Mad Dog versus Busse

Namviet, when you describe the Busse handle as not surviving, does this mean the Micarta slabs broke / came off, or was there a gross failure of the tang itself? What are the specifics of the Mil-Std test?

-Cliff

[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 20 October 1999).]
 
Busse's Infi blades, in particular the Steel Heart II and the Battle Mistress are much better than Mad Dogs.

However, Mad Dogs are I believe superior to Busse's Basics line of knives.

Mad Dogs knives are awesome, but Busse's Infis, are even better.
 
Cliff, the test spec consisted of dropping a flat head, hardened, round steel pin, 0.25 in diameter, attached to a 500lbs weight from 5 feet onto the test subject (a.k.a. Unit-Under-Test or UUT). The UUT is layed flat on top of a 1 cubic yard container of hard pack wet down sand. The Mad Dog handle has an indentation but was still intact and servicable, whereas the Busse handle was bent and the micarta slabs broke off. The SS109 round sheared the remaining Busse's bent handle off the knife. The Maddog's handle came apart and was bent when hit by the same ammo. Both remaining knives then went into the high temperature stress test along with the Apache's data recorder crash housing. This test consisted of 30 minutes of cooking in the open flame of a proprietary fuel mixture. Both knives were useless afterward. The crash housing did its job of protecting the memory unit inside. The Busse was the Steel Heart and the Mad Dog was the old style ATAK2. The knives were also tested for sewage immersion and others, but you probably don't want to know about that.
 
NamViet, thanks for the details. Was the Busse one of the A2 or INFI models?

Concerning the sewage immersion and any other chemical dips, how does MD's grip material compare to the Micarta slabs in regards to resistance to degredation and easy of clean up including purging of absorbed scent (if possible).

-Cliff
 
The Busse was the A2 variety.

We only check the knives for corrosion, aromatic observation was not an option. Both knives were corroded. Keep in mind that this is Mil-Std 810D, which is very extreme for aircraft equipment. I used the knives as a reference check for my own purpose only.
 
Kevin's "gripstuff" is a proprietary "relative" to G10, but it's tougher and less prone to absorb *any* fluids. Not that G10 is a slouch in that department.

Two things: according to EMail I recieved from Kevin last night, the ONLY broken TUSKs he's ever seen were Cliff's. At least 30 are in current military service among people who *use* them. No others have ever come in for any warrantee work of any sort.

If there are other broken TUSKs out there as alluded to above, that would mean somebody just "walked away from" $900. That strikes me as unlikely.

Second, no warrantee return has ever come in on a blade seperated from an ATAK/TUSK/Panther/Shrike/LabRat type grip. I wish I had access from work to Kevin's EMail message, but in essence he says that the "glue" is actually no such thing; it's a resinous form of the same material as the grips and once the whole mass of tang, grip panels and liquid goo is heated it forms a single solid mass - the liquid resin actually merges with the parts that start the sequence as hardened resin. That's all the grips are: hardened resin. The basic process is the same as what's used on composite jet fighter wings, an application where "coming unglued" just isn't an option.

*Nobody* has a picture of an MD grip with no knife in it. Not even Kevin. It's at *least* as solid as Mission's injection-molded setup. Even if you leave it to rust long enough to rust under all the hard chrome, the rust would cause an "expansion" effect and it would STILL be pretty damn tight in there. By the time it loosened the blade would be totally unusable and it's a moot issue.

And in case it's not clear by now, in my opinion allowing your tool-steel knife to rust to that degree is just poor maintenance. You want a killer edge and serious toughness? You're gonna hafta buy some Tuff-Cloths or functional equivelent. That's my view, and I'm quite sure it's Kevin's.

Jim

[This message has been edited by Jim March (edited 21 October 1999).]
 
It is wierd how the handle attachment issue comes up even in a thread comparing a Mad Dog to a knife with handles scales attached to an exposed steel tang with epoxy and pins. I think the notion of the handles rusting off of either knife are utter fantasy.

You have to compare the two simply for suitability for your needs.
 
Jim March, not having a knife come back for warranty work does not mean that there is no broken knife. For example, in one of the lab I have worked at any equipment can come in but nothing can come out. I ordered a Sun 630MP computer for data reduction in the lab. After finally assembly, the computer worked fine for only two weeks before the motherboard died. Even though Sun was happy and willing to exchange the whole computer, but because of the rule, the computer was then crushed and burned. I ordered another one for around $120,000. At the same lab, I ordered several custom ceramic stirring stick for the nitrogen tank. Average cost per stick was around $500 due to the shape and surface texture. The stick has an unconditional lifetime warranty, but sadly I kept buying new stick because we could not returned the broken one for replacement.

A lot of equipments in the military are not expected to return to the manufacturers for repair or replacement due to the nature of the application. Hence the need for environmental stress screening and sterile marking.
 
I somewhat doubt a Mad Dog TUSK would be of use in a biohazard facility. That sounds like what you're describing.

I could be wrong of course...but I doubt it
smile.gif
.

Jim
 
Hello group,

I just found a beautiful contrast picture on another thread of what looks like a Busse Steel Heart II, a Mad Dog Atak2 and a Chris Reeve Sebenza.

Please correct me if I am wrong on the names. If I am correct I am now quickly leaning towards the Steel Heart II. The blade looks awesome and seems to overwhelm the MD knife of the same size class.

Tell me what this picture makes all of you think. It is a very nice picture !!

Regards,

xxxx
 
Well my testing is moving along rather nicely. I will say I getting more impressed with the MAD DOG as time goes by. The price will probably throw MAD DOG back a bit but overall it is holding up quite well.

The above mentioned problems that Spark and Jim are talking about deal with the handle juncture and in this case I will go ahead and say Busse wins hands down. My pics will show you why. I am not sure what Kevin uses to keep the blade in the handle but it sure as hell looks like glue or a melted resin.

Also the handle juncture on the MAD DOG is cut at 90 degrees and the Busse has a radius. In that case the nod goes to Busse again.

So what knife has impressed me most so far? Well the Falkniven! The damn thing is great for the money. The Busse is kicking ass in almost every category but the Falkniven is really holding it's own.

My results will be done hopefully be Sunday.

I will post a FULL review of each knife and I will rip any looser to shreds should it warrant it.

------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com


 
WOW Perhaps three of the best knives ever made! A CRK, A Busse and a Mad Dog all in the same house? Have you no mercy!

I guess you are ready for Y2K
smile.gif




------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com
www.gigandknives.com
www.macedirect.com
The above sites are pure shamless plugs!
 
The Busse most certainly does look "beefier"; it's a heavy-duty utility tool. That's Busse's emphasis. Damn fine knife.

The Dog will "feel alive" in your hand. The balance will be better, the "grip feel" will be better and the feeling of tip control will be wonderful. In short, if I was actually about to get in a no-bleep fight, I'd have to pick the Dog even at the expense of an inch of reach. It can't be fully put into words until you hold one.

A lot of people put down Kevin and his steel puppies but there's a lot of envy going on too.

Some quotes from his message to me last night:

-----------------------
"NO ONE, Military or otherwise, has ever returned a knife to me due to ANY kind of handle failure.

Out of the 100+ TUSKs out there, only the two sent to Cliff Stamp have been returned for ANY reason. This naturally means that the TUSK has the highest "failure" rate of any of my knives, as those returns constitute 100% of the returns I have had in the last two years. Prior to that, over the last ten years I have had a grand total of three warranty returns out of over 6000 (Six Thousand) knives shipped. All of three of those were either repaired or replaced outright.

Elements of three foreign military and one domestic military are CURRENTLY using TUSKs with great success. To my knowledge, there are about 30 of them currently in ROUGH military service. Some for as long as six years.

Guess what? No returns."

And this:

"As far as the rest, and [some] unfounded and poorly thought out concerns:
I do not use "glue". I use structural adhesives. Glue is an animal or vegetable byproduct. Structural adhesives are scientifical formulated to do specific jobs. The adhesive material I use is the same as the matrix material in the composite; once bonded, it truly becomes one piece. This is the same sort of technique used to build modern Fighter Jets and the Space Shuttle. It works well for knives too, when they are properly designed. My knives are, as you have noted, properly designed.

I do not look at Busse as a competitor. He is operating in an entirely different school of thought and ability than I am. Any who are ignorant enough lump us together have no real idea what either of us are doing, and our respective goals.

Feel free to use any of the above information however you wish.
Stay Sharp,
Mad Dog"
-----------------------

Now, I guess I need to be clear that Kevin feels that Cliff went over the edge in testing. We all know that. To radically rephrase it politely, he's wondering why nobody has pics of the detached and wrecked grip/tang connections or parts. That seems a good question; my view is, if you put one in a salt tank or other deliberate highly rust-abusive test chamber it would be an absolute total ugly mass of steel looking like it came out of a Spanish Galleon before the grip gave loose of the tang.

Jim
 
Something's still puzzling me. If you make hundreds of knives and only a handful are ever returned, how could you possibly fail to honor your warranty unconditionally? I mean, what is your name worth???

-Drew
 
To put it almost as bluntly as Kevin does, he feels that Cliff was deliberately smashing them up. This seems extreme, but...Kevin thinks Cliff is trying to build himself up as "the ultimate in knarly knife testers, the guy that can break a Mad Dog".

I think that's...well, probably a bit of an overstatement. But, Kevin is the one that saw the broke bits. He made his claims in response. By his logic, giving Cliff another one to break just didn't seem reasonable.

Is that REALLY what Cliff did? I don't know. I think both parties filtered what happened through their own perceptions and egos, just like everybody does. I think this is just an unfortunate clash between two honest people each of which I'd be proud to call friend.

But it most certainly shouldn't be used as the basis for ripping into Kevin's craftsmanship for the end of time. I'll have a hard time sitting quietly by while that happens.

Jim March
 
I was told once that a gentleman put a Blackjack 1-7 in a vice and snapped it off at the hilt. He then sent them the parts and photos of the process. Blackjack, whatever else you might sau of them, had an unconditional warranty that they DID honor. They sent him a new knife.

Is that true? I dunno. I do know that a friend of mine dropped a BJ Model 5 point-down into a concrete sidewalk, doing it a fair amount of damage. He sent it to them with a note explaining his clumsiness, and received a replacement, no questions asked.

Even if folks deliberately go out of their way to mess up your knives, the maker's job is not to quibble over the circumstances. It's to make things right. A dozen Cliff Stamps would not put a dent in Mad Dog's bottom line, but you'd better believe that how the situation was handled does. This was a chance for Mr. McClung to shine. He chose another course.

------------------

-Corduroy
"Why else would a bear want a pocket?"

Little Bear Knives
Drew Gleason:
adg@student.umass.edu
 
Or at the very very least MD should have sent back the old knife.
Just to stay on topic. I would say Buss may have a little better warintee than the MD knives. But in most cases you should not need it.
 
The bottom line is you don't question MD knives and you don't break them. I would rather deal with someone who is looking to improve his product and looks forward to my imput not the guy who has reached "perfection" since I don't think that is possible in this world. People's attitudes affect me alot and that determines what I buy in a world with many great knives there is no one and only choice that will do your job. Any really good combat knife should do what you want it to and not fail. Remember too you better be able to field sharpen it or it is useless.
 
Jim :

[MD grip]

It's at *least* as solid as Mission's injection-molded setup
Click to expand...

Missions tangs are flared, MD's are not. Missions are therefore more secure.

[MD and Busse balance]

The balance will be better
Click to expand...

It will be more neutral. That is not uniformly better.

As for MD and Busses knives being two different types - right now yes he is stating this. However, back when I first was interested in the TUSK I specifically mentioned the Battle Mistress as an example of what I was looking for. Both dealers I spoke to recommended it hands down as did many forum members. MD never stepped in once and said otherwise. Likewise, he made no similar comments when I discussed his knives on the phone being very specific about what I intended to do, or made no such distinction on any of the other threads that compared the two, which were very frequent at about that time. Nor, or course, did any of the other people that are making such statements now.

In regards to Kevin's statements about his knives in general - read the threads about my TUSKs failures to see how far he will go. As for his statements regarding me that you repeated, that is just another example of the same thing.

One thing that is important about Mission vs MD, considering the tang issue has been brought up, Mission will not warrenty thier A2 knives to handle what I did with the TUSK.

Steve :

It speaks volumes for your integrity that you can still write so objectively about MD knives after everything that has transpired.
Click to expand...

The facts concerning the performance that I saw with MD's knives cannot be changed by my feelings towards him. The latter are not relevant to any discussion of the abilities of his knives.

-Cliff
 
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