has anyone here managed to break an ESEE 5?

My 5 has taken unbelielevable abuse! I routinely pry open crates of explosives, dig in blast craters, probe in rockey dirt, and cut stuff everyday! It's on my hip everyday and I can honestly say I will stake my life on it. Never had a better knife, I love it. The only damage has been to the finish, and I don't care about that, and I did mess up one of the serrations once, but was able to work it out for the most part.
 
Decklin said:
Now I laid some pretty hefty blows to an Izula as part of a review, and started a fire with the flint strip that comes with the Izula kit. The Izula held up... but I would not typicaly subject the Izula to this abuse. Just good to know in a pinch, the Izula can hold its own.
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Torture testing is just a part of quality control. Similar putting a knife in hard use situations is great for a review where the knife may be asked to do some hard work. I buy tools and weapons that believe will withstand when I may have to use them aggressively. I would buy a knife that can be hammered though a redwood tree. I would buy a rifle that can shoot a billion rounds with out jamming. The reason is because when I need them to perform I know they will. Really if I am in a tornado and my Izula is all I have on me to dig my way out of my house well then that's what I am going to use. If I'm a soldier and need to pry a window open as part of a mission and all I have is my knife then it has just become a prybar. As a result many people like me buy gear they hope will hold up to abuse when the time comes. With out a doubt that is why ESEE has such a great following, they make quality tools that hold up to hard use and sometimes abuse. Sure their warranty is great, but really if their product sucked it doesn't matter how many times you replace it still sucks.
 
I use all the ESEE knives as much harder than they were ever intended to be used and I report back to Jeff when I have a noteworthy finding.

Now granted, I don't grossly abuse the knives and I allow the laws of phyiscs to dictate what I'm willing to do with them, but as of yet I've never had to tell Jeff that I broke a knife.

My 5 has demolished crates and pallets, pryed open doors, broken automotive glass as well as typical plate glass, I've stabbed it through car hoods and 55gal. drums, batoned just about every kind of wood, cut chainlink fencing, thick wire, chopped through bones, pryed the slates off fences, batoned through a vaccuum cleaner (including the aluminum motor) and batoned a 2 foot wide hole in a smoker cooker to use it as a fire ring.

The edge is chipped and dinged a bit, there's NO coating left on it, the scales are dinged and cracked in a spot ot two, the spine is ugly as sin, looks like the face if a 20lb sledge but......BUT..... It still cuts and I still trust my life to it. It lives in my truck and gets used often.

I just got another, fresh 5, not to replace the old one, just to have a backup.
 
i once heard that chuck norris tried to use an esse-5 as a tooth pick and his tooth chipped...'nough said.

marsden said:
I snapped my BK2 in half, it took me a month. I used it everyday and was really tough on it. Then one day standing over a stump I dropped it point first, to go into the wood and it just snapped. Just got my replacement this week.
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need pics especially at your post count. otherwise i'm calling pure b.s. on this one, regardless of who made the knife. hell, you said "i snapped my bk2 in half". provide picture proof and with tooj's confirmation that you indeed snapped a bk2 in half, i'll buy you a gold membership.


shotgunner11 said:
I just got another, fresh 5, not to replace the old one, just to have a backup.
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you got another 5 as a backup for a 5? that's like bill gates buying life insurance for his kids just to make sure his kids have enough money to pay for college and insurance for their ferraris :eek: :D
 
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shotgunner11 said:
I use all the ESEE knives as much harder than they were ever intended to be used and I report back to Jeff when I have a noteworthy finding.

Now granted, I don't grossly abuse the knives and I allow the laws of phyiscs to dictate what I'm willing to do with them, but as of yet I've never had to tell Jeff that I broke a knife.

My 5 has demolished crates and pallets, pryed open doors, broken automotive glass as well as typical plate glass, I've stabbed it through car hoods and 55gal. drums, batoned just about every kind of wood, cut chainlink fencing, thick wire, chopped through bones, pryed the slates off fences, batoned through a vaccuum cleaner (including the aluminum motor) and batoned a 2 foot wide hole in a smoker cooker to use it as a fire ring.

The edge is chipped and dinged a bit, there's NO coating left on it, the scales are dinged and cracked in a spot ot two, the spine is ugly as sin, looks like the face if a 20lb sledge but......BUT..... It still cuts and I still trust my life to it. It lives in my truck and gets used often.

I just got another, fresh 5, not to replace the old one, just to have a backup.
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I dont think I will put my 5 through this much in 10 years of use....wow I am really impressed its withstood all that! I think my 5 may be the best knife I have ever owned!
 
slightly off topic...
isnt batoning, (properly executed batoning that is), considered a bushcraft technique ?
for what i know, and what ive done so far,if the knife is thick enough, preparing some small branches for fire is fun, and with some care and following simple rules, i think the knife , for example Izula or HEST would never break, as for ESEE 5...it would be quite impossible
is my opinion that proper batoning is a normal ocasional use for a knife that is somewhat thick, and the fact is, the more you use your knife, the more you will like it
im not saying i push my knives to see how long they can take it, or how much they can take....
i take care of them, even if i baton i do it carefully, and never had any problems. but, im asking again, the same question that i asked on the first page of the thread ?
is ocasional proper done batoning , following the simple rules, dangerous to the knife in question ?
i know there arent any exact answers to this, but nevertheless, i would sure like to see some opinions from more experienced users
the ESEE warranty is awesome, but as i grow attached to the knives i use, i would rather not risk to brake them.
 
I baton with stick tang and half tang moras with no problem, have for years.

Since an Izula looks to me to basically have two stick tangs, it seems that some really bad technique must have caused the breaks.
 
jacktrades_nbk said:
slightly off topic...
isnt batoning, (properly executed batoning that is), considered a bushcraft technique ?
for what i know, and what ive done so far,if the knife is thick enough, preparing some small branches for fire is fun, and with some care and following simple rules, i think the knife , for example Izula or HEST would never break, as for ESEE 5...it would be quite impossible
is my opinion that proper batoning is a normal ocasional use for a knife that is somewhat thick, and the fact is, the more you use your knife, the more you will like it
im not saying i push my knives to see how long they can take it, or how much they can take....
i take care of them, even if i baton i do it carefully, and never had any problems. but, im asking again, the same question that i asked on the first page of the thread ?
is ocasional proper done batoning , following the simple rules, dangerous to the knife in question ?
i know there arent any exact answers to this, but nevertheless, i would sure like to see some opinions from more experienced users
the ESEE warranty is awesome, but as i grow attached to the knives i use, i would rather not risk to brake them.
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I think many of your questions, valid, is subject to personal opinion. For me I wont baton a Izula through a 8 inch log. I would do it with a 1 inch to 2ich stick if I wanted to split it down the middle to get dry tinder inside. But that is me. I feel that if proper technique and some common sense is applied you wont subject a knife to abuse.

This is just me but I have seen people taking a 4Inch knife and batoning through a log more fitted for an axe IMO or a much much larger blade or machete. Personally that is wasted effort for me. I would rather have enough small sticks that I picked up and made feather stocks with using my Izula or smaller knife that would make an adequate bed of coals (I once asked the questions about tinder and Jeff gave me good advice. If you think you have enough.....get 3 times more.....the fire from small sticks and tinder has to scorch the hairs on your knees before increasing the size of the sticks). Increase the diameter as the fire continues and place the big log (that some would love to baton their knife through) on the fire at the end. But that is my way of thinking and others want to do it their way (not saying their technique is wrong, just different then mine and I will listen to them, decide what I can learn from watching them to improve my own technique even though I wont necessary agree with them)
 
marthinus said:
. I feel that if proper technique and some common sense is applied you wont subject a knife to abuse.
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thanks for the replies , much appreciated
as i was saying in the first post , i was refering to baton small sticks/logs with diameter of half or a third of my HEST or Izula 's blade lenght, with proper care.
and all of that , on ocasion, if that is the knife i decided to have on me on camp
ussualy, when i know there will be need for more wood, i bring a small hatchet, or a bigger knife, and still maintain the size of the logs that i split within good sense limits
 
jacktrades_nbk said:
thanks for the replies , much appreciated
as i was saying in the first post , i was refering to baton small sticks/logs with diameter of half or a third of my HEST or Izula 's blade lenght, with proper care.
and all of that , on ocasion, if that is the knife i decided to have on me on camp
ussualy, when i know there will be need for more wood, i bring a small hatchet, or a bigger knife, and still maintain the size of the logs that i split within good sense limits
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Seems that we have the same common sense as I agree with you on bringing a larger tool when need be.

I learned technique in this:
http://www.barkriverknives.com/docs/batoning.pdf
 
I have batoned my 5 through a 5 inch thick live dogwood tree after cutting it down with the 5. No damage at all other than some smoothing of the finish.


A sharpmaker rod on the other hand caused the only damage to my 5. Still pissed about that one.
 
R.A.T. said:
No 5s have been broken yet. Had one that the tip was taken off from some heavy prying bu no catastrophic failures yet.

As a side note, we have been tracking warranty replacements for a while now. The number 1 reason for breakage on Izulas is people using them to baton with.
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lol, cause God knows my izzie is better suited than my 5 to baton wood ;) lol.
 
Most of the skid plates on my off road vehicles are made of 3/16" steel and I don't break those. If I end up breaking my esee 5 the tertiary damage to me will be alot worse.
 
What would happen if you clamped a 5 in a vice grip, tied some super heavy duty rope to the handle. Tied the other end to the tow hitch of a truck and then drove off sideways (90 degree angle of the knife)?
 
Paul RevEar said:
What would happen if you clamped a 5 in a vice grip, tied some super heavy duty rope to the handle. Tied the other end to the tow hitch of a truck and then drove off sideways (90 degree angle of the knife)?
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Depends, how bigs the truck? :D

I never had a need for a knife like the 5 but man it is an impressive piece of work.
 
Paul RevEar said:
What would happen if you clamped a 5 in a vice grip, tied some super heavy duty rope to the handle. Tied the other end to the tow hitch of a truck and then drove off sideways (90 degree angle of the knife)?
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In a stationary vise of some kind? The knife would bend and break.
 
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