Only Bark river passed knife tests !!!

Broos, reading skills are an asset in online communication.

They tested them as individuals working together, not under a government/Marine Corps procurement program. They were originally looking for whatever knives they felt their people could rely on. Of the knives they tested, only one "survived", only one qualified.
 
kycolonel said:
Since the Marines procured the knives to be tested with their own money and published no results, how did you conclude that Busse was not one of the knives in their tests? Or, are you assuming they could not afford to buy one?
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Mike told Jerry that none of Busse's knives were on the list he was given.
 
hardheart said:
Just to say the Marines chose a BRKT, I don't think anyone has a problem with that. To say that the BRKT beat out other knives, people then want to know what the other knives were. To say that they ran tests, people would like to know what the tests were. Hell, tests maybe just show that the Bravo-1 could be better at spreading PB&J on bread when compared to a Hibben designed Frost.
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I'd be willing to bet that BRKTs with full or mostly convex grinds kick some serious tail when it comes to field spreading cheese whiz or MRE peanut butter. The curvature of the grind almost assures an easy and uniform flow of spread over a given cracker area compared to the difficulty in maintaining a consistent angle of attack for a flat ground blade when it comes to this task.:p

That the Bravo-1 also appears to be a very credible non-mega chopper bush knife is just a bonus.;)

Just how would one measure the relative performance of knives for the smearing of ductile food products?
 
So what do we know?

Unknown people tested unknown number of unknown knives in uknown tests and Bark River won...
 
Grebo Guru said:
Cliff's argument is not weakened by his lack of fame.
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On Bladeforums, the substance of arguements is often judged proportional to popularity, not logics/facts. Hence the bulk of the above absurd posts which claim that the following isn't promotional :

"This knife was developed with the assistance of the Training Unit of the Force Recon Division of the U.S. Marine Corp. These folks Bought a large number of knives on the Commercial market and tested them without saying anything to any of the makers. The Bark River Gameskeeper came out on Top to Fit their Requirements of a Real Time General Purpose Survival/Bushcraft Knife. We were Contacted by them and were asked to make a knife based on the Gameskeeper with a Few Changes. The Bravo-1 is the Result of their Input."

As I noted, the Buck Solution had the same promotion and it is a horrible design for a survival/utility knife having the exact same geometry as a high performance skinner (deep hollow / ultra brittle high carbide steel).

I'd like to observe that this particular knife is not worth anything less just because POS knives have passed the same test in the past. . .
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If you use any pass/fail criteria to judge a product, all that you can say quality wise is that you are on the same level as the LOWEST product which also passed. For all that is known, the other knives could have been made by United Cutlery with wonderful pictures of Dragons on them. The results are meaningless without specific metrics and the promotion nothing but hype.

My last publication was in 2004, in the Canadian Journal of Physics, CIA related. I collaborated with several other research projects after that and the papers were in communication in JQSRT and Physical Review A last I checked a few months back. It is all similar material, numerical modeling of highly nonlinear systems.

Mainly now I am interested more in work such as Landes has done so I set up an independent research group which I fund to do blind tests on knives. This means specifically they get identical knives out of different steels (or heat treatments). No hype, just facts. I have a number of makers/heat treaters willing to donate thier time, but they are all high level and busy so it will take some time for the evaluations to get underway.

The final "publication" of the results on the website will be peer reviewed by experienced individuals with a background in experimental science who are also familiar with knives. I have also directly bought some knives, but again, these are all well known customs so again it takes time to get the blades. It is taking longer than I thought so I am going to be sending around some regular distributed knives shortly just to get the logistics worked out as well as the editing/feedback/presentation processed detailed.

-Cliff
 
I don't understand what the argument is. A military group tested some knives and picked one they liked. They contract with all kinds of companies for stuff all the time. I remember the early Gerber multitools, a military EOD team commisioned one that was flat black and had an extra tool in it. Was it the absolute best tool for the job? Well, to them it was. Who are we to say what that particular unit needs? The public could buy it as well. And who forgot to tell the Marine Corp that their tests need to meet Cliffs approval?
 
Unknown people tested unknown number of unknown knives in uknown tests and Bark River won...
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Exactly, and the relevance is left up to each person to decide.
 
This is the most astounding thread I've read in quite a while. Some Force Recon Marines buy a bunch of knives, use them the way they use knives, and decide on the one they like the best, which apparently included "surviving" what they put it through (can you imagine?!), and ask BRKT to make some more for them...that's really all that has happened. Mike at BRKT tells some of his friends about it, and makes the same knife available, through nothing more than word-of-mouth--basically a fancy chat-room for anyone interested.

This is the most un-controversial series of events I can think of; somewhere, there is a bunch of Force Recon Marines laughing at people who argue about knives on the internet.
 
Cliff,

It is enough to view your usual negative slant on anything BRKT related, and this brings into question your ability to play an objective role in testing knives.
However, your last post has reallly gone too far by crticicizing the test methodology used by the Marines and being disrespectful to them by glib remarks like "United Cutlery with pictures of dragons on them". Did it occur to you that these guys may have other priorities than wallowing in the minutiae of metallurgy and creating multi-cell matched research studies? Perhaps their limited income and the thought that they could get killed on a mission next week precluded them from constructing an adequate facility for testing the same line of knives that you would have recommended.

I have been in the research industry all of my career. The test they did was qualitative not quantitative - there is no data for you to critique. It's probably all they could afford or have time to do under their circumstances.
If you are suggesting that qualitative information has no value, then please come to a real research conference and tell all of us where we as an industry have been going wrong in a multi-billion dollar industry for the past 40 years. Is the data representative? No. Neither is it when you do a test of your own design in your "lab".

There is an old adage in our business that says "there are liars, there are damn liars, and then there are statisticians". This does not mean that statistics doesn't have it's place. What it does mean is that there is a huge grey area on numerical and even statistically significant data, but then determining if those differences are meaningful. I have seen alot of the former from you , little of the latter in the wauy of thoughtful evaluation.

And yes, I will say before someone else does that I hope the Marines who
you say may be using "UC knives with dragons on them" visit the lab at Cliffworld when they aren't busy defending your right to pursue your singularly obscure obsession.
 
Broos said:
The thread title would be better titled "Bark River gets Gov't knife contract". Not emphasizing a test that no one knows anything about.

Isn't this the same gov't that did extensive testing to figure out that a Beretta 9mm pea shooter should replace the venerable 45cal 1911? I would no way rely on their testing results for my knife purchases w/o knowing a lot more. Even though BRKT does make a great blade.
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Doesn't the 9mm thing have something crazy to do with U.N. Regulations? It's somehow more humane to shoot people with 9mm rounds than 45 cal rounds? :rolleyes: Only the UN and US would worry like that over how 'humane' we can make the weaponry.

Agreed about the thread title, though! It's hardly a contest without naming competitors.
 
kycolonel said:
I have been in the research industry all of my career. The test they did was qualitative not quantitative - there is no data for you to critique.
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Please do not take this as a disrespectful, because that's not how I intend it. But in medicine, that's what we call an opinion.
 
pitdog said:
:foot:

Here is the promotional nonsense........:D

This knife was developed with the assistance of the Training Unit of the Force Recon Division of the U.S. Marine Corp. These folks Bought a large number of knives on the Commercial market and tested them without saying anything to any of the makers. The Bark River Gameskeeper came out on Top to Fit their Requirements of a Real Time General Purpose Survival/Bushcraft Knife. We were Contacted by them and were asked to make a knife based on the Gameskeeper with a Few Changes. The Bravo-1 is the Result of their Input.
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Soooooo how is that nonsense? Do you know it to not be true or misleading?? I don't think that anyone should run out a buy the knife solely because the Marines helped to develop it but it is still of value.

Cliff Stamp said:
Yes and if you never had to sharpen a knife after field use then you never seriously used it, or you like using very dull knives. Actually working with used materials is very dulling on knives because they are full of inclusions. While you can cut 100+ pieces of hemp rope new, try cutting hemp rope around a box (or whatever) that has been outside and see the edge holding. Plus how can you evaluate the sharpening if you don't sharpen it.
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Again I say if you read all of Mike's posts you will find that they like it because they can easily sharpen it in the field.

Mike Stewart said:
Convex Edges are easier to sharpen than any other kind of edge.

They have had a Year to learn the Difference.

They have a bunch of Gameskeepers and Sandstorms and they are using the Cardboard and Compound.

They said that now that the understand it--They could sharpen one on a Rock if they needed to.

Mike
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You can choose to ignore it but it is still there.
 
asfried2 said:
Please do not take this as a disrespectful, because that's not how I intend it. But in medicine, that's what we call an opinion.
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You're right, it is an opinion, one reflecting group consensus based on shared experience of trained individuals. Opinions arrived at this way have value and are hardly nonsense.

Seriously, they could provide reams of data about how many cuts were made, what materials, edge angles, blade materials, etc. etc. etc. and you know what? This thread would still go on and on while the debate rages whether the data is meaningful, accurate, significant, scientific, stringent enough, too stringent, relevant and on and on. Meanwhile a bunch of Marines are out in the field happy as clams that they got just what they wanted, which is all that really matters anyway.
 
enderwiggin said:
Doesn't the 9mm thing have something crazy to do with U.N. Regulations? It's somehow more humane to shoot people with 9mm rounds than 45 cal rounds? :rolleyes: Only the UN and US would worry like that over how 'humane' we can make the weaponry.

Agreed about the thread title, though! It's hardly a contest without naming competitors.
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Adopting the 9 mm round had nothing to do with "humane," nor the UN. It was for the purpose of standardizing NATO military ammunition and 9 mm was almost universal pistol fodder for the other NATO members. AFAIK, the only regulations about ammunition was from international treaties, long before the UN was formed, that specify metal jacketing for bullets. The US is a signatory to that. Otherwise, the US armed forces are free to slaughter any designated enemy with whatever caliber they like. One reason that 45 caliber has been well regarded is that it has plenty of punch despite lack of expansion in full metal jacket rounds, a drawback with 9 mm, which is substantially more effective with hollow point ammo.

Several elite units prefer 45s, and don't have to be concerned about law suits because of it.
 
znapschatz said:
Adopting the 9 mm round had nothing to do with "humane," nor the UN. It was for the purpose of standardizing NATO military ammunition and 9 mm was almost universal pistol fodder for the other NATO members. AFAIK, the only regulations about ammunition was from international treaties, following WWI, long before the UN was formed, that specify metal jacketing for bullets. The US is a signatory to that. Otherwise, the US armed forces are free to slaughter any designated enemy with whatever caliber they like.
Many of the elite units prefer 45s, and don't have to be concerned about law suits because of it.
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Not to get too far off the thread, but the above sounds right. Naval aviation switched from the .38 to the 9mm in the late 80s (?) cause we couldn't really carry any extra ammo and wanted a weapon that could be easily resupplied in the field if we had to spend time with a ground based unit (like our rescuers).
 
Not only would I be curious to know which other knives were on test;(5 k worth is quite a few knives) yet I think BRKT is acting properly by not naming names; but I would also like to SEE a picture of what the Bark River knife looked like at the end of the trial.
 
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