Question about the Ayoob Razorback

Okay, I didn't really want to bring this up, because I touched on it in a thread in the "tactical and martial arts forum" a while back, but I am probably unique among most people on these forums, and in the knife scene, in that I have actualy killed repeatedly with a knife.

WOW! NOT what it sounds like! I am a primitive hunter, and use a knife to kill aligator, boar, and large sharks. The extent of damage done to the animals before they get dispatched by the knife is;

shark: hook in mouth

aligator: small harpoon that just manages to hook into the meat below the thick hide

boar: arrow from 50lbs. recurve(not compound) bow. I can more reliably run them down with a leg shot than a hit to the vitals. Boar were the preffered game of European nobles for a reason. THEY ARE INCREDIBLY RESILIANT!

Sharks get a knife in the brain, aligators get their spinal cord cut(no, it's not easy), and the boar get it in the heart.

Some details so you know I'm not pulling this outa my ass; sharks have a weird depression on the top of there heads that are roughly above the brain; to get through to the heart on a boar, you must penetrate an especialy thick dermal layer(I've seen it up to 1/2-3/4 an inch!), I can only take boar that are so fat or the knife won't make it all the way, that's why some of the old Swampers think the Project is small; on a gator you gotta go through the hide right behind the head, where it's softest and the spine isn't covered by the harder-then-hell scutes.

I do all this with a Chris Reeve Project 1. I chose it, among other reasons, because it's one-piece construction recalled stone age weapons for me. Another reason is because it's got a good drop point that's thick and strong. Before the Project, I used a Western(manufacturer) W-47 bowie. I have no idea what steel this was, but the tip wasn't nearly as beefy as the tip on the Project.

Even though these knives are being stuck through the skulls and ribs and hides of very tough, very large, animals, I have never had a problem with damage to the allegedly weaker tips. Indeed, tantos, American or Japanese, would have had a rough time just punching through the hide and meat or skull(which on a shark is a weird substance not unlike calcified cartilage or something; Corduroy, you should know, what IS that stuff?). I like a good old fashioned 55-57 Rockwell, over some of the what I term excessively hard modern knives.

Although, what was his name?, I'm thinking Ben Lilly or something, well what ever his name was, he was an old mountain man who killed bears and cougars with knives in hand-to-claw combat. Now, he was well before tantos came on the scene, he was using clip and drop points, and he PREFERED a break before bend knife, and was wielding simple carbon steel knives.

I wouldn't feel confident with break before bend knives. I'm not anal about edge holding, I know how to re-sharpen a knife and always have a stone. But I do like knowing that when I withdraw my blade I'm gonna have SOMETHING, bent or not. Still, this guy walked the walk, so if they work, they work.

So actualy, it seems breakage isn't that big a deal on a well designed knife. I think this paranoia about the blade breaking in action is a cultural memory of bad experiences with the Fairbairn/Sykes dagger.

However, let me assure you penetration can be. Living animals, human or otherwise, are much different than dead old goats. Living flesh is more resiliant than dead, and refridgerated/frozen-then-thawed meat is even easier to cut.
 
I gotta run but OI just got my Razor MOD yesterday. I will give you two sentences of opinion and actually write something tomorrow:

Smoke, what do you cut besides meat with a steak knife?

The knife penetrates well, carrys like a dream, had a great handle and I personally like the idea of my knife not getting stuck in the subject medium ( and Snick not rasperries about what I said in the Plastic Knife discussion. Keep on edumacating OKay?)and the grooves and narrow profile will facilitate withdawl, as will th teariong by the serrations and edge.
 
Parker, I can give you the funny answer and the real answer. Coinicidentally, they are the same thing.

I cut mostly boxes and cord type materials but mostly deliveries including the boxes containing knives (ah!).

I'm not into serrations on my next FB purchase and I don't have a Spyderco Sharpmaker just yet.
 
Snick,
Sharks and some rays have a specialized form of cartilage called prismatic cartilage. This has a thickly calcified outer layer functionally analogous to the dense cortical bone that surrounds the spongier medullary bone in our bodies. This stiffens the cartilage and allows it to support more weight, so while it is true (as one often hears) that sharks have fairly light flexible skeletons composed only of cartilage, this cartilage may in fact be much stronger than that found in other animals (though it is still a far cry from bone in rigidity and breaking strength). Hope that helps explain your experiences with shark skulls.

Incidentally, I am looking at a BM Stryker that was sent to me for some work. I have to admit I really like this knife despite my feelings about "western tantos"... but there is no way I would believe this slender point was much stronger than that on, say, my AFCK.

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

-Corduroy
(Why else would a bear want a pocket?)
 
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