Fixed blade recommendation for spec ops

In that price range, I'd get a custom. Nathanthemachinist (Nathan Carrothers) makes fantastically tough 3V knives. You have to be fast to get one. Or a Bussey, swamp rat or Scrapyard. Or Survive knives.

When my cousin deployed, we got him a Busse with a custom sheath. He was a .50 call gunner on convoy protection.

That knife came back beat up! Finish all chopped, edge dull.

We got him a choil-less Boss Jack, sage finish, tan handles, tan Buy Brown sheath. .22 thick, and bomb proof. Forever warranty. INFI steel.


He said he carried it every day.


Many great custom makers on this site. Charlie Mike is good people!
 
Bigfattyt said:
In that price range, I'd get a custom. Nathanthemachinist (Nathan Carrothers) makes fantastically tough 3V knives. You have to be fast to get one. Or a Bussey, swamp rat or Scrapyard. Or Survive knives.

When my cousin deployed, we got him a Busse with a custom sheath. He was a .50 call gunner on convoy protection.

That knife came back beat up! Finish all chopped, edge dull.

We got him a choil-less Boss Jack, sage finish, tan handles, tan Buy Brown sheath. .22 thick, and bomb proof. Forever warranty. INFI steel.


He said he carried it every day.


Many great custom makers on this site. Charlie Mike is good people!
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A boss jack is what I was going to recommend as well. It's not a recurve, but very close to the other requirements. It may be possible to snag one off the exchange since BladeShow is upon us. Barring that, you might look for a JackManDu or BeefManDu from SwampRat.
 
Just get him a production knife. No reason to spend big bucks either. Ain't like he'll use much, if at all. Get him a Cold Steel SRK.
 
For some reason OP made me think of Gecko/Specops, no disrespect, just sayin... Moving on tho, yeah if it was me Id go with something like an SRK or similar. They're capable enough and at the same time easily replaceable ( money wise/ availability). They sell them right at my home px
 
Big heavy fighting knives aren't generally that useful for real world soldiering. That is why you get recommendations for multitools on similar threads. The 6-7 inch knives especially tend to be too small to be machetes and too big to carry around all day. :D

[video=youtube;smkvekAwiQ0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smkvekAwiQ0[/video]
 
I carried a Microtech D/A Socom during my time in Iraq. Never did I find myself wishing for a fixed blade. I had enough shit on my IBA. Don't need anything else that will get hung up while low crawling or entry.

 
Chris Larrikin said:
OP is it thickness or toughness that you're after? One does not always equal the other. Thickness does almost always equal extra weight to lug around though.
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Bit of both really, as I don't know enough about knife steels I figured it was the best way to express the durability in layman's terms. Can anyone shed light on the best steel?
 
Not to be mean or anything... you say you don't know steels... would you know enough about knife design, or soldiering, to know when your requirements are off?

Again, not to be mean... you came here with rigid preconceptions... so you will leave with answers constrained by that box. :confused:
 
afd11 said:
Bit of both really, as I don't know enough about knife steels I figured it was the best way to express the durability in layman's terms. Can anyone shed light on the best steel?
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There is no "best" steel. They all have benefits and trade-offs.

Thickness does not necessarily equate to strength. Do you know, or can you ask, which fixed blade he broke the first time around so we have a baseline for required toughness?

I can think of plenty of blades I would feel comfortable deploying with now. For $500 you can basically get anything you want. I agree that a nice slab of INFI from Busse would be more than tough enough and can be found within your budget. It would not fail him.

A Spartan Difensa would be a fantastic choice. It is one of the best overall utility/combat fixed blades on the market in my opinion. Also look at the Spartan Horkos.

A Bradford Guardian 6 in 3v would be great. The already mentioned CRK Green Beret and Pacific have been to hell and back and are fantastic blades.

Honestly though, a Gerber Strongarm would probably accomplish any knife task that would arise, and they can be had for under $50.

If you want a heavy, thick slab of steel, the RMJ Combat Africa is a highly robust, stout piece.
 
sideways said:
Not to be mean or anything... you say you don't know steels... would you know enough about knife design, or soldiering, to know when your requirements are off?

Again, not to be mean... you came here with rigid preconceptions... so you will leave with answers constrained by that box. :confused:
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No, but he does, and they are his prerequisites not mine. Surely that is the point of a preconception?

tantrik77 said:
There is no "best" steel. They all have benefits and trade-offs.

Thickness does not necessarily equate to strength. Do you know, or can you ask, which fixed blade he broke the first time around so we have a baseline for required toughness?

I can think of plenty of blades I would feel comfortable deploying with now. For $500 you can basically get anything you want. I agree that a nice slab of INFI from Busse would be more than tough enough and can be found within your budget. It would not fail him.

A Spartan Difensa would be a fantastic choice. It is one of the best overall utility/combat fixed blades on the market in my opinion. Also look at the Spartan Horkos.

A Bradford Guardian 6 in 3v would be great. The already mentioned CRK Green Beret and Pacific have been to hell and back and are fantastic blades.

Honestly though, a Gerber Strongarm would probably accomplish any knife task that would arise, and they can be had for under $50.

If you want a heavy, thick slab of steel, the RMJ Combat Africa is a highly robust, stout piece.
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Yea I will do my best to find out for you, although I think he has broken a couple of so called "decent" knives. Ill try to get a list.

Ill have a look through those you mentioned and see what he thinks.
 
Thanks for all the replies, looking at a TOPS longhorn and smoke jumper. Does anyone have any experience with these blades?
 
tantrik77 said:
There is no "best" steel. They all have benefits and trade-offs.

Thickness does not necessarily equate to strength. Do you know, or can you ask, which fixed blade he broke the first time around so we have a baseline for required toughness?

I can think of plenty of blades I would feel comfortable deploying with now. For $500 you can basically get anything you want. I agree that a nice slab of INFI from Busse would be more than tough enough and can be found within your budget. It would not fail him.

A Spartan Difensa would be a fantastic choice. It is one of the best overall utility/combat fixed blades on the market in my opinion. Also look at the Spartan Horkos.

A Bradford Guardian 6 in 3v would be great. The already mentioned CRK Green Beret and Pacific have been to hell and back and are fantastic blades.

Honestly though, a Gerber Strongarm would probably accomplish any knife task that would arise, and they can be had for under $50.

If you want a heavy, thick slab of steel, the RMJ Combat Africa is a highly robust, stout piece.
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I feel like Tantrik essentially made every suggestion and point I would have made.

I own a Difensa, and can speak to its toughness and utility. I wrote a review of the knife here if you are interested.

I was also impressed by the Bradford Guardian line, and by the Bradfords themselves. Nice folks.

The only other thing I would add would be the aforementioned Nathan Carothers, the only problem there is how hard it is to actually grab one while they are available.
 
As has been said, there is always a tradeoff with any steel. Some very tough steels, though, are INFI, CPM 3V, SR101 (52100), to name a few. There are others, but those three are pretty well accepted by most (not all, knife nuts cannot agree 100% much of anything :) ) to be top of the line in the toughness department. You might add A2 to that list as well, although I'd personally take the others first in this situation.

Have you looked at the AXE Hammer from Busse? It seems like it would be a fitting knife for this, check it out if you get a minute.
 
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