pics of camping trip with a broken knife

This is already the second CS that someone posted having broken right there at the tang.
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The second, out of how many? How many Cold Steel knives have been worked hard under similar circumstances and are still performing? We've ONLY heard of 2 failures.

Statistical inference: minimal.
 
johnwaynesandw said:
everything has a breaking point.
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The knife should have been able to handle this use....handle it with no problems.
Although it is very tempting to blame the maker, I also think I find fault with the heat-treatments used on it.

There is no way to know for sure I would guess.
But I still think that if the same size blade would have had an edge-only quench and real good tempering, that chances are it would be still going strong.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The second, out of how many? How many Cold Steel knives have been worked hard under similar circumstances and are still performing? We've ONLY heard of 2 failures.

Statistical inference: minimal.
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Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that the breaking was par for the course, only that it is not an unusual place. But maybe even that can not be inferred.
 
Most of the comments attributed to the cold steel breakage involved the shaping of the tang into the handle (the rectangular cut off, vs a rounded narrowing) rather then the actual material.
 
psinide said:
Most of the comments attributed to the cold steel breakage involved the shaping of the tang into the handle (the rectangular cut off, vs a rounded narrowing) rather then the actual material.
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Yes, the shape of the tang where it turns into the blade is important.

But the area there is so thick that it still should have held up better.

It is a stress riser, but I keep looking at all that steel
johnwaynesandw said:
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and feel that it should have been enough.
 
The pic above shows a problem right off the bat. The blade/tang junction has a visible stess riser with a near 90 degree angle where the tang tapers into the handle. A fully hardened blade/full tang, properly heat treated and tempered can handle hard use.
Scott
 
Thanks for all the good info,

SO what knife should I get to replace the CS. I want something that is tested and true.

Thanks,
John
 
Gossman Knives said:
The pic above shows a problem right off the bat. The blade/tang junction has a visible stess riser with a near 90 degree angle where the tang tapers into the handle.
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But it kinda looks like they curved the joint?
It's clealy not a sharp 90' bend,,,it seems to be a curve like if it were done with a chainsaw file....no?
 
For comparison's sake, here's the one I broke: (there's a thread on it, I've just not looked it up)
ReconTantoBreak2.jpg


bladebreak.jpg
 
Foxhole, reasonable radius there, no sharp notch .Very good photos ! Typical brittle fracture , full hardened. Perhaps poor tempering and/or abuse.
 
RedEdge77 said:
How do you figure? The carbon V steel and the stuff becker was using is the same and is a hell of alot tougher than AUS-8.
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There have been a rash of Carbon V blades breaking lately. Nothing wrong with the steel, I have a SRK myself that is very tough. The heat treatment of some of the late models may not have been up to standard, hence the cause for the breakage. Japanese produced AUS8a has always been a "tough" stainless steel. Partially due to it's vanandium content.
 
Looking at the photos the tang appears rather thin for the amount of blade it must support. I have never been a fan of hidden tang construction because of its inherent weakness.

Full tang construction gives more strength at this critical area of a knife, as all the energy from the user's hand must transmit through the tang to the blade. Alot of stress rises when the user is working the knife pushing and pulling while cutting and even more when hacking and chopping.
 
Man, I have absolutely beat the crap out of my USMC Kabar (including batoning) and it does just fine. I thought the Recon Tanto would fare better than that.
 
I've seen just as many Kabars as Cold Steels that broke at the tang being mentioned on the forum. It's not a huge number reported for either, but I guess it's just an issue with stick tangs.
 
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