Heavy duty? I think not.

He could have avoided the breakage by a) buying an axe, b) choosing a piece of wood with fewer knots, or c) batonning around the outside edge of the log instead of through the middle of it. I'll never understand why people think it is more admirable for a tool to be built to withstand the stupidity of its users than for a user to work intelligently within the limits of his tool. :rolleyes:

Frosty
 
There are some things a full flat grind are not ideal for, splitting wood being one of them.
 
That doesn't look right right...I would guess bad heat-treat too.
 
I've batoned plenty with full flat grinds and they work just fine. I think that heat treatment was perhaps a little hard, but more importantly he wasn't being intelligent about how he tackled the piece of wood. If there's a big knot in the log, orient the blade parallel to the knot so that the wood will split around the knot without you having to baton your way through it, which is hard on you AND the knife. Work smarter--not harder. ;)
 
The batonning he did just exposed a flaw in the knife. All batonning controversy and wood processing techniques aside , this knife seems intended to marketed as a military/tactical/survival knife , and a heavy-use one at that.Maybe that's the problem.

In all my experience with using ( and occasionally abusing) all manner of knives from inexpensive MIC units , Kabars , Sogs , Esees , customs and even Cold Steel knives like the forementioned SRK, MH , Pendletons I have never run across any of my knives failing like that. I've wacked through nails, bricks ,knots,wire , hit rebar , metal siding , etc and only messed up edges. I'm not normally abusive , but stuff happens.

I just wanted to point out that this appears to me to be a catastrophic failure of a newly released knife. Maybe it's only his one ; maybe I've been lucky myself all these years with mine , I'm not really sure. I'm not a metallurgist nor a guy with a goalie mask to see what breaks or not. I just see what I see.

There are a few knives that I've seen fail badly ( hard to critic either the tool or operator sometimes) and even if it's only a few out of a bunch , it's usually a deal-breaker for me.
 
hiwa said:
The batonning he did just exposed a flaw in the knife. All batonning controversy and wood processing techniques aside , this knife seems intended to marketed as a military/tactical/survival knife , and a heavy-use one at that.Maybe that's the problem.
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I'd love to see where you're finding this marketed as a heavy duty survival knife, because it's not. Not by Cold Steel, anyways.

It's marketed as a combat knife, which is a far cry from trying to whack it through a piece of wood with another piece of wood.
 
Frostyfingers said:
I'll never understand why people think it is more admirable for a tool to be built to withstand the stupidity of its users than for a user to work intelligently within the limits of his tool. :rolleyes:

Frosty
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Because fighting human stupidity is quite the challenge!
 
Yeah I agree . Cold Steel markets it as a combat knife like you say. Some of the guys I've seen reviewing seem to think it wood make a good woods knife though. At least that's the impression I got. If all it's good for is injuring or killing someone in a combat role , then a chipped blade won't really matter much when it's stuck in someone , right?
 
elkins45 said:
Maybe he should buy an axe?
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While yes the knife should have probably stood up to that test, thats not what the knife was designed for. There are tools specifically designed for splitting wood. That said i, for the most part, feel that the only cs knives worth buying are some of their folders, because i am a fan of the triad lock. Just my opinion.
 
BRL said:
Yep. So the only task this knife should be expected to perform without failure is open MREs :D
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And if it did that consistently, that would probably raise my opinion of Cold Steel.

Levity aside, it's tough to get really upset over this. Maybe the heat treat is bad. Maybe that knife was actually made out of some corrugated aluminum siding Lynn found behind the dumpster one day. Heck, maybe it's plastic and JB Weld painted black, who knows.

But the knife failed doing something it's not marketed or designed to do. So... alright, well, the video maker found the limits of the Leatherneck. Apparently it's trying to baton through a knot.
 
Well, after watching this vid I have decided:
1. I just have found out I have never in fact batoned with a knife. And I am not upset in any way. They say batoning is done to obtain some dry wood? That batoning? You must be joking! I was starting fires all seasons wan I was a boy - never had to do anything even close!
2. I guess I do not want knives which are good for batoning. That are not good knives - the same knife can not be good for both cutting and batoning. And I have got already Fiskars hatchet, so I will not need another one any time soon.
That is my personal learning - I hope I did not offend anybody. So I do not want to say that batoning is stupid or something... I just do not see myself doing that ever. And particularly in a survival situation - when and if my life will depend on that knife.

I have got Leatherneck - I liked it and in my opinion it is a good knife. I like it much better than SRK, Recon Tanto or True Flight I have had but never liked that much.
 
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Poez said:
Well, after watching this vid I have decided:
1. I just have found out I have never in fact batoned with a knife. And I am not upset in any way. They say batoning is done to obtain some dry wood? That batoning? You must be joking! I was starting fires all seasons wan I was a boy - never had to do anything even close!
2. I guess I do not want knives which are good for batoning. That are not good knives - the same knife can not be good for both cutting and batoning. And I have got already Fiskars hatchet, so I will not need another one any time soon.
That is my personal learning - I hope I did not offend anybody. So I do not want to say that batoning is stupid or something... I just do not see myself doing that ever. And particularly in a survival situation - when and if my life will depend on that knife.

I have got Leatherneck - I liked it and in my opinion it is a good knife. I like it much better than SRK, Recon Tanto or True Flight I have had but never liked that much.
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You will change your mind once you own a Becker BK2 !
 
I made it to the point where he showed the deformation "wobble" in the edge. It was at that point I realized his aggressive "beat it like a red headed step child" batoning technique was not going to end well. I'm sure the knife is fine, the user however.....
 
Poez said:
Well, after watching this vid I have decided:
1. I just have found out I have never in fact batoned with a knife. And I am not upset in any way. They say batoning is done to obtain some dry wood? That batoning? You must be joking! I was starting fires all seasons wan I was a boy - never had to do anything even close!
2. I guess I do not want knives which are good for batoning. That are not good knives - the same knife can not be good for both cutting and batoning. And I have got already Fiskars hatchet, so I will not need another one any time soon.
That is my personal learning - I hope I did not offend anybody. So I do not want to say that batoning is stupid or something... I just do not see myself doing that ever. And particularly in a survival situation - when and if my life will depend on that knife.
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:thumbup: +1, well put.
 
Blue Sky said:
Anyone who has split more than a little bit of wood knows a knot like that is not trivial. There may be reasons not to like this knife, but this vid is not one of them IMO.
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Agreed. A knot is VERY hard compacted wood, and I don't think many knives would survive such heavy impacts without damage. As for the type of damage, I've never seen carbon steel break like that.
 
Dorito Monk said:
A man tries to baton through knotty wood with his knife and the knife breaks - big surprise.

It's not the knife's fault the owner didn't have sense enough to use a splitting axe.
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TBH I have batonned through similar logs with a Mora and it was fine- I dont see whats so abusive about batonning?!
 
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