Fehrman Extreme Judgment hard use review

[number41]

A lot of you wanted to see this review so here gos(I also posted this on another Forum with pics , but will need someone to post the pics for me!)
Fit&Finish like most of you know on Fehrman is very good , so I'm just gonna start with my review on the testing I did!

This morning Before I started I first had to go find some wood to split and decided on kameeldoring wood(the hardest wood in South Africa.) I got hold of 45 pieces and wasted no time! Started of by splitting thinner pieces and then thicker pieces. Those who know this wood understands how difficult it is to split this and almost impossible to chop thru it from the side!(It makes like a clinging noise almost like metal on metal,that's how hard it is) it took a lot of effort and in the end there were two pieces I could not get thru so decided to use my coldsteel bat but still could not get thru and eventually the blade was stuck and had to hit it the opposite way to get it loose! Afterwards I inspected the blade up and down many times to see if there was any chipping! No chipping(very few knives will survive this wood) only a little blunting!

My second test I used my coldsteel bat again this time to split a 10 mm(not 16mm) raw bolt in half,I struggled to get thru due to the bat not being heavy enough so I really had to smack it hard and thru it went with hardly any denting but most important no chipping!

Third test I started smacking a brick with the cutting edge and stabbing it with the point just for fun to mix things up a bit! This did not take long to achieve and by now you could start seeing more blunting and some denting!

Final test for today was chopping into the concrete block and I gave it about 15 smacks with the first 5 smacks not to hard to first inspect the edge ,after seeing minor dulling I really started smacking it hard full force! O my word the concrete was really hard and I thought that the edge would really be F#**$¥-up afterwards!!!!!!!

Just for fun I took a piece of kameeldoring and tried to chop thru the side , but gave up half way, you can't believe the noise it makes and really does sound like metal!

Finally inspecting the edge was really all I was worried about because of so many people not being sure about 3v and chipping out! The edge after looking at it excited me and It felt like I was 15 again! NO CHIPPING and could easily be sharpened with a bit of effort and from what I could see from Busse destruction test videos very similar denting then the Busse(I'm just giving my opinion please) I'M NOT SAYING ONE IS BETTER THEN ANOTHER and I have never tested a Busse! I'm very happy with the results and realized that you don't really need a knife that tough but its nice to know that you can do those things! That's why I always test my equipment!

I do have pics at this stage and are willing to send them to someone if I can have your email!

 

[shqxk]

 

[Bigfattyt]

Get a free photobucket account. Upload to photobucket, and you can post the pics here.

There is a tutorial for how to post pictures on bladeforums.

 

[SENGVIN]

Pic please

 

[High King]

Hahahaha.

Use photobucket, tinypic or imageshack.

 

[Steven65]

Interesting results........If you would like, I will post the pics up for you..........e-mail me or visitor message me.

I think you should also explain what kameeldoring is..............for those of us who don't Habla

 

[Thomas Linton]

camel thorn (Acacia erioloba) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_erioloba

The wood is dark reddish-brown in colour and extremely dense and strong.

 

[G8R8U2]

Hard to believe I'm reading a thread about someone actually taking a $500 knife and essentially seeing if he can destroy it. To learn what again? That the knife is more than stout enough to handle anything you might ever come across in the wild, and can also chop through all that pesky concrete, brick, and bolts one sees while out in the woods?

I'm curious about something regarding all these "torture" tests, especially ones involving hard rock/concrete/brick and iron or steel. If the knife actually survives the test, haven't the owners then compromised the integrity and/or fatigued the steel by putting it through all that?

In other words, you buy a $500 knife, and subsequently make it less of a knife, a weaker knife, by putting it through all that than it otherwise would have been. So you still have the knife, but it's now not as formidable because of the test. Who knows, the next strike it makes may be out in the woods when you really need it to perform, and it'll be at that point that it fails. That'd be pretty embarrassing; whale away on brick and metal all day, and then get a stress fracture out in the woods the first time you try to take down a sapling.

An even better question is, what if it didn't pass the test at all? Half a grand down the drain.

 

[CWL]

Sorry, but that's not "hard use ", that's just abuse.

Id rather read about you doing real work or chores with that knife to see how it holds up in real world situations.

 

[number41]

Interesting results........If you would like, I will post the pics up for you..........e-mail me or visitor message me.

I think you should also explain what kameeldoring is..............for those of us who don't Habla

Thanks steven I will send you those pics( about 25 of them

Anton

 

[Steven65]

Thanks steven I will send you those pics( about 25 of them

Here ya go.......I am not sure of the order I need to put them in but we can change them if you want.

 

[machineage]

G8r8u2> Exactly right. I wouldn't do it to a hundred dollar knife either. Makes no sense.

 

[Joshua J.]

Hard to believe I'm reading a thread about someone actually taking a $500 knife and essentially seeing if he can destroy it. To learn what again? That the knife is more than stout enough to handle anything you might ever come across in the wild, and can also chop through all that pesky concrete, brick, and bolts one sees while out in the woods?

I'm curious about something regarding all these "torture" tests, especially ones involving hard rock/concrete/brick and iron or steel. If the knife actually survives the test, haven't the owners then compromised the integrity and/or fatigued the steel by putting it through all that?

In other words, you buy a $500 knife, and subsequently make it less of a knife, a weaker knife, by putting it through all that than it otherwise would have been. So you still have the knife, but it's now not as formidable because of the test. Who knows, the next strike it makes may be out in the woods when you really need it to perform, and it'll be at that point that it fails. That'd be pretty embarrassing; whale away on brick and metal all day, and then get a stress fracture out in the woods the first time you try to take down a sapling.

An even better question is, what if it didn't pass the test at all? Half a grand down the drain.

The bolt shouldn't be a huge deal as long as there wasn't any side loading, the edge didn't dent very much on it so it couldn't have been horribly hard. I'm sure there are bolts out there that would cause major damage but this wasn't one of them.
Every knife I've taken trail clearing has come back with chips or dents from hitting rocks, even stuff I thought I was being careful with, so smashing concrete shouldn't be much worse than extended normal use (unless your knife is wimpy and falls apart). Yes, you are seeing highly accelerated wear, you could say he took a few dollars worth of steel off when he did that, but other than the change in geometry (thicker edge bevel) it shouldn't have any impact on the performance of the knife.
If there had been a hammer and steel pipe involved then you would have a point, but all the batoning was done with a big chunk of plastic so the knife probably didn't endure very high shock loads. Number41 has seen the videos of knives being pushed to failure and avoided the tests that we know will break any knife.

 

[retzius]

Hard to believe I'm reading a thread about someone actually taking a $500 knife and essentially seeing if he can destroy it. To learn what again? That the knife is more than stout enough to handle anything you might ever come across in the wild, and can also chop through all that pesky concrete, brick, and bolts one sees while out in the woods?

I'm curious about something regarding all these "torture" tests, especially ones involving hard rock/concrete/brick and iron or steel. If the knife actually survives the test, haven't the owners then compromised the integrity and/or fatigued the steel by putting it through all that?

In other words, you buy a $500 knife, and subsequently make it less of a knife, a weaker knife, by putting it through all that than it otherwise would have been. So you still have the knife, but it's now not as formidable because of the test. Who knows, the next strike it makes may be out in the woods when you really need it to perform, and it'll be at that point that it fails. That'd be pretty embarrassing; whale away on brick and metal all day, and then get a stress fracture out in the woods the first time you try to take down a sapling.

An even better question is, what if it didn't pass the test at all? Half a grand down the drain.

Although I agree that sometimes the knife tests can get ridiculous, there is a lot of value in really pushing a piece of equipment to see where it will fail. For example, I recently purchased a new Sig P226 Mk25 as a duty pistol. I took it to the range, put 100 rounds down the pipe and everything seemed great. Later that month I took the pistol to a tactical pistol course and really pushed it and guess what it had problems. I would not have known it had these issues if I had not taken the pistol out and really pushed it. If I didn't know and trusted this as a duty pistol and the problems came to light in a life and death situation it could have been bad news.

 

[Thomas Linton]

Recognizing the theoretical value of testing to failure, I would not elect to do that to a knife.

Has no one else "pushed" this knife?

 

[number41]

Recognizing the theoretical value of testing to failure, I would not elect to do that to a knife.

Has no one else "pushed" this knife?

There aren't any reviews on this knife and that's why I decided to do this, and also I know that some of you wanted to see this! I always test my equipment because the last thing you want is for it to fail under hard use when you really need it! Any knife can chop wood( chopping wood is normal use)!I purely tested the edge strength and it passed with flying colors!

Its the same when buying a fire-arm, you wanna shoot 2000 rounds thru it quickly as possible and only then you can know that its reliable!

 

[number41]

The bolt shouldn't be a huge deal as long as there wasn't any side loading, the edge didn't dent very much on it so it couldn't have been horribly hard. I'm sure there are bolts out there that would cause major damage but this wasn't one of them.
Every knife I've taken trail clearing has come back with chips or dents from hitting rocks, even stuff I thought I was being careful with, so smashing concrete shouldn't be much worse than extended normal use (unless your knife is wimpy and falls apart). Yes, you are seeing highly accelerated wear, you could say he took a few dollars worth of steel off when he did that, but other than the change in geometry (thicker edge bevel) it shouldn't have any impact on the performance of the knife.
If there had been a hammer and steel pipe involved then you would have a point, but all the batoning was done with a big chunk of plastic so the knife probably didn't endure very high shock loads. Number41 has seen the videos of knives being pushed to failure and avoided the tests that we know will break any knife.

:thumbup:

 

[Thomas Linton]

Any knife can chop wood( chopping wood is normal use)!

No. Not even every fixed-blade knife can chop wood to any meaningful extent.

 

[G8R8U2]

Although I agree that sometimes the knife tests can get ridiculous, there is a lot of value in really pushing a piece of equipment to see where it will fail. For example, I recently purchased a new Sig P226 Mk25 as a duty pistol. I took it to the range, put 100 rounds down the pipe and everything seemed great. Later that month I took the pistol to a tactical pistol course and really pushed it and guess what it had problems. I would not have known it had these issues if I had not taken the pistol out and really pushed it. If I didn't know and trusted this as a duty pistol and the problems came to light in a life and death situation it could have been bad news.

Really pushing a duty firearm, and doing what was done to this knife is comparing apples and oranges, unless your typical duty has you shooting underwater, shooting the wrong ammo through it, shooting with no oil in/on the gun, or shooting it for years without ever cleaning it. In other words, doing things it wasn't designed to do.

I've been in the woods a few times, and I've yet to run across a bolt I needed to cut, a concrete block that needed to be split, or a brick that needed breaking.

There aren't any reviews on this knife and that's why I decided to do this, and also I know that some of you wanted to see this! I always test my equipment because the last thing you want is for it to fail under hard use when you really need it! Any knife can chop wood( chopping wood is normal use)!I purely tested the edge strength and it passed with flying colors!

Except that you've probably ensured that it WILL fail sooner than it otherwise would have without the test... like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You could have gone for years using the knife properly and never had a problem; but after all that abuse (repeated impacts, vibrations, etc.) you have no clue how much you've compromised the knife's structural integrity, and have even less of an idea what it can take before failure.

Essentially, what one would have to do if they wanted to test each item this way, is buy one, test it, and if it passed, turn around and buy another; because the original that went through the test is now compromised, not as strong as new, and can't be totally trusted in the field (unless you're a metallurgist with some way of determining fatigue, internal cracks, etc.).

Say an automaker says their engine will last a million miles with proper maintenance. I decide to see if it can go 100,000 without changing the oil for years (or not properly maintaining it), to see how strong it is. It doesn't lock up or completely fail on me; but is that really the vehicle I want to take out and trust my life to in the desert or deep woods? Of course not, it hasn't been treated properly, and there are likely all kinds of problems that can't be seen with the naked eye. I have done something to the vehicle that it was never designed to do.

Its the same when buying a fire-arm, you wanna shoot 2000 rounds thru it quickly as possible and only then you can know that its reliable!

Nonsense, the gun is DESIGNED to shoot 2000 rounds through it... most are designed to shoot at least 25 times that through them. That's what the company does IN IT'S TESTING, before they put the weapon on the market.

 

[G8R8U2]

No. Not even every fixed-blade knife can chop wood to any meaningful extent.

:thumbup: Exactly, I'd even go so far as to say MOST were never designed with that even in mind, and most manufacturers would advise against it; even says in their warranty info of most that that kind of use will void your knife's warranty.