CS Recon Scout Fails Miserably

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I said it once, and I'll say it again: right tool for the right job. That's the essence of survival.[/QUOTE]

I've been kinda under the allusion that improvisation was a primary essence of survival? Kinda along the lines of necessity being the mother of invention and all that...

Oh well, learn something new everyday...Off to go snowshoeing with my Stihl chainsaw, Fourburner propane stove and my cast iron cooking set. Might drag along a portable generator and a kerosene heater as well.... :D
 
LOL@generator and kerosene heater! That should do it. Bring a chainsaw while you're at it.

I was always taught that survival was about preparedness. Take care of your gear, and your gear will take care of you. Not only do you clean it, and make sure it will work under stress, but that it's used for the job it's designed for. Asking it to do something that it's not often leads to problems.

The source of this debate, for the moment, is: is this a job that a 7" knife is supposed to handle?

I wouldn't expect that of any knife in a survival situation because if I damage it in any way (chip edge to broken blade), then I'm out one less tool that can help in my survival. In that situation, CS sending me a replacement RS would be the LEAST of my worries.
 
Well....all in all I don't think we're too far off. In any case we seem to agree that the CS RS is appearing to be inferior to an HI for the task at hand.... :D
 
4 Ranges said:
I said it once, and I'll say it again: right tool for the right job. That's the essence of survival.
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Love my khuks. Love my axes. Love my saws - each and every one.

But. respectfully, you could hardly be more wrong. "The right tool for the job" is a useful slogan for deciding what tools you WANT to have with you in a given situation. A mental and physical skill set that includes adapablity is more useful when you actually find yourself in a survival situation -- with whatever you actually have available notwithstanding models. (The car - with ax, khukuri, splitting wedge, maul, and chainsaw in trunk - just sank in the lake after landslide. You have what you have. Survive.)

This man is training youth to survive. He deliberately was creating a situation where there was no axe/maul/wedge/chainsaw. Batoning is a legitimate survival technique. He wanted these youngsters to have the technique in their survival skill set. How was he to teach batoning?
 
4 Ranges said:
LOL@generator and kerosene heater! That should do it. Bring a chainsaw while you're at it.

I was always taught that survival was about preparedness. Take care of your gear, and your gear will take care of you. Not only do you clean it, and make sure it will work under stress, but that it's used for the job it's designed for. Asking it to do something that it's not often leads to problems.

The source of this debate, for the moment, is: is this a job that a 7" knife is supposed to handle?

I wouldn't expect that of any knife in a survival situation because if I damage it in any way (chip edge to broken blade), then I'm out one less tool that can help in my survival. In that situation, CS sending me a replacement RS would be the LEAST of my worries.
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Your gear does not take care of you. It cares nothing about you. It is what you can do with what you have that will actually count if, God forbid, you find yourself "in the pot."

How would you get firewood without your hardware store?

The "source of this debate" is you, sir.
 
Just to come back to the knife:

If you baton it on the back of the blade the blade/tang juncture is not going to be stressed to any meaningfull level. That part is going to be stressed if -after it is well into the wood- you hit it on the handle or if you bend it sideways trying to split the wood.

The told batoning way couldn't really have broken even a defective knife unless it was practically severed already.

This leaves about two possibilities, the blade had a deep crack already before it broke or it was not used in the way told.

If it had a crack before final destruction that usually can be seen on the break surface, METE can tell you more about that.

TLM
 
Thomas Linton:

Er...it takes two to debate. Chill out, it's just a discussion. No need to get riled up over a CS Recon Stout of all things.

I'm hearing 2 things here:

1) batoning a 7" knife into a huge log is par for course. It just as much a part of its job as it is to slice bread, open mail, chop branches, etc.

2) batoning a 7" knife into a huge log is an IMPROVISED activity that one undertakes if the ideal tools (axe, khuk, chainsaw, lightsaber, etc.), just don't happen to be around. It is LESS than ideal, but it can do the job.

So which is it?

If it's par for course (which I disagree with), I can understand how some people can view the breakage as a failure.

If it's improvised (which I certainly see), then how can it be viewed as a failure, since you're working with a less than ideal tool?

Again, I'm of the opinion that if you're working with a tool that's less than ideal for the job, you risk damaging the tool and failing the job. The CS Recon Stout, IMHO, was less than ideal, hence the breakage.
 
If I have the right tool for the job, I am all about it. If not, well, I will use what is at hand. Some quick examples:

Cutting damaged comm wire (a couple of types) into pieces that are too small to be used by the insurgents (for IEDs). The best thing would be wire cutters. I had a knife and not lots of time, so I trapped the wire under my foot, sliced through it, then pulled up another length. Repeat for a while.

Pulling out of a position in Fallujah, my young Sgt and others start destroying the sandbags so the bad guys cannot use them. I am not quite certain what the best tool would be for this, maybe a hatchet or pick. He has his ka-bar. Afterwards, that thing was so dull you could saw on your arm with no effect. My MPT did much better at cutting through filled sandbags. It blunted some, but mostly that seemed to be from the edge bending over. The 1095 ka-bar was worn down and lost a lot of metal from the edge.

Prying and digging the hinges off a door with my MPT, because that is what I needed to do. I really should have used a crowbar, but had my knife.

Now, in the case of prying, I think my MPT has too thin of a tip. I was wishing for my Becker or something with a more robust rip when I took off those hinges. The MPT is made, obviously, as something of a fighting knife. Since I picked it up as an all-purpose knife to eventually be my dedicated dive knife, and I tend to pry with that tool, maybe I should have gotten an MPK-10 or such. Still, I like knives with a choil and the design of the MPT, with the thumb ramp, is really nice. My guess: I'll probably break the tip sooner or later and then have the knife reprofiled.

Batoning a large knife through a log is par for the course. I would hesitate to do such with something like D2 or 440C (or, goodness forbid 420HC - I'll never touch that stuff again). However, a "tough" survival knife should be made with this sort of task in mind. And, by the way, a 440A BMF has taken this treatment just fine. Of course, from what I understand, the BMF had a pretty good differential heat treat.
 
I wouldn't pick the Recon Scout for battoning operations because it is just too hard. If you are picking an absolutely cannot break knife you need to go a lot softer. As an example the Carbon V cutlery alloy is sometimes suggested as being a bit like a poor man's O1 tool steel. Back in WWII Bo Randall started making custom combat knives out of O1 for guys going off to war. Back in those days you could expect to be out of the country for years and stuck depending on a knife for your life. They made those Randalls around 53-54 RC not up around 58-60. I think I recall some Randall blades tested out around 52 RC. Anyway this article indicates that even recently the target for a non-stainless Randall is 53-54. So all that was necessary for that Recon Scout to fail is a microcrack in the blade and a blade that was a little above average hardness. http://www.knifeworld.com/randallstory.html
 
Cliff:

So for survival: you use your knife, chop a log with it, it breaks, but what the heck, you're warm for the night.

What about the next night?

What about the night after that?

Perhaps you find some cloth ala Rambo in first blood. You could make a make-shift coat out of it...but tough luck, you left your dull and broken knife 20 miles back. So now what?

I'd rather cut smaller branches that won't dull my knife, and make a fire with that. I'm warm some, and I keep the knife for further survival use (i.e. killing a bear :D ).

As for what knives that work for what jobs, like I said, you'll have knives that will perform at these levels simply because they're made for it, and some that won't. Do your research, and get the appropriate tool for the job. Don't buy into hype, don't buy into ads, don't buy into what other people like or prefer. Know your job, and look for the appropriate tool. Plain and simple.
 
4 Ranges said:
Cliff:

So for survival: you use your knife, chop a log with it, it breaks, but what the heck, you're warm for the night.

What about the next night?

What about the night after that?
. . .
Know your job, and look for the appropriate tool. Plain and simple.
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The facts in this case are given by the originator of the thread. 1) There was no other wood available. 2) Several knives (by design) were the only tools available. 3) a fire was necessary. (Hey, it's his training session. He can pick any scenario he wants.)

So for survival, you DO NOT use you knife. It's not the "appropriate tool."

You use up matches etc. trying to light big honking pieces of wood that are available. You can't get the wood to 451f to give off flammable gas (i.e. "burn") -- a highly probable outcome. You die.

What about the next night and the night after that? Plain and simple, it does not matter. You failed to adapt. You were a prisoner of preconceptions. Your gear didn't keep you alive.


BTB, interesting thread currently at the "other" place. Snowmobilers caught by dark and cold discover they have no matches, lighters, etc. Shoved a stick down into gas in fuel tank. Turn over engine with spark plug hooked up but out of engine to get spark to start fire. Not the most "appropriate tools." Adapted. Lived.


One WOULD think that a 5/16" slab of steel advertised as super tough would easily survive use of proper batoning technique. In the UK they baton < 1/8" thick SS "Moras" and think that's all the berries. Wouldn't have it any other way. Appropriate gear and all that. Cheers.
 
Cliff,

I was considering to get a CS Recon Scout for 2 reasons:

1. although I own a Fallkniven A-1, I thought that some carbon steel survival knife would be nice to check because it is supposed to be significantly tougher - I am obviously influenced by Cliff Stamp's threads.
2. I liked to have a survival knife that could be used in emergency as a fighter too. Recon Scout blade seems to fullfil that purpose, AND the guard is a condicio sine qua non (necessary condition) because of security. So far so good.

Now, there are few reports about broken RC blades! It is clear to me that the 1/4" carbon steel blade could break (batoning) ONLY if there is a poor heat treating, or a (micro)defect in material. Both things, unfortunately happen sometimes. After all, the Becker steel is probably the same as Carbon V, and Swamp Rats steel is a similar (modifed) carbon steel.

Now, few questions:
Plus I would never carry untested gear in such a situation, so its not a risk. (Cliff Stamp)
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-do you mean you test a particular knife, say, by abusing it enough to get a confidence, or, do you test a particular type of knife, e.g., you test Camp Tramp and say Camp Tramp knives are OK.

-if I buy a Recon Scout knife, could I do some toughness test (like I do spine whacking test for folders)?

- considering a new Swamp Rats Ratweiler, do you think it is appropriate as a fighter too? Do you think a guard is safe enough for stabbing?

Franco
 
Franko,

The Swamp Rat knives are more carefully heat treated and inspected for cracks so even the smaller knives (that are not differentially hardened) are more reliable than the bulk produced Cold Steel knives. The larger Swamp Rat knives are differentially hardened so that the bulk of the blade is soft enough to resist fracture. A Camp Tramp is designed to give you a cannot break knife.
 
Is anyone else getting dizzy from watching this thread cycle back through the same arguments about three times now? Just curious.
 
Thomas:

again, dude, relax. Your tone's a bit abrasive.

The original scenario is a test scenario: just that. So they tested something that broke. Several people concluded "lemon!" others concluded "bad heat treat!" I, among others, concluded "wrong tool." so what's the big deal? It's a test, you find out what works and what doesn't, and draw your own conclusions.

I find the later scenario you painted a bit silly. I have matches but can't start a fire? Huh? Again, SMALL BRANCHES. I don't need to chop a log 20" in diameter to start a fire. Besides, what type of survival scenario are you thinking of where you have a pre-chopped 20" diameter log laying around for you to split with your perfectly shaped log/baton and 7" recon stout? Wouldn't you need an AXE to chop that 20" diameter log, to get it ready for your recon stout? Hmmm....

Survival is about PREPAREDNESS, not IMPROVISATION. Even Cliff Stamp, in his own posts, said if such a job needed to be done, he'd have a knife that he KNEW could do it.

As for the snowmobilers, those ARE appropriate tools. You KNOW you'll get a spark from that spark plug. You KNOW the spark will cause gasoline to burn. And you KNOW that wood burns. That's creativity within the parameters of their tools. They didn't ask something "iffy" about their tools (like pimping their ride so they can fly out of their predicament).

Like I said, a log that size with a knife that small: wrong job for the wrong tool.
 
Roadrunner said:
Is anyone else getting dizzy from watching this thread cycle back through the same arguments about three times now? Just curious.
Click to expand...


LOL! Yup! thankfully my ride on the Merry-Go-Round was a short one. At this point I'm just now opening a new bag of popcorn and a can of Fresca.
 
4 Ranges said:
Thomas:

again, dude, relax. Your tone's a bit abrasive.
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If you had ever met Mr. Linton you'd realize exactly how ridiculous that statement is.

I don't need to chop a log 20" in diameter to start a fire.
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This has already been covered. Small pieces of wood tend to become soaked through more quickly than large logs. Those small pieces may be so saturated that they won't light. That 20" log, on the other hand, probably has a dry core unless it's been soaking in a lake for the last six months. Just a thought.
 
Roadrunner:

I'm not referring to his personality, I'm referring to the tone of his post.

I'm not talking about small branches on the ground. I'm talking about small branches from a tree. 5"-10" in diameter.

And again, I have to ask: in a survival scenario, where do you plan to have a 20" in diameter log just waiting for you to baton/split with your survival knife?
 
"Batoning is a legitimate survival technique." Indeed, it is. But we're approaching it as a survival technique in it's own right. And having to teach it as such--few of us do it every day. Our forefathers would have recognized it as a way to extend the usefulness of a knife into tasks typically handled by other tools, when those tools weren't readily--or conveniently--available. They used bucksaws, axes, wedges, and mauls on a daily basis; and knew the dynamics of turning logs into firewood (placing the wedge or blade in a pre-existing stress/drying crack, for example) and then into kindling. Or just plain being familiar with cutting tools in a farm/rural setting. WWII still had a significant rural population and was probably the last time that the widely-issued Ka-Bar style knife could survive what was typically expected of a survival/combat knife. It's life expectancy in similar circumstances would likely be much less now, I suspect.
 
For BadMovies: "Cutting damaged comm wire (a couple of types) into pieces." I hear you there. An all-to-daily task. My Buck 110 was the tool of first/last/only resort for cutting TOW tracking wire from around M151 and M113 road wheels. Had to be cut off or no more inner road seal. I doubt Mr. Buck had that in mind as a design feature.
 
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