Sometimes I shouldnt read expert advice on the internet. Or?

H

Hjalmar69

Joined
Aug 3, 2019
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10 years ago I got a wooden handled Buck Vanguard from my brother when I began hunting. I love it for field dressing and skinning. However, I also used it for food and whittling. Sometimes I even batoned small sticks for kindling. Then I read some reviews about the hollow ground blade being to brittle, which I haven't noticed, so now I only use it for the game processing, otherwise it stays in my backpack. This irritates me since it is my favorite fixed blade. I have a sturdy SRK, but I don't like it as much. If I am being a bit cautious I should be able to use the Vanguard as an overall woods knife?
 
Makael Makael
Interesting video but the title does not match the content.
That said, what manufacturing step is happening at 3:00 with two knives being clamped together?
 
Thanks for your answer. I agree with you, when I use it, it seems like a great multi purpose field knife if you use it sensibly.
Makael said:
I would use it. A hollow grind isn't as robust as a flat grind but unless your going over board on processing kindling I wouldn't worry about it.
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In my experience of using my vanguard it has performed very well in moderate heavy use. I don’t go full stooge with it but it’s an outdoor knife and I use it. I don’t baton any oak or other hard woods but poplar, elm, ash and silver maple hasn’t been a problem. If you keep it inline and strike it straight it’s not difficult at all. I have switched to the 124 after I got it cause it’s longer and a bit thicker. I think as long as a person is careful and don’t try to fell trees or pry, twist or a side strike it should take it.
 
Hjalmar69 said:
10 years ago I got a wooden handled Buck Vanguard from my brother when I began hunting. I love it for field dressing and skinning. However, I also used it for food and whittling. Sometimes I even batoned small sticks for kindling. Then I read some reviews about the hollow ground blade being to brittle, which I haven't noticed, so now I only use it for the game processing, otherwise it stays in my backpack. This irritates me since it is my favorite fixed blade. I have a sturdy SRK, but I don't like it as much. If I am being a bit cautious I should be able to use the Vanguard as an overall woods knife?
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If I read this correctly, your Vanguard did everything you needed it to do until some unknown "reviewer's" blanket comment alleging a properly heat treated hollowground blade regardless of the heat treat and the blade steel is somehow "brittle". At which point you semi-retired your Vanguard to game processing only.

I am not an "expert" when it comes to blade grinds, and which in theory is the strongest.
So far as I "know" Buck's standard blade grind is hollow grind ... at least on the fixed blades, 110/112 and the 300 series.

I am not aware of any of the 100 series, nor the Vanguard or any other Buck fixed blade, when used as a "general purpose" knife when hunting and/or camping having a reputation for chipping or breaking.

Admittedly, any knife can break or chip when subjected to enough abuse.
However, the 119, for example, one of Buck's most popular - if not the most popular - fixed blade is not known for suffering catastrophic failure when used for a general purpose woods/camp knife, any more than the old Ka-Bar "Marine Fighting Knife" or the CS SRK is.
(Note that both the Ka-Bar and SRK have a 10xx carbon steel blade, VS. Buck's standard 420HC stainless steel blade, which allegedly gives them an advantage in "toughness" over any knife with a stainless steel blade.)

My suggestion is: "Go ahead and use your Vanguard like you did before hearing/reading the "reviewer's" allegations that all hollow ground blades are somehow "brittle"."

(Personally, I'd lay off the batoning though. In my opinion, that is abuse.
(I notice most, if not all, manufacturers state that batoning voids the warranty.)

Split the (in your words) "small sticks" as much as possible without batoning then carve yourself a wedge from a piece of scrap or a sturdy stick and baton that to finish splitting your "small sticks".
Or, you can whittle the "small sticks" to chips or feather sticks and use the chips or feather sticks as kindling. :)

(I've always been able to locate an over abundance of dry leaves, weeds, and twigs when in the woods for my kindling ...sometimes just clearing the "fire pit" so the fire won't/don't spread, and where the tent is being pitched.)
 
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The 192 Vanguard was designed as a hunting knife primarily and has the thinnest full tang that Buck Knives makes. I love my 192 and use it almost exclusively on white tail. I think Makael is right on that hollow grind doesn't have as much steel behind the edge as a full flat grind but a many of people have survived using a 119 with a hollow grind. I personally wouldn't chose a 192 for batoning but only because of the tang, but in a pinch me staying dry or warm would be more important than the knife.
 
I might add that while making kindling I don’t split down the middle of a log like I would with an axe. I work off around the outside so it doesn’t take as much force to split off a 1 inch sliver of wood. All knives and tools have their limits but using care and reasonable thought you can accomplish a lot with a little. Also I usually use a camp hatchet or axe to split wood but there’s been a time or two I didn’t have any at that time. It’s not often I baton but sometimes that’s what’s necessary.
 
jbmonkey said:
I dont like to baton with knives. sure if ya had to, but I never have had to. i always bring right tools with me. I keep a set in my pickup so im not without a hatchet, saw and machete. plus a Buck froe works better for batoning.
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What are you gonna do when a gator takes off with your axe and someone steals your truck. your left out in the swamp with a knife. Snow on the ground, Wild Hogs runnin around, close to hypothermic........:eek: And you hear a Banjo, getting closer by the minute.
 
Makael said:
What are you gonna do when a gator takes off with your axe and someone steals your truck. your left out in the swamp with a knife. Snow on the ground, Wild Hogs runnin around, close to hypothermic........:eek: And you hear a Banjo, getting closer by the minute.
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no snow here. the rest maybe.....:D
 
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Makael said:
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brings a story to mind. when I was a kid, we lived and I still live in the river basin....anyways we would canoe the river. a hunting group owned the land, but there were these old timer florida swamp people squaters, we used to call them, had hunting shacks on the river illegally. think deliverance, cause thats what they were. some of them lived there full time and they were shacks. no power no plumbing, etc. a toilet seat to sit on hanging over the river.

they were down the river way down from the main spring that feeds it. we knew better and were told not to go down there, but we would paddle down there anyways, cause we were stupid kids.

so one time we get down there and we're being bad kids noisy and climbing trees and jumping in the river and tossing mud at each other and all, and we didn't see this old timer sitting on his shack stoop over the river on a rocking chair holding his side by side shotgun across his lap. dont know how long he sat there watching us horsing around and behaving poorly.

he cleared his throat and i looked up at him from in the river and he said boy, ya best turn around, real calm, while loading his shotgun. i said yes Sir and climbed in that canoe and never paddled up stream so fast in my life.

these old florida fellas were there long before the state bought the land to make a park. many years later the state forced them out and tore down all their shacks. now the park is all surrounded by suburban sprawl. i tell people around here, that didnt grow up here, that story and they cant believe it.
 
jbmonkey jbmonkey
Well, If we are going to tell paddling stories....
Back in my school days Jim and I were paddling Honeoye Creek below Factory Hollow.
Having to relieve my self I was standing up on the back letting go a "rooster tail" like only an young bladder can.
As we floated by I realized there was a woman sitting on the bank in full view of my 'spectacle'.
I hurriedly sat back down and encouraged Jim to paddle a little more quickly.
Not as good a story as jbmonkey's but is was an embarrassment I remember well.
No Buck in my pocket back then, probably just a cheap "gas station" fishing knife.
 
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