Kabar USMC Failure

T

tacticalpretender

Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3
Hi, my Kabar USMC blade broke just above the handle while chopping down a 3 inch birch tree. I was wondering if this would be covered under the warranty and If I have to send in both the blade and handle, or if I can just send in the blade.
 
The best people to get an answer from would be Kabar Customer Service. Their phone number is on Kabar's website at kabar.com
 
Do you know which model your knife is? I have a full-sized USMC fighting knife with a straight blade and a sharpened back tip. I don't know when mine was made but I have every reason to believe that it is identical to the knife used by Marines in World War II.

I also have two smaller Ka-Bars, also with the USMC stamp and leather sheaths. I would be a lot more work to get through a 3-inch birch tree with one of these.

Assuming it was one of the larger one, did you have to do any wrenching back and forth to get the knife out of a cut -- anything that would be considered "prying"? I have never heard of one of these knives breaking and since I have one I am very interested in what happened. I have heard of even stouter knives breaking when being used to pry. As to your getting a replacement, I assume you have a recent model with some evidence of purchase. Do you actually have a warranty statement? If I ever had such a thing I lost it.

Lawrence
 
Thanks for responding Lawrence my kabar is model 1211 , it's the full size model. I didn't do any wrenching or prying with the knife during chopping. I have other kabar products (BK9 , Kabar kukri, short becker clip point) and they have preformed well, so this failure was surprising.
 
The Kabar 12xx series use a hidden tang as opposed to the beckers full or extended tang. Do some googling and you'll see why it failed. The amount of material is drastically reduced at the guard.
 
Guest5160 said:
The Kabar 12xx series use a hidden tang as opposed to the beckers full or extended tang. Do some googling and you'll see why it failed. The amount of material is drastically reduced at the guard.
Click to expand...

Guest5160

I'm not sure its as simple as that. Yes, the Ka-Bar fighting knife doesn't have a full tang, but the fact that the tang goes all the way to the pommel apparently counts for a lot. This knife went all the way through WWII and the people who used it for all sorts of things loved it. Ethan Becker's BK7 was intended to be an improvement over the Ka-Bar fighting knife's design and it is in the sense that it can take more abuse without breaking, but the Ka-Bar could take quite a lot of abuse without breaking. In fact I have been on the lookout for comments about this knife over the years and the one above is the very first I've heard about its breaking.

I am a former engineer and while I'm not sure all this was taken into consideration, the Air Force in buying a weapon system doesn't pay for indestructibility. An airplane that is 100% safe would be so heavy it couldn't get off the ground; so they insist on a set of procedures to compensate for the risk. All structure wears out, for example; so they either insist on periodic tests or "R&R," remove and replace at given intervals. But before that they insisted that McDonnell Douglas -- Boeing for example demonstrate that the aircraft meet the established requirements.

As to the Ka-Bar USMC fighting knife I imagine it satisfied the initial requirements. There would have been some sort of testing and it obviously succeeded. However, it should be borne in mind that the manufacturer couldn't be 100% sure that every knife that came off the assembly-line was as good as the knife or knives tested. So what would the military have asked for in the way of QC, testing every knife? Not practical. Sample-testing? More likely. Depending upon how many knives were being churned out back then QC could have looked at an agreed upon number. Or, maybe the military just left it up to Ka-Bar's standard practices which have been pretty good over the years.

So, did this particular knife-break demonstrate that all Ka-Bar knives would break if someone tried to cut through a 3-inch birch tree? I think it more likely that Tactical Pretender got one of the manufacturing anomalies. They probably occurred in WWII as well but must have been pretty rare else they wouldn't have come through that war with such a good reputation.

Now, having said all that, Ethan Becker intended the BK7 to be an improvement on the Ka-Bar. It weighs 13 ounces to the Ka-Bar's 11. It is made of thicker steel. I'm not clear on whether the steel is better than that used on the Ka-Bar from WWII but the design is more confidence-inspiring. But to be fair the BK7 is being tested today (see several Youtube videos) for cutting through things like birch trees. The USMC would have been more concerned about fighting and an 11 ounce 7-inch bladed knife could be wielded more quickly than a 13-inch 7 1/2 bladed knife.

I was in the Korean War and not WWII, but we used the same equipment (minus the Ka-Bars. We were not issued these knives). But I just got out both my Ka-Bar and BK7
put them back into their sheaths and have to say that if I were going back into a WWII or Korean-War situation I'd rather carry the Ka-Bar than the BK7. Not only is the Ka-Bar a lighter knife, but the sheath is lighter as well. The knife and sheath at 15 1/2 ounces weigh less than the BK7 and its sheath: 1 pound 2 ounces. If you are going to hike (march) all day than you opt for lightness over indestructibility if you have a choice.

In a modern war where you ride to battle in a Humvee and don't have to march all that far, maybe you can afford a bit more indestructibility.

If I had to get in a knife fight today (which I will dearly try to avoid especially since I'll be 80 next month ;)) I'd probably use my Ka-Bar over my BK-7, or perhaps I'd hope to overawe him with my BK9, but on my hikes, while I am trying out the BK2 at the present time I expect that eventually I'll prefer my BK17. :)

Lawrence

Lawrence
 
Thank you for your input, Lawrence. It was quite fascinating.

I've only held a real Ka-Bar USMC but i have owned a couple well made replicas and even they could get through a 4" tree. Likely a rare failure as previously suggested. I have no experience with the company but considering their reputation i would say that you're safe as long as you didn't do anything that could be construed as "abusive".
 
Killtation said:
Thank you for your input, Lawrence. It was quite fascinating.

I've only held a real Ka-Bar USMC but i have owned a couple well made replicas and even they could get through a 4" tree. Likely a rare failure as previously suggested. I have no experience with the company but considering their reputation i would say that you're safe as long as you didn't do anything that could be construed as "abusive".
Click to expand...

Killtation,

I'm not sure that "replica" is the right word when one refers to KaBar 1217s, the USMC combat/utility knife. The one I have was built, according to KaBar, in accordance with the exact design used for the knives delivered to the USMC during WWII. As I understand it KaBar is still building their 1217s in the same way with one exception. They no longer sharpen the clip, the back edge of the knife tip. Mine has a sharpened clip so it must have been one of the early reproductions.

With all the discussions here, but mostly over on the Becker forum about the 1217 versus the BK7, I decided to get a second 1217. I'm not sure about the legality of the one I have with the sharpened clip -- there is speculation that it might be considered "double-edged," and double-edged knives are illegal in many states. Also, I spent a lot of time with the leather handle and sheath on mine and would hate to see them dinged up. Anyway, I bought my second 1217 through Amazon which I will hike with on occasion, and noticed this warranty statement:

KA-BAR Knives warrants said:
It may be that there have been warranty claims associated with the activities this warranty statement excludes. I'm pretty sure I read about these knives being used by Marines in WWII to open C-Ration cans and for digging foxholes when a shovel wasn't handy, but KaBar no longer furnishes knives to the Marines so that is moot. Using a knife, even a Becker, as a pry bar is risky. Becker built the BK2 for that purpose. Over on the Becker forum someone broke the tip of his BK10, a stout knife intended for a combat role, prying in some wood. The guy was chopping the wood but as we might do, saw a bit he could pry out before continuing to chop -- and broke his tip. The tip of a 1217 looks much more fragile to me than the tip of a BK10; so that's not anything I would ever want to do -- nor any of the other things KaBar prohibits, but then I've got a lot of knives and tools so that sort of thing wouldn't occur to me. If I were in a situation where it was the only knife it would be a different matter. Becker built the BK2 as that one knife that could do everything, but even the BK2 will break (there is a recent account with photo over on the Becker forum) if one happens to get a defective copy.

Lawrence
Click to expand...
 
Lawrence Helm said:
Guest5160

I'm not sure its as simple as that. Yes, the Ka-Bar fighting knife doesn't have a full tang, but the fact that the tang goes all the way to the pommel apparently counts for a lot. This knife went all the way through WWII and the people who used it for all sorts of things loved it. Ethan Becker's BK7 was intended to be an improvement over the Ka-Bar fighting knife's design and it is in the sense that it can take more abuse without breaking, but the Ka-Bar could take quite a lot of abuse without breaking. In fact I have been on the lookout for comments about this knife over the years and the one above is the very first I've heard about its breaking.

I am a former engineer and while I'm not sure all this was taken into consideration, the Air Force in buying a weapon system doesn't pay for indestructibility. An airplane that is 100% safe would be so heavy it couldn't get off the ground; so they insist on a set of procedures to compensate for the risk. All structure wears out, for example; so they either insist on periodic tests or "R&R," remove and replace at given intervals. But before that they insisted that McDonnell Douglas -- Boeing for example demonstrate that the aircraft meet the established requirements.

As to the Ka-Bar USMC fighting knife I imagine it satisfied the initial requirements. There would have been some sort of testing and it obviously succeeded. However, it should be borne in mind that the manufacturer couldn't be 100% sure that every knife that came off the assembly-line was as good as the knife or knives tested. So what would the military have asked for in the way of QC, testing every knife? Not practical. Sample-testing? More likely. Depending upon how many knives were being churned out back then QC could have looked at an agreed upon number. Or, maybe the military just left it up to Ka-Bar's standard practices which have been pretty good over the years.

So, did this particular knife-break demonstrate that all Ka-Bar knives would break if someone tried to cut through a 3-inch birch tree? I think it more likely that Tactical Pretender got one of the manufacturing anomalies. They probably occurred in WWII as well but must have been pretty rare else they wouldn't have come through that war with such a good reputation.

Now, having said all that, Ethan Becker intended the BK7 to be an improvement on the Ka-Bar. It weighs 13 ounces to the Ka-Bar's 11. It is made of thicker steel. I'm not clear on whether the steel is better than that used on the Ka-Bar from WWII but the design is more confidence-inspiring. But to be fair the BK7 is being tested today (see several Youtube videos) for cutting through things like birch trees. The USMC would have been more concerned about fighting and an 11 ounce 7-inch bladed knife could be wielded more quickly than a 13-inch 7 1/2 bladed knife.

I was in the Korean War and not WWII, but we used the same equipment (minus the Ka-Bars. We were not issued these knives). But I just got out both my Ka-Bar and BK7
put them back into their sheaths and have to say that if I were going back into a WWII or Korean-War situation I'd rather carry the Ka-Bar than the BK7. Not only is the Ka-Bar a lighter knife, but the sheath is lighter as well. The knife and sheath at 15 1/2 ounces weigh less than the BK7 and its sheath: 1 pound 2 ounces. If you are going to hike (march) all day than you opt for lightness over indestructibility if you have a choice.

In a modern war where you ride to battle in a Humvee and don't have to march all that far, maybe you can afford a bit more indestructibility.

If I had to get in a knife fight today (which I will dearly try to avoid especially since I'll be 80 next month ;)) I'd probably use my Ka-Bar over my BK-7, or perhaps I'd hope to overawe him with my BK9, but on my hikes, while I am trying out the BK2 at the present time I expect that eventually I'll prefer my BK17. :)

Lawrence

Lawrence
Click to expand...

Lawrence, I've been thinking a knife is full-tang when "the tang goes all the way to the pommel." Am I mistaken? Thank you
 
OldMarineVet said:
Lawrence, I've been thinking a knife is full-tang when "the tang goes all the way to the pommel." Am I mistaken? Thank you
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on the subject and who is talking about what. The 1217 goes all the way to the pommel and some people think of that as a "full tang" but when we compare it to a Becker BK7 for example we can see a big difference. The BK7 is "full" in a way that the tang of the 1217 is not. If the BK7's tang is "full" the 1217's tang is less than that It does go all the way to the end but it doesn't do it with a width going out to the extent of the handle.

Grammatically if we tied the 1217's tang to length and called it something like a "full-length" tang we could then differentiate between the 1217's full length tang and the entirely full tang of the BK7, but as it is the word is being asked by too many to do too much. IMO

Lawrence
 
Lawrence, OMV - Here are a couple of posts I made back in Feb 2014 about knife tang construction terminology. The first is basically a primer on terminology because folks were using the wrong terms and making generalizations based on incorrect (from my POV) usage of said terminology.

The second, a post from the same thread, was my reply to another post. Am I OCD about this stuff, yes and no. I prefer truth and correctness. I also dislike it when people bash perfectly good construction methods FOR THE DESIGNED PURPOSE OF THE ITEM just because "design characteristic X" doesn't perform the same as "Design Characteristic Y".

Post 1 -

zzyzzogeton said:
The Kabar 1213/1215/1218/12anything-else variation of the 1219C2 Fighting/Utility Knife from Kabar does NOT have a rat tang. Repeat after me - it is NOT a rat tang. A rat tang is a SMALL DIAMETER ROD usually WELDED to the blade of a knife or sword for use in ornamental/decorative/useless knives and swords.

A TAPERED tang gradually gets smaller as the distance from the blade increases. It can taper from top to bottom or from side to side or both. A TAPERED tang can resemble a RAT tang when the tang tapers along all 4 edges/sides.

The Kabars are Fighting/Utility knives. NOT just Fighting knives. Yes they can be used to fight in an emergency when the S has hit the fan and you run out of bullets, but I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that since they first came out in 1943, the 1219C2 has killed way more boxes, bags, cans, crates,etc than people, dogs, cats or rats.

The classic definition of a FULL tang is a tang that extends from the blade all the way through the handle to the pommel. A HALF tang only goes half way from blade to pommel and 3/4 Tang goes, you guessed it, 3/4 of the way.

A tang that is not exposed for the length of the handle is a HIDDEN TANG. Depending on the blade width, you could conceivably have a FULL, HIDDEN tang that is wider than the blade. Would look kinda dumb, but you could do it.

A tang that IS exposed for some portion of the handle on both sides of the handle is called a FULL-WIDTH TANG.

These terms can be combined to accurately describe the tang of a knife. You can have a FULL HIDDEN tang, a FULL-WIDTH FULL tang, a FULL-WIDTH HALF tang, etc.

So the 1219C2(variant) has a FULL, HIDDEN tang. It has been called a STICK tang for a while. Because a lot of sticks that fall off trees are small and roundish, people have started assuming that a STICK tang is a RAT tang.

Oh, by the way.... some other examples of where usage of FULL, HIDDEN tangs (aka STICK tangs) as found in the 1219C2(Variants) occurs in such small fighting knives as Broad Swords, Bastard Swords, Hand-and-a-half Swords and Katanas.



CK - It will continue to happen as long as people refuse to use the proper term and continue to pass on what amounts to urban legend. They believe everything on the innerweb is true. All we can do is keep beating the dead horse until it learns to sing.
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Post 2 -

zzyzzogeton said:
I don't disagree with you that a BK2/3/4/7/10/12/9 will always have stronger than a Kabar 1219C2 variant. This a physical fact. The blade and tang are thicker, there is no offset for the tang to be hidden.

What chaps my patootie is the use of the wrong terminology in the effort to bolster a viewpoint and is consequently results in misinformation being promulgated on and on and on.

The OP applied the term RAT tang to a Kabar 1219C2 variant incorrectly, again putting another bogus post in the never to be emptied, internet garbage bucket.

I don't like the term "STICK tang" because it is imprecise and doesn't correctly describe the construction and most people don't use it properly.

You said you don't settle for anything less than a FULL tang.

Again, per my post - The definition of a FULL tang is that the tang extends the FULL length of the handle.

Kabar 1219C2 variants are FULL tang.
ALL Beckers are FULL tang. (To be precise, most are EXTENDED FULL-WIDTH FULL tang knives because the tang EXTENDS BEYOND the pommel/handle.

So, Beckers (made by Kabar) and the Kabar 1219C2 variants are ALL FULL TANG knives.

One is a HIDDEN FULL tang knife and the other is a FULL-WIDTH FULL TANG knife.

ANY company that makes HIDDEN tang knives is using the same construction. And there are LOTS of them.
Click to expand...
 
If it looks like a rat, and waddles like a rat, and quacks like a rat, and breaks like a rat; I feel fine calling it a rat tail tang.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Lawrence, OMV - Here are a couple of posts I made back in Feb 2014 about knife tang construction terminology. The first is basically a primer on terminology because folks were using the wrong terms and making generalizations based on incorrect (from my POV) usage of said terminology.

The second, a post from the same thread, was my reply to another post. Am I OCD about this stuff, yes and no. I prefer truth and correctness. I also dislike it when people bash perfectly good construction methods FOR THE DESIGNED PURPOSE OF THE ITEM just because "design characteristic X" doesn't perform the same as "Design Characteristic Y".

Post 1 -

Post 2 -
Click to expand...

Interesting. Unfortunately we probably need a term equivalent to "stick tang" or "hidden tang" if we want to differentiate between the 1217 and the BK7 type tangs. I actually don't like stick tang or hidden tang. Someone could hear those terms and still ask, "well is it a full tang or not," and if you said "yes," you still haven't differentiated between it and the full tang of a BK7. I like your term "Full Width Tang," but where is the descriptive term to say "less than full width tang"? "Full width half tang," sounds somewhat awkward IMO.

Not something I want to argue about however. I'm sure you are right, I'm merely using descriptive terms to describe the difference between the tang of the 1217 and that of the BK7 when there are perfectly good (in some official document someplace) terms for the difference. Unfortunately I'm old and not likely to remember them. ;)

Lawrence
 
I've had two friends break their Ka-bar fighting utility knives, both from throwing. If you cruise the web, you'll see a few Ka-bar utility knives broken, some from throwing others from batoning. Most of the breaks occur where the tang meets the handle, some believe a result of the sharp decrease in size from blade to tang. I still have one myself and consider it to be a pretty durable knife, wouldn't want to do too much batoning with it, and definitely not through big thick knotty hard woods.
I agree with Zzyzz about using correct terminology as a means of not spreading misinformation, but it seems as with many old arts that there are multiple terms for the same thing that have developed, some of which are more helpful than others. IMHO the Ka-bar utility knives have a stick tang, which is the same as a rat tail tang. Hidden tang doesn't really say much about the type of tang other than you can't see it, but it could be a partial tang, a stick tang, a narrowing tang, etc. A full tang doesn't just go the entire length of the handle, but is also as wide as the blade is. The old Moras, No. 1 and 2, both have tangs that go the full length of the handle, but I would not describe them as full tang, but rather stick tang... Perhaps before the emergence of full tang (full width) these stick tangs would have been referred to as full tang (?), but in today's terms it would seem misleading...
 
Sorry , I forgot to post a picture of the break.
100_2406.jpg
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FYI Here's KA-BAR's tang names/definitions from their 2014 Catalog

Full-Length Tang: Extension of the blade steel that runs completely through the handle to the end of the knife.

Full Tang: A tang that shows all around the handle of the knife between two pieces of handle material.
 
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