive seen
))
wich will tire you out faster, battoning with the rsk, or splitting with a hatchet?
also, can you use less force with the hatchet in your swings and still have it function properly? specifically, will the hatchet get wedged into the wood moreso then the knife, resulting in the need to extract it from the wood forcefully?
in the middle of the woods, with no one for miles, getting lost from your pack is a danger that everyone faces, especially in heavy snow fall. if your ax is with your pack, you dont have an ax anymore.
i always carry a lighter *2 in fact*, and a knife *4 bladed objects total
* on my belt, so id have to lose my pants to get seperated from them. my knife has to perform the job of an ax and not fail, as i'm currently in a survival situation sans "proper" wood splitting tool. it needs to be able to take the task without failure, and by geometry and steel with a proper heat treat, there is no reason (unless improper heat treat or qc issue) for the rsk to fail like that. my question about wether or not an ax really is better in that situation (pointed towards Nutnfancy or cliff or anyone who has done this kind of work a lot (cliff lives in a winter wonderland from what ive seen
))wich will tire you out faster, battoning with the rsk, or splitting with a hatchet?
also, can you use less force with the hatchet in your swings and still have it function properly? specifically, will the hatchet get wedged into the wood moreso then the knife, resulting in the need to extract it from the wood forcefully?
peoria46:
The blade was apparently 7" long, now if you cant hit that consistently with a baton, you have no chance of hitting anything with an axe.
D.F.
I am a structural/materials engineer by profession, been for 30 years. I certainly have even the professional background to understand the problem.
If I have a knife blade thickness of 8mm, full tang (lousy geometry at the juncture though) still about 20 mm wide, properly heat treated there is just no way you can break it the way it was told to have happened.
I do understand your point about proper usage, I would not use my regular puukkos the way described unless necessary. On the third hand I have done it often enough and can remember having broken only one that way (non critical situation), it had a partial tang very thin, even that would have survived with proper tempering ( it had over 700 vickers hardness).
The ABS bending test I have never quite understood, it is so dependent on the exact geometry of the blade (thickness mainly), the thinner within the rules the better.
This blade was supposed to be tough, it was ment for hard use, splitting wood the way done is not particularly hard on the blade, especially for the juncture.
I have stated here atleast twice that the only reasonable explanation is a manufacturing (or QC) mistake, compounded by some not so good design (stress concentrations are quite sensitive to the exact radius, can't see from the picture ).
TLM
The blade was apparently 7" long, now if you cant hit that consistently with a baton, you have no chance of hitting anything with an axe.
D.F.
I am a structural/materials engineer by profession, been for 30 years. I certainly have even the professional background to understand the problem.
If I have a knife blade thickness of 8mm, full tang (lousy geometry at the juncture though) still about 20 mm wide, properly heat treated there is just no way you can break it the way it was told to have happened.
I do understand your point about proper usage, I would not use my regular puukkos the way described unless necessary. On the third hand I have done it often enough and can remember having broken only one that way (non critical situation), it had a partial tang very thin, even that would have survived with proper tempering ( it had over 700 vickers hardness).
The ABS bending test I have never quite understood, it is so dependent on the exact geometry of the blade (thickness mainly), the thinner within the rules the better.
This blade was supposed to be tough, it was ment for hard use, splitting wood the way done is not particularly hard on the blade, especially for the juncture.
I have stated here atleast twice that the only reasonable explanation is a manufacturing (or QC) mistake, compounded by some not so good design (stress concentrations are quite sensitive to the exact radius, can't see from the picture ).
TLM
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yoda4561 said:
Thank you for the polite correction.
I've been reading and not responding, but I must.
Many of the responses I am reading show a total lack of knowledge in the area of survival. With enough skill, one can survive in the wilds with nothing but his hands and his brain.
Having said that, the RS should not have broken. I have used a fixed blade to pry and dig myself through a collapsed tunnel and then used the same knife as a step by jamming it into a wooden wall. The knife was a lowly Marine issue KBAR .
HAVING READ ALL OF THE POSTS HERE, I HAVE CONCLUIDED THAT I WILL NOT BUT A COLD STEEL RS.
I don't think many here will ever find themselves in a true survival situation in the natural wilds. Most probably today it would be survival in a city or crashed car.
I have been stuck to make it on my own for several days in a hostile environment. When I ran out of bullets, all I had was my knife. I didn't plan it that way, but that is where I was. The knife performed.
I would not trust my life to a blade that can be broken with my bare hands and a piece of wood.
Many of the responses I am reading show a total lack of knowledge in the area of survival. With enough skill, one can survive in the wilds with nothing but his hands and his brain.
Having said that, the RS should not have broken. I have used a fixed blade to pry and dig myself through a collapsed tunnel and then used the same knife as a step by jamming it into a wooden wall. The knife was a lowly Marine issue KBAR .
HAVING READ ALL OF THE POSTS HERE, I HAVE CONCLUIDED THAT I WILL NOT BUT A COLD STEEL RS.
I don't think many here will ever find themselves in a true survival situation in the natural wilds. Most probably today it would be survival in a city or crashed car.
I have been stuck to make it on my own for several days in a hostile environment. When I ran out of bullets, all I had was my knife. I didn't plan it that way, but that is where I was. The knife performed.
I would not trust my life to a blade that can be broken with my bare hands and a piece of wood.
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DaQo'tah Forge said:
Well, Mike Stewart, for one, designed a knife to be used for "Bushcraft," specifically including batoning. Of course, it is a massive 3/32" thick (
)and 4.24" long. There are lengthy threads at the "other place" and at BushcraftUK describing and picturing how the knife prototypes were batonned through wood. I have used it for that task on 6" seasoned red oak. The full-tang (!) handle is still attached.The Wilkinson Bushcraft model, again much less massive than the Recon Scout, was specifically and expressly designed to handle batonning.
I can find more if you desire. Visit wilderness survival forums (forrii?). Lots of information is out there that does not match your preconceptions if you wish to open up to new posibilities.
Again, not to say that improper technique cannot break any tool -- like "long" hits with an axe that snap the handle. I have found knots in dry Southern Yellow Pine to be especially testing.
It's just that a "survival" knife should be overengineered to handle what survival experts uniformly describe as normal survival tasks, like batoning, and clumsy use while performing those tasks -- even "extreme abuse" as CS puts it in describing the supposed qualities of the RS.
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SethMurdoc said:my question about wether or not an ax really is better in that situation (pointed towards Nutnfancy or cliff or anyone who has done this kind of work a lot (cliff lives in a winter wonderland from what ive seen
wich will tire you out faster, battoning with the rsk, or splitting with a hatchet?
also, can you use less force with the hatchet in your swings and still have it function properly? specifically, will the hatchet get wedged into the wood moreso then the knife, resulting in the need to extract it from the wood forcefully?
Personally, I believe a hatchet is better in that situation. A knife can really only be used for batoning (not always, but generally), however a hatchet can be used for batoning and for chopping, striking, and the "lift and slam" method. As a wood chopper/splitter a hatchet is the better tool. More can be done with it and when chopping the strongest part of the head/blade is what impacts first, unlike a knife where if you are chopping it is hitting with a weaker part. Also, typically hatchets have a larger angle (greater wedge) so it will go into the wood slightly slower, but will split faster. Many times people talk about using the right tool for the job, I would consider it the right tool for the job of splitting wood.
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cliff stated earlier that in batoning, you can basically lower the amount of force you use in hitting the knife through the wood to help lower the level of excersion needed to split it. you will work the knife through the wood at a much slower pace, but it will get there, and you wont use up as much energy.
can the same be done with a hatchet?
if you just splitting wood at your house, a hatchet is definitely the better tool, or even something like my 5lbs 4oz 30" hi ang khola. but if your really tired to begin with, and arent able to get to food for a while and have to keep doing strenuous excersize, wich will take less energy, the knife batoning or the hatchet?
can the same be done with a hatchet?
if you just splitting wood at your house, a hatchet is definitely the better tool, or even something like my 5lbs 4oz 30" hi ang khola. but if your really tired to begin with, and arent able to get to food for a while and have to keep doing strenuous excersize, wich will take less energy, the knife batoning or the hatchet?
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