has anyone here managed to break an ESEE 5?

if you put your mind to it, i'm sure you'd have no trouble snapping any knife on the market.

be it a Mora, an ESEE 5, a Busse, Fallkniven or some $X,000 custom blade.

but, if you're a knife USER rather than a knife ABuser, i highly doubt you'll ever need to claim on the ESEE warranty.
 
I was chopping down some woolly nightshade around here and I did not know that their was a concrete parking lot piece (the kind that keep you from driving too far) underneath the grass. I took a stroke and struck the tip on the concrete, at first I thought that I must have broken the tip. I looked at the tip and it was intact, in fact it was barely damaged at all. The edge had a very small roll on it which was about two mils in length. Needless to say I was very impressed:thumbup:. Thanks ESEE for my favorite knife!
 
Sorry have not been on here in a while. I dont have any pictures but I can tell you I was just as shocked as everyone else. The Bk2 was beaten, chopped used and abused everyday. I threw it into trees hundreds of times and it never flinched. The stump was cut on a slight angle. When it hit I heard that horrible metal on metal sound and I looked down and there was a handle, the blade flew a few feet away. It snapped directly in the middle just after where the blade ends, right about the scales.
 
why abuse knives at all? People don't abuse can openers by smashing them into cinder blocks, or cars by driving them into walls repeatedly
 
I wanted a versatile nearly indestructible knife. I took my time to choose the right knife for me. I ended up choosing the 5 over a BK2/Shrapnel/Fulcrum. I think I'm a knife user, not an abuser- in fact anytime when I baton the 5 trough dry hardwood I'm a bit concerned.. but I don't think I could really manage to damage it with batoning, chopping or carving (but if I'm ever in a situation where I have to abuse it a little bit- the heavy duty construction and the warranty makes me feel better :)).
 
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Sorry, guess I have to be the jerk here. I buy esee because of the warranty, quality and customer service. I think we should use/abuse the tools. IF it breaks, that's why I bought esee. I have not, nor intend to use the warranty but if I'm stuck in a situation with only the izula...I should expect a new one upon recovery from my "survival" situation. Unless it was SHTF or zombie appocolipse then I could understand the lack of warranty. Reguardless I buy what I like and what I feel will be the best all-around tool for a situation. That's why I buy esee and their warranty.

I do want to clarify I will not use an izula to baton a cinderblock just to try it. Any warranty on my part would be from legitimate use/abuse. Not just to torture test a blade.

I only consider it abuse if you DO NOT need to perform a task beyond a knifes ability unless you need to survive. Not torture testing your blade...
 
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marsden said:
Sorry have not been on here in a while. I dont have any pictures but I can tell you I was just as shocked as everyone else. The Bk2 was beaten, chopped used and abused everyday. I threw it into trees hundreds of times and it never flinched. The stump was cut on a slight angle. When it hit I heard that horrible metal on metal sound and I looked down and there was a handle, the blade flew a few feet away. It snapped directly in the middle just after where the blade ends, right about the scales.
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Should have bought the esee 5.....haha
 
marsden said:
Sorry have not been on here in a while. I dont have any pictures but I can tell you I was just as shocked as everyone else. The Bk2 was beaten, chopped used and abused everyday. I threw it into trees hundreds of times and it never flinched. The stump was cut on a slight angle. When it hit I heard that horrible metal on metal sound and I looked down and there was a handle, the blade flew a few feet away. It snapped directly in the middle just after where the blade ends, right about the scales.
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and i'm still waiting for a proof that you actually snapped a bk-2 in half...how did it happen exactly? this post and your post #4 on this same thread is kinda conflicting. see my post #24 on this thread.


skinz0021 said:
Should have bought the esee 5.....haha
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more like he needs to get his story and proof that it actually happened lined up. i'm a big becker and esee fan (i spent more money on esee knives hands down than beckers) so i can't be accused of being biased. i just hate people who spread misinformation.
 
Why would he lie about this?

Also, I'm not seeing this conflict you speak of.
 
skinz0021 said:
but if I'm stuck in a situation with only the izula...I should expect a new one upon recovery from my "survival" situation. Unless it was SHTF or zombie appocolipse then I could understand the lack of warranty. ...
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Nope. I will be marching my happy little butt up to north Alabama and claiming my warranty even under these circumstances!!! :)
 
Joben said:
Why would he lie about this?

Also, I'm not seeing this conflict you speak of.
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he supposedly either dropped the bk-2 point first into a tree stump and it snapped in half, or he cut a tree stump on a slight angle, heard a metal on metal sound and the bk-2 snapped in half...like i said, i just want to know how did he snap a bk-2 in half...dropping it point first and chopping something and hitting metal are two completely different scenarios would you agree?

like i posted previously, if he can post a proof of a snapped in half bk-2 i'll buy him a gold membership...and a public apology. what can i say, i don't like misinformation being spread.
 
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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BS. Where are the pics? The proof is in the pictures..thats all i'm saying..i cant even find a pic of a broken ESEE 5 or BK 2 on google.
 
skinz0021 said:
I only consider it abuse if you DO NOT need to perform a task beyond a knifes ability unless you need to survive. Not torture testing your blade...
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Just for discussion sake...

I do not need to perform ANY tasks I do with my knives. I NEVER need to enter the woods, but do so because I enjoy it and want to teach my kids about the finer things.

While there, we do all matters of things with our knives in the name of practice...without practice, these tools will be worthless in a time of REAL need. Knowing what the knife's abilities/limits are is somewhat of a mystery until you exceed the limits wouldn't you say? Sure, batoning through an engine block is an obvious example of "more than a knife was probably designed for", but what about batoning through a frozen log in freezing conditions?

Now, (and to your point) I will never baton through a concrete block in the woods, but I do intend to practice every imaginable (and conceivably possibly necessary in a time of real need) woods task with my 5. I doubt that it will ever break, but I will beat the hell out of it as it was intended.

I am not trying to argue here...just pointing out that defining abuse is always a difficult proposition.
 
Unit,

I have to second you on that. I just got the chance Monday to "abuse" my ESEE 4 for the first time. I made myself a walking stick, did some batoning, chopping, and light cutting with it. None of it was necessary per-se. But there's no way I'm going to take this (or any other knife, and I trust ESEE) into a survival or possible survival situation without: 1) Proving the tool itself. 2) Knowing how I can best employ the blade. These two qualifications can only be met by spending hard time practicing and working with the blade.

God bless,
Adam
 
Jumpmonkey: Yup, Practice makes perfect...and it is a hell of a lot of fun!

I just opened my 5 that the brown Santa delivered...this thing is LAUGHING at me...I got nothing in my bag-o-tricks that should hurt this thing!
 
marsden said:
I threw it into trees hundreds of times and it never flinched
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And that's what I been waiting for. Toooj said there was one in the works, but he didn't have it in hand. So, yes, to date, there has been one broken BK2.

Throwing a BK2 into a tree was the only way that Ethan said it could be broken without the use of power tools, or absurd OVER ABUSE. Knives tempered to RC59-60 are not throwing knives. Throwing knives are tempered to be rc50-52, for a reason.

Impact creates a harmonic resonance in the steel that hard tempered knives cannot take, I don't care who makes them. Throwers are tempered to allow flex when the impact vibrations pass along the length of the blade.

The BK2 began making micro fractures internally from the first time you threw it into a tree, after that they just got bigger, until when you dropped it into the stump, that was the last straw, more than likely because the angle of the stump created enough angular force to go ahead and snap it.

I don't throw knives, or at least knives not made to be thrown, that's the quickest way to break one of hard tempering. Check the stats if you wish, but you broke your knife, and its not the knifes fault, its yours.

Moose
 
Everyone is taking this the wrong way. When said abused i did throw it into trees, but i did not hit concrete or anything else besides wood. When I said abused I meant I used it and I used it a lot, not like everyone who shows pictures of non used knives. JV3 re read my last post I never said I was chopping on an angle. The stump that I was dropping it into was slanted. Also I could not think any higher of the becker line.
 
marsden said:
Everyone is taking this the wrong way. When said abused i did throw it into trees, but i did not hit concrete or anything else besides wood. When I said abused I meant I used it and I used it a lot, not like everyone who shows pictures of non used knives. JV3 re read my last post I never said I was chopping on an angle. The stump that I was dropping it into was slanted. Also I could not think any higher of the becker line.
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Throwing it into anything is not what that knife was made to do. It's tempered to hard for that. Wood, concrete, plastic, playdoh, or people. It doesn't matter. Its a user built knife, ment to stay in the hand cutting, batonning, even prying, but not for throwing. Any knife with a 59-60 temper will break if its thrown. Throwing it into a tree repeatedly is what broke it. Its just not made to be thrown. If you want to throw a knife, but a throwing knife. If you want to throw your hard tempered knives, prepare for them to break.

Moose

ETA- Its your knife, do what you will with it. I'm most certainly not telling you what to do with YOUR knife, what I am trying to tell you is the science behind the breakage you experienced.
 
I managed to cut a 54 Buick Convertible in half, only chipping a small spot on the blade when I batoned it through the engine block, and then still managed to cut thin slices of turkey later for a sandwich. WOW! What a knife.
 
JV3 said:
he supposedly either dropped the bk-2 point first into a tree stump and it snapped in half, or he cut a tree stump on a slight angle, heard a metal on metal sound and the bk-2 snapped in half...like i said, i just want to know how did he snap a bk-2 in half...dropping it point first and chopping something and hitting metal are two completely different scenarios would you agree?

like i posted previously, if he can post a proof of a snapped in half bk-2 i'll buy him a gold membership...and a public apology. what can i say, i don't like misinformation being spread.
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He didn't say he was cutting the stump with the BK2.
He says the stump was cut at a slight angle, I believe the intent of that sentance is that the stump did not have a flat top, it was angled

Reading both posts together the story is that he dropped his BK2 point first onto the top of an angled stump, there was a strange metallic noise and it was in half.

I imagine it probably glanced off in some strange way and recieved a sharp blow which caused it to vibrate and shatter. Very similar to what might happen if it was thrown badly...which the author states that he had done on many occasions.

If you abuse a knife for long enough it will break. It don't care what knife it is or what it's made out of. Also, there could have been some flaw in the steel of this particular one, that also would not be unprecedented.

You may of course be right, it might be a fabrication. But I really believe you're seeing what you want to see. This is not a multi-layer story he would be having trouble keeping track of. He said he dropped his knife and it broke. That's it.
 
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