Izula as a tactical fighter?

I wouldn't want to be cut or stabbed by one. I also wouldn't want to fight someone who was well trained with one. Not unless I had a much bigger knife or a gun.
 
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+1 if I was in a fight, and I needed to use a knife, I would want something with as much reach as I can get. Think back to the days of Samurai, or Romans, or Spartans.... they had a lot of training for close quarter fighting with edge weaponry, and they tended to use knives MUCH larger than the izula.
 
I'd prefer to use something a little larger. Like a spear. :p
 
beats using your car keys, I guess. I can only see an izula being at it's peak effectiveness if you had the element of suprise... which probably won't look good any way you slice it, in a court.
 
The Izula would work as an un-tactical fighter or a mildly tactical tiff knife, but not a tactical fighter.

What makes a "fighter" "tactical"?
 
You could make it work just as well as any other knife. Personally, I would prefer a folder if size was a concern. You can get a much bigger blade in a much smaller package.
 
I wouldn't want one used on me. But if someone were determined enough a pencil could be a "tactical" weapon.
 
I suppose you could argue that it could do some damage but it wouldn't be too tactical to choose it as a primary blade?
 
I would rather face an ignorant person with a larger blade than a man who knew how to use an edged weapon that was armed with an Izula, H.E.S.T., LaGriffe or Push Knives.

The concept of "tactical" knife or "fighting" knife is really just the thing of magazine articles and bizarre internet threads.

Bigger can be better, if you are willing to carry it. But for defensive situations of which there are hundreds of different possible scenarios, well, let's just put yourself in the attacker's shoes.

The person is either an EDP (Emotionally Disturbed Person) or they are out to rob you, those are the two primary motivators. With the EDP, all bets are off, these are the people that you might have to shoot to slide lock and you might have to stab them to death to keep them off of you.

The robber or someone who, for whatever reason, tries to yank you out of your vehicle or otherwise physically control you, and this for whatever reason deteriorates into a lethal force situation...if you think you need something larger than an Izula...you might very well be right! Because if you have to ask the question...you might be in over your head already. :)
 
Honestly, I think it would suck as a fighting knife. I have been stewing over the tactical/fighting style knife for quite a while. To be honest, I think everyone has gone in the totally wrong direction on it's design for years.

I'll explain.

First I'll tell you why the Izula would make for a poor tacitcal fighter.
A) Too short. You want to have a little reach.
B) The tip isn't as penetrating specialized as is needing for fighting.
C) The knife (as crazy as it may sound) is too thick.

I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a tactical fighter and just though, "something isn't right about this." I see these 1/4" thick bars of steel with relatively fat grinds being passed off as "fighters". What are the two main jobs of a fighting knife? One is to stab. The other is to slash. Would it not make a lot more sense to have a knife with a thinner blade, one that could be considered a terrific slicer, considering that the majority of knife attack movements involve cuts as apposed to thrusts? I think so. Isn't it possible for thin knives to also make for good all purpose knives? I think so. Just look at Moras. Hell, just look at the ESEE-3. That knife is relatively thin, yet does anyone question it's durability? No way. It's a tought little booger. So now we have the possibility of a thinner blade making for a better fighter. Not to mention the amount of weight saved by making a knife half the thickness of what is traditionally considered a "tactical fighter". The lighter the knife, the faster it is in the hand. I firmly believe that the thinner you can get, without sacrificing too much strength, the better off you are for a fighting knife. I tell you, these companies like Tops and such have it all wrong. They're building what people expect a tactical fighter to be, not what would actually work best.

So now that my thickness rant is out of the way.

Penetration is the next most important characteristic of a tactical fighter. You have be able to plunge deep. Something with a gently sloping drop point with a flat spine simply won't do. The ideal is to have a tip that helps direct flesh or other material easily around the blade with as little resisitance as possible. You want something with a subtle enough change that it actually covers more ground while changing it's resisting material's shape the least (if that makes sense). It's the same concept as making a boat that displaces less water with less resistance, making it faster. The ideal tip has a slightly more aggressively pointy tip design, with, at the very least, a false edge on top to help it displace flesh with less resistance. The new ESEE's with the sharpened spine swedge would be much better.

Now we move onto the size. In a fight, any kind of fight, whether it be knife, gun or fist, no one dies from trama, unless it's to the brain, stopping signals from being sent. People die from bleeding. Either bleeding out, or bleeding into areas that will stop them breathing, that is the goal. Believe it or not, it's actually very hard to kill someone quickly by means of cutting or stabbing. Unless the strikes are expertly placed, chances are, you're not going to do the significant nervous system damage you see in the movies that turns people off like a switch. Your goal is going to be to bleed them out. For that, your best bet is a longer edge that will cut deeper over a longer area or stab deeper. Think about how much room you really have between the dermis and vital organs. It's actually a good deal of space in between. You want something that can reach through that and hit something vital. I promise you that if you got into a fight with a grown man, 6 feet tall, with a weight of 200 lb, you're not going to do enough damage with a 3 inch blade, unless of course you're very skilled in knife fighting techniques. You need something at least 4.5-5" long. Then you can get through the layers of fat and material and hit something vital.

So with all of that in mind, no, the Izula would not make a good tactical fighter.

If anything is spelled wrong or worded crazy, I appologize. I'm "three little Indians" at the moment.
 
I've got to go with dyl here. It's remotely possible, but very difficult to get an effective kill or disable with a knife that small and fat.
 
Well, considering the common screwdriver was the #2 weapon in the edged weapons category for years[1], and might still be, for "civilian homicide," I would say that you folks are brainstorming and that's not necessarily a bad thing but a lot of your conclusions are opinion not necessarily based in reality.




[1] That's not my opinion, that's the opinion of the researchers at Calibre Press and what they put forth as an law enforcement and industry standard in training, for years, "Surviving Edged Weapons."
 
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