Full Tang?

[laredo]

I was reading another thread about the Bark River Gameskeeper. It had a picture without the scales. This is a full tang knife but there is a lot of steel removed under the scales. I was looking in Tactical Knives magazine and the Surefire Echo Full tang fixed blade knife was shown without the scales and again there was a lot of steel removed supposedly for weight reduction and balance. Has it always been this way? I always thought a full tang knife meant that it was a solid piece of steel from the point of the blade to the end of the handle. I know there are holes for bolts, rivets or a lanyard but I never thought it would look like a skeletonized handle under the grip! People selecting survival knives are usually told to pick a full tang knife for strength. I do not know how strong these knives really are.

 

[thombrogan]

That's how it is on lots of full-tang blades. There are a few millennia worth of stick-tang blades doing lots of stuff that would break some modern full-tang blades, so don't worry about it.

 

[Fonly]

They'ed be fine, its still a full tang, only skeletonized, it takes away a small amount of strength.

 

[simms65]

You honestly couldn't break one of those unless you tried... hard ie. bending it in a vice. Use any of those with confidence! :thumbup:

David

 

[tirod3]

Many custom full tang knives without cut outs are tapered - they get really thin at the butt, and the simple explanation is that the material just isn't needed. The principal of leverage and distance from the effective pivot point show up like that in lots of engineered products.

It's the cheaper designs that leave it in, but honestly, it doesn't make much difference in actual use, other than to change the balance point - and only butchers and the like might see it at the end of a 8 hour day.