Cpl Punishment, hola
Re BaldtacoII's post (don't want to quote the whole thing):
I understand your reasoning, but the results that are from those that have actually used Busses should carry more weight. I don't think it's too skewed, since quite a few have posted that they used to have Busses and did not like them.
That seems reasonable. My objective was just to be cautious. The OP is a name I don't recognize from this subsection. Many people show up on this section of this site asking questions of various bits of kit because unlike the other subsections this one is more about field use. It would be easy for a person to get totally the wrong impression of a bit of kit when that iceberg mechanism is evident. I'd offer the same caveats about say SOG. SOG hardly gets a mention here as it seems most to prefer something else. If a new face showed up asking about SOG as field knives and few regulars from here commented yet there was an influx of people from the SOG section and MT&E praising them the newbie could achieve conclusions that are probably not held by most of us users here.
Let's be honest, the only criticism so far in this thread of Busse knives by those that don't own them, that carries any weight is the price and aesthetics. Yep, they are pricey. But then, as has been pointed out many times, people spend thousands on stupid things like booze and cigarettes, or great big TVs and such. It means their priorities are different, not that Busses are too expensive. But, if they think any piece of steel isn't worth that price, fine, it's a legitimate opinion.
I tend to avoid comments on price in absolute terms. I believe the affairs of a man and his purse are private. To poke about it that is a kind of rudeness. I do wonder at a lot of things in relative terms though, including knives. A rip off is a rip of whether one can easily afford to be ripped off or not. I have speculated on that in relation to all sorts of goods. None are exempt and I see no reason why they should be. Still, the price thing does factor in usually used as a cudgel in an attempt to trample dissent. That happens here a lot amongst kids we call Chavs.
Features of the Chav include a disposition toward being bellicose and the insistence on prestige-label clothing despite being poor. The odd fact is they often use those labels as badges of rank in an attempt to humiliate other children not so expensively dressed. The weird part is those they seek to buy rank over with their label dropping often come from significantly more affluent and better bred stock. In fact, most of the comfortably wealthy people I know hold little store by labels and badges and are frequently scruffy gits. On that, any of the arguments that go you know it's the best, you'd own one too if you could afford it...everything else is sour grapes... just makes me laugh. Yeah, the money bit is kinda icky.
That said, we cannot overlook the cost because we know of at least two human tendencies. 1] The more something costs the higher it is usually rated. 2] Given two equally tenable alternatives, once a person commits to one they will exaggerate the differences to distance the one they selected from the hitherto not so different. Justification after the fact. It's not surprising that people claw and rake to find explanations amid the tenuous when they may have to explain to a shrewish wife why they have to eat burgers this week or whatever.
However, others aren't so legitimate. Examples:
"Busses are too thick, they're just sharp prybars...."
Some of that may be true I don't know. I lost interest in them a good while a go. What I do believe though is they should come sharp and so on. After spending a good amount of time on their forums I have to say that I've seen a fair number of complaints even from fans about sharpness, fit and finish and so on. It's not a few isolated cases as some would have me believe. I started of quite positive about them but I have to say it was [and here's that relative money thing] quite sickening to see what some people got for custom knife money.
"The edge is too obtuse."
Don't care about that. I find that easy to fix. In fact it is a pleasure to do so.
I don't like their marketing policies
Not so irrelevant if you believe that the marketing artificially inflates the price. I do. There are other aspects I don't like either but I'll resist getting into that. Sufficient to say I foster no I'll will toward Busse. In fact, I sent a post card to one of the Busse crews daughter to help her with a school project. But I can't overlook the fact that I prefer transparency and plain speak over babble and a sprinkle of pixie dust no matter who is doing it.
Most yeahsayers like them because they really do work as advertised, their heat treats the 3 Bussekin companies use really do produce superior toughness, and they really do hold their edge, and are pretty easy to sharpen. So you CAN have both excellent toughness and very good edge holding capability, but you will pay for it. Whether having both of those things is worth the price of admission (and even there Scrapyard knives aren't MUCH more expensive than a RAT Cutlery, Becker, etc, and Swamp Rat aren't bad, either) is up to the individual.
If you read my first post in this thread you will notice that I offered up applause precisely because of the toughness Busse managed to wrangle out of D2. I stand by that. Still not buying into the price thing though. If they were the price of a Buck I'd overlook them just as quickly as I do now. Money isn't the be all and end all for me.
I think OldPhysics summed up nicely with And each of us gets to make up his or her own mind. I love it.. That works for me. This is all so subjective only a fool would show up expecting agreement about knives. Personally, I just like to swap inspirations.
