Protection: Serrated or not?

Don't listen to the FBI, they don't have your best interests at heart. The idea of a "civilian knife" is not to maximize effectiveness, it is to minimize fatalities. If we can just get all the "bad guys" to use "civilian knives" we can insure that all wounds are superficial and minimize fatalities. In their book all "civilians" are potential "bad guys" so they want civilians to have knives with training wheels and nothing that can be used for deep stabbing. You can't sell pointless knives so you just hook the point.

Now the trouble is that from our perspective we are the "good guys", aka "potential victims", who are likely to be set upon by bad guys who don't restrict themselves to FBI approved armament. They will typically pick a time and place to attack to their advantage, gang up on their victims, and even use things like hatchets or baseball bats. You don't want a "civilian knife" when that happens.

I am a proponent of the slash-and-dash theory of knife work, in fact a friend and I used to practice a mixed-style self defense art that we called "Run Foo". And I agree that while stabbing with a short knife is more likely to result in a fatality than slashing it does not do a quicker job of incapacitating your assailant. The FBI would limit you to superficial cuts to discourage your assailant and reduce your chances of really incapacitating him by disembowling him. I think you want to preserve that option.

The FBI would rather give you a hook tipped knife that has the absolute maximum likelyhood of snagging on something so that they minimize your chances of hurting your assailant critically. If you are suddenly attacked and slash out with a bad grip on your knife a hook tipped knife is the likeliest to catch on clothing, tissue, bone, or equipment and get pulled out of your hand. In contrast, if you have a trailing point knife (like a skinner) you create deep gashes with no chance of snagging. That is the theory behind scimitar and sabre blades. The FBI are not your friends in this. They consider you and your knife the problem and want to neutralize you.
 
I wasn't gonna post here, since I've already typed my thoughts on this subject many times before, but this thread just won't seem to die.

W.T. Beck said:
Thanks for the informative post, Dirk. It is nice to get some info based on a test rather than speculation. But I am still curious as to why Spyderco chose the serrated edge for the Civilian knife. Maybe it was the best choice given the shape of that particular blade?
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Well, there was a time in the past when I speculated that a serrated blade would be superior. But then, I used my Spyderco (note I said "used", not "tested".) on animals several times, and did follow up testing, and found again and again that the serrations just plain suck compared to a straight edge of decent sharpness. They hang up on skin and bones, and refuse to penetrate in thrusts. Details here.

Normally, I cast my vote with the "It Really Doesn't Matter" crowd when it comes to which defensive tool is best, but the differences in performance were just too large (for me) to ignore. Of course, if a serrated knife is all you've got, then that's what you'll use, and your determination will still play the bigger role. But since we're talking about being prepared, there's no reason to handicap yourself with equipment that will produce flesh wounds instead of mortal cuts.
 
Possum: :D

My only addition is to remind that there are several different kinds of serrations and applied designs with serrations, some of which are much better than others.
 
Hi Johnny.

Some more opinions.

Are you trying to defend yourself or kill someone?

Not all serrations are created equally. Some companies know a lot more about producing very sharp serrations than others.

A sharp properly made serration generally cuts twice as deep and for twice as long as an equivalent plain edge of the same steel.

A sharp serrtion will penetrate clothing like leather jackets more effectively than a plain edge.

How skilled are you at using a knife to defend yourself?

How ergonomic is the handle that is controlling the edge. It's really embarrassing if you drop your knife or slide down onto the blade.

A serrated edge is not as likely to lose its edge if it hits metal like a metal belt buckle or metal button.

sal
 
Relative the testing of the two edge patterns [ PE vs SE ], I was in the MBC 1+2 with Mike Janich a few months back where he tested the pork tightly wrapped in layers of cellophane with dungaree material covering the whole affair [ about the thickness of a small thigh. Everythibng was wrapped around a 3/4 inch [ IIRC ] dowel that protruded past the "wrapped" meat by several inches on each side.

Actual results from testing in the class showed the PE cut deeper [ including big score marks on the dowel which would be bone on a human ] with very little force applied [ like a quick defensive flick ] than a fully SE edged knife of about the same blade length.

The 1/2 SE's faired about the same as the PE knives in slashing tests on the cellophane wrapped, dungaree covered tightly wrapped pork.

In my own testing of the difference on verious materials, the PE's faired better than fully SE knives as well. I had not thought to try the 1/2 SE in the comparisons on my own.

Sal is right, there are differences between makers serrated configurations which will impact the results to some degree.

PE kept razor sharp for me thanks. I've seen the difference and will carry based on the actual results shown in that testing arena. Mike Janich was not overly aggressive in his slashing but more a flicking motion which you may just get on a limb of the BG without full force cuts. To the bone everytime after passign through one layer of dungaree, several layers of cellophane [ to which it was compared to "skin" ] and the tightly wrapped pork perhaps 3-4 inches thick over the dowel.

The sharp PE literally went to bone everytime with no effort which only surprised me as to how little effort was required to get it to the bone and the damage to the dowel [ bone ] that was done effortlessly.

Really impressed everyone there and my thought was most who saw the first hand testing would be carrying a PE for defensive work.

YMMV, but again, carry what you are comfortable with first. The difference between the PE and SE was not that much as in "one was effective and one was not" in a drastic way, but erring on the side of caution, I'll take the advantage where I can get it myself.

Sal is also correct IMO that SE will fair better at retaining a cutting edge if hitting belt buckles etc as the hollowed scallops will not come into contact with the object and therfore still retain a sharp cutting surface.



Brownie
 
Brownie, were the tests that Janich did with the same blade design? The tests that I have done don't bother with the meat since it is so easy to cut. I just use wads of fabric. Fibrous materials that are not well supported are a challenge to cut. They wrap around the blade, bunch up around the edge, and bind on the sides. The belly of the blade is the most important section for slashing effectiveness. You want it thin and very sharp. If you have a very sharp serrated blade and have a good serrated belly contour I would expect it to do well against fabric. If the belly is not sufficiently back-swept and/or the edge is not sharp enough it will tend to snag. Was the test comparing blades with the same shape and was the blade back swept (like a skinning knife)?
 
He used the Ronin PE, an Endura SE, a Military PE, and a few others that were SE and 1/2 SE but I forget the exact models. He had a few dozen he had brought with him to training and I can't remember all that were tested specifically.

Mike may kick in here himself and answer the question, then again M Sastre may remember and respond here as well.

Brownie
 
Doing some looking around, all the serrated knives I ran across were designed with their serrations in the wrong place and the edge impact angle wrong for self defense. You don't want serrations near the handle (where most 50/50 blades are serrated) unless you can get someone to hold out their wrist while you saw on it. And you don't want your serrated blade to be straight. Think of that as like chopping with a saw, you are just asking for the blade teeth to get caught in clothing. You want the blade shaped like a skinner and the serrations on the belly, near the point. I just don't find knives built like that. I guess that people are determined to stick things with the point and serrations near the point often lead to tip breakage. Spyderco's Temperance model has serrations in the right place and the right edge curvature, but the blade is tilted forwards so that the belly impacts almost flat on your target. I guess that the common variety of serrated knives are not practical to use for defense.

If you have a plain edge knife with good belly curvature near the point it acts a bit like a single large rounded serration. It allows force to concentrate and the edge to penetrate the target. The backward curve of the edge towards the point converts the swing of the blade into a drawing slash across the target that slices most efficiently. I guess thats the way to go until you find a better designed serrated blade.
 
I carried a fully serrated Police for years. My kid's got it now and I carry a PE Mili. Both would work real well if needed.
 
If you are skilled enough to adequately deploy your blade under the influence of adrenaline and possible fear, then you are probably skilled enough to take advantage of the characteristics of most any blade. Use what you like. The test results are interesting, though.

Cut Safe!
FM.
 
Jeff Clark said:
Doing some looking around, all the serrated knives I ran across were designed with their serrations in the wrong place and the edge impact angle wrong for self defense. You don't want serrations near the handle (where most 50/50 blades are serrated) unless you can get someone to hold out their wrist while you saw on it. And you don't want your serrated blade to be straight. Think of that as like chopping with a saw, you are just asking for the blade teeth to get caught in clothing. You want the blade shaped like a skinner and the serrations on the belly, near the point. I just don't find knives built like that. I guess that people are determined to stick things with the point and serrations near the point often lead to tip breakage. Spyderco's Temperance model has serrations in the right place and the right edge curvature, but the blade is tilted forwards so that the belly impacts almost flat on your target. I guess that the common variety of serrated knives are not practical to use for defense.

If you have a plain edge knife with good belly curvature near the point it acts a bit like a single large rounded serration. It allows force to concentrate and the edge to penetrate the target. The backward curve of the edge towards the point converts the swing of the blade into a drawing slash across the target that slices most efficiently. I guess thats the way to go until you find a better designed serrated blade.
Click to expand...


All the above supposes that slashes are the "only" or "best" option for self defense. So perhaps something like an old Russel Green River Half Moon skinner with a serrated edge would be the ultimate self defense knife? ;)
 
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