Proposal for a totally unbiased handling test...

[Jim March]

One of the things a high-knife can give you is "feel and handling". But how do you test this? It's naturally something open to "subjective feelings".

Here's my suggestion:

At a major show, line up a good selection of similar length knives...7" is fine. You pick about half dozen people at random from the audience. These people are not just testing, they're *competing* for a prize of some sort, say, a decent knife in the $50 to $100 range or whatever.

Each contestant is timed rolling each knife from a forward grip to a reverse and back again, forward to reverse to forward to reverse. Maybe more transitions, so that even if you're fractionally off with the stopwatch the differences will be obvious. You time that for each knife. You then add up the TOTAL time for all the knives each person tests, and the lowest total wins.

IF you really want to get hardball, do it all twice, once with the grips dry and again with the grips dipped in some sort of grease...Crisco or whatever.

Each contestant would be WELL motivated to roll and handle each knife as fast as possible. Rules would specify that tossing it and grabbing would be disallowed - they must maintain contact with the grip at all times, and use just one hand.

Drops would be counted against both the knife and the contestant.

This a good and objective test of "handling". It'd be a lot of fun and should attract a decent crowd.

Two details: do it on a rug or mat so that drops don't hurt the knives, and the contestants must not own any of the knives in question - that leaves me out!

Since cutting power isn't a factor and the blades won't take damage, obtaining test specimens should be simple - the dealers present should have no problems providing loaners. In the case of the Dogs, it wouldn't make any difference if the entry was an ATAK, ATAK2, DSU2 or WSP1.

I'll be completely honest here - my bet with no hesitation at all is on a Mad Dog.

Jim March

 

[Allen Blade]

Hello,

Hey sounds good, how much is the bet for , and where do i sign up!!!

The EUGENE Oregon show would be a good place to do it, I know i will be there walking around.

 

[Jim March]

Allan, you've had a lot of experience handling MD blades, therefore you'd be out just like I am.

The goal is to have the "contestants" NOT have prior experience playing with the pieces involved. Maybe handling 'em once or twice at a dealer's table or a store would be OK, but owning them as in my case or living with Kevin in yours would make either of us "too experienced in handling Dogs". It's not an integrity thing, we're just too used to flipping them around.

Rats

.

Jim

 

[Jim March]

Allan, you've had a lot of experience handling MD blades, therefore you'd be out just like I am.

The goal is to have the "contestants" NOT have prior experience playing with the pieces involved. Maybe handling 'em once or twice at a dealer's table or a store would be OK, but owning them as in my case or living with Kevin in yours would make either of us "too experienced in handling Dogs". It's not an integrity thing, we're just too used to flipping them around.

Rats

.

Now, if you want to enter a 7" class blade, cool...talk to Mike. As long as it's not a Dog clone (and I've seen pieces by you that aren't) there's no basic problem, except that Mike may want to limit the field to pieces that are widely available.

Jim

 

[Jim March]

Mike, you know what would be a neat addition to this test? A 7" class Chris Reeve of some sort...I'd like to see how that knurled cylinder of a grip performs!

Jim

 

[cerulean]

Unfortunately, "handling" will always remain a subjective term. We can only determine if a knife handles well by consensus of opinion.

Your test only measures how quickly a knife can be transferred from forward to reverse grip. What if I never use a reverse grip? Then the test is totally meaningless to me.

And how do you account for the subject's preferences and experiences? For instance; one guy who takes part in the test has used a knife for the last ten years that has a box type handle. He picks up a knife with a contoured, rounded handle and immediately drops it. Does that knife not handle well? It might be great for me, even though it sucks for the guy that tested it.

 

[Steve B.]

Great idea, but who pays for the ambulance when someone drops one tip down on his foot? Better get people to sign some sort of release before they participate in any handling tests!!

 

[Jim March]

Cerulean: you're part right...see, in my view the need to securely grab a grip that's "in motion" for any reason is a key thing no matter what your style. This test may be a bit artifical but it's one way of "grabbing and letting go" a bunch of times that can be stopwatched objectively.

That's how I see it anyways.

Steve B: I think each contestant needs to kneel, and do the manipulations no more that 2ft off the mat and away from the body. A drop won't have it flying off too far that way...for extra safety, they could lay another mat across their knees and thighs?

Jim

 

[NamViet Vo]

Jim, what you are proposing is similar to lining up a bunch of high performance sport cars, grab a dozen or so people off the street with little or no experience driving, and ask them to evaluate the handling limit of each car. What we need is about ten serious, well trained, experienced knife fighters to do your test regardless of their experience with any knife.

 

[Jim March]

Hmmmm...well, there's merit to that. Maybe allow a bit of practice with the pieces we aren't familiar with ahead of time? I'm pretty quick with my hands, I can draw some folders as fast as most people pop out a fixed.

My concern is that as a Dog owner I'd be giving an unfair advantage to the Pup. More thought needed.

Jim

 

[Allen Blade]

Hello,


Darn it well i guess your right Jim.
And i have been thinking about sending Mike
one of my 5160 Zone hardened Blades to Test.

But not until i get everybody caught up first.

And JIM , i agree , no more "Look close to being alike" blades from me i do know that.

Thanks, Allen Blade

 

[Samurai6]

Hey Allen,
(sorry for being off-topic Jim)
It is good to see you posting here. I own one of your blades, it is a 6" blade with a hollow saber grind, and an almost full-length clip. The dealer who sold it to me told me it was 52100. I emailed you some time ago to try to verify the steel type. Great knife, great Kydex. I took it to Alaska with me last summer on a fishing trip and beat the heck out of it and it performed excellently. Very durable edge, even at the fine angles I like.

 

[Cougar Allen]

Using randomly selected testers to eliminate bias is an interesting idea, but I think the opinions of people who have some experience in the knife arts are more interesting, and I'm not very worried about biased testers as long as they don't make or sell the knives they're testing. (After all, Mike Turber wrote about the superior handling qualities of the ATAK in his 7' test, Harv has posted some very complimentary things about the handling of a Black Cloud bowie if I recall correctly -- I don't recall whether he said it handled better than a Mad Dog, but if he thought it did I have no doubt he would say so....)

It would be great if we could get a bunch of guys who have some experience together at one of the major knife shows to play with some knives. Based on posts I've seen Mad Dog and Black Cloud knives come to mind, but there are a lot of knifemakers whose knives I've never had the chance to handle -- maybe some total unknown is making better handling fighting knives than either of them, who knows?

The guys whose opinions are worth listening to are doing that kind of testing already every time they go to a knife show, wandering around and handling knives -- how about making a try at locating them and asking them what they're discovering and writing it up for a post? If we can get them together in a group to talk while the knife show is still going on they'll point each other to the tables with good handling knives and they'll all play with the same knives -- we won't have to offer them money to do it.

When I see a post from even one member whom I know has some familiarity with fighting knives and he says somebody I've never heard of makes a good handling knife, I pay attention; I get interested. If half a dozen guys can all handle the same knives and give their opinions that'll really mean something.

If they can have some time to play with the knives and get familiar with them that'll make the results more significant. I expect there would still be some personal preference; a half dozen guys are not likely to all rank a group of knives in the same order -- that's why the more people involved the better, provided they know what they're talking about. I wouldn't insist they all be world-class masters of the knife, just people who have done some training. If you pick random testers out of a crowd, probably most of them will never have tried moving between reverse and forward grips before ... I want some testers who have, people who do that kind of thing every time they pick up a knife in a store (as I do ... I focus mostly on the invisible knife trick, transitions to and from point-forward palm, but I do forward/reverse transitions, too, and some other things. By the way, I haven't dropped a knife yet, though I don't lubricate the handles in the store ... just palming a knife makes salespeople very nervous; I hate to think how they would react if I smeared chicken blood all over the handle first....)

Some knife styles, of course, don't use flow at all; they take one grip and keep it. Those guys have very different needs and they wouldn't be interested in flow tests.

-Cougar Allen :{)

 

[Allen Blade]

Hello,

Thanks for the kind words Steve Harvey.
I Am glad it worked for you well in Alaska.

Thanks, Allen Blade

 

[Spark]

This sounds like a liability nightmare.

7+ people with little experience flipping knives around and around, slippery knives at that? Oh yeah, that's something I want to be standing right next to. No offense, but we could also repeat this test with loaded firearms and adults who have no firearms training and see how long it takes for someone to get injured there as well.

Sorry guys, I think using experienced people is the way to go, and you don't even have to lube them up, you should be able to get their opinions right there.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
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