Honest opinions of the Mad Dog Shrike?

C

crowinghorse

Joined
Sep 14, 1999
Messages
332
I would like peoples honest opinions of the Mad Dog Shrike. What is it good for/bad for? What can and can't it do? Thanks.
Horse

This is a REAL, Honest question. Please treat it as such.

Warning: This is not a flame. Anyone who says or believes I am flaming them or anyone or thing else is incorrect. I am only in search of truth...the real goal of man. Thanks.
 
The Shrike is not a fighter; it is not a survival knofe. I has one specific purpose: assassination.

The length is enough to take the heart or lungs from different angles. The width (height?) is intentionally a bit less than that of the average eye socket...guess what for. The blade geometry lends itself to thrusts rather than snap cuts or slashes.

Truly a "special use" knife. Hope this helps.
Rich
 
It's a good design. The design criteria appear to be, essentially, a knife that excels at piercing but is less one-dimensional than a classic dagger.

The handle is typical Mad Dog -- if you like his handles (and I do), that's a good start. Like a conventional dagger, the blade is straight and comes to a sharp point for optimum piercing. By moving the point upwards Mad Dog might be sacrificing some piercing ability in order to make the knife more generally useful.

Unlike a dagger, which almost always have great point geometry but horrible edge geometry due to the mid-grind, the Shrike is a full flat grind from the spine, so the edge is actually useful for edge-heavy uses like slashing. So that means you have near-dagger penetration, but slashing performance that's as good as many non-dagger fighters.

Get the shrike if your uses are heavier on piercing and you're willing to give up some slashing ability. I strongly suggestion going with the 3/16" shrikes if any were actually made. If you care more about slashing and are willing to give up a bit of the shrike's piercing ability, you're looking for a knife with a big belly and positive include angle, like the Wild Thing.

Joe
 
Thanks for the help. I ordered an ATAK Thing (a Wild Thing on steroids!) It is like an ATAK with a 5" sharpened false clip point. I can't wait to see how it feels. I have heard the Shrike is for use at "eliminating senteries and others in battle field situations" An assasination knife...hmmm
Does anyone know how wide the blade is? I can't tell from the pictures...I know it is 6.75" long.
Thanks.
HOrse
 
Wow -- I hadn't realized there were two threads with different questions! As I write the thread asking for "opinions" of the Shrike has 30 replies, and the thread asking for "honest opinions" has only three....

That might be an indication of what kind of opinions people like to give, but then again ... I posted my honest opinions in the other thread because I saw that one first and didn't realize, and likely others made the same mistake.

If I'd realized, I would have posted that reply in this thread, and written something entirely different for the other one.

Can I make up for not answering the right question last time by answering it now?
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My (just plain opinion) opinion of the Shrike is you'd better get an ironclad guarantee in writing that says you can get your money back if it fails the x-ray test, and x-ray it right after purchase to make sure it isn't a secretly marked reject. My (just plain opinion) opinion is Mad Dog grinds two symmetrical notches on the end of the tang to mark rejects to be scrapped later or used for shop knives, and one or more dishonest employees put handles on an unknown number of reject blades and stole them to sell.

It's unfortunate that those knives can only be detected by x-rays (or by cutting off the handle and ruining the knife, but that's hardly useful) but you can't blame Mad Dog for it -- no one could have predicted a reject marked like that could possibly have a handle put on it by mistake (or dishonesty), and everybody marks their reject blades with two symmetrical grind marks on the end of the tang; that's the standard practice in knifemaking. It's a point of pride with many knifemakers to grind those marks with perfect symmetry, by the way, just because real craftsmen do everything carefully and well even if no one will ever see it.

-Wholly Brother Cougar, Speaker to the Cistern :{)
 
I lean towards Joe Talmadges point of view.
Since I don't have an honest opinion, I posted my regular opinion in the other thread.

Crowinghorse, I think you handled your self well in the other thread, considering the amount of grief sent your way.

If you could examine a John Greco and a Mad Dog side by side, with no preconceived notions of who made what, I don't think you'd see where the $295 difference comes from.
John Greco can differentially temper, too, and does; and his transparent finish offers as much or more protection than hard chrome.
Take both knives out into the field and knock them around for two or three years and I don't think you'll see $5 difference, let alone $295.

Semper Fi, Crowinghorse.

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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11, Freedom

 
Coug; a second generation Shrike was one of the knives x-rayed by Jim 'Gonesailing.' No notches were found. I am unaware of ANY notches ever being found on a Shrike at all.

It is unlikely that any of the second or third (current) gen knives have notches, as the time period when this mischief was going on was when the first gen knives (vertical choil plunge, matte chrome) were being made, not the second gen (diagonal choil, bright chrome) or third gen (diagonal choil, matte chrome) knives.

Hope this helps, Walt
 
CH there are alot of good things about the design for the purposes that it is intended for. It is somewhat of a limited use knife however. If that is ok for you and you have a purpose for it then cool. I do worry some for you military types that the edge is too hard. I would expect it to chip when comming into contact with hard equipment on the enemy or when used for other things in the battlefield. Also it will not be easy to resharpen. I personally like that Bagwell bowies from Ontario. Great design for fighting (probably better in my book), stainless steel but tough and with an edge hardness that means its easy to get a razor edge and the knife is 1/2 the price without the wait. Get one from MJS and a sheath from Stellar and your good to go.
 
I used a friend's Shrike once for a weekend hiking trip, it surved my purposes just fine. Granted, I didnt do any killing or Saouth America type survival
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Dark Nemesis

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All the knives in the world go round and round, round and round, round and round...DAMN, one of them took my wallet !!! :)
 
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