Summary comparison of knife torture testing

riderboy

riderboy

Joined
Dec 22, 2015
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First post here, my attention was drawn to the forum while lurking. I came across the Alloutdoor knife testing torture tests by a guy named Noss wearing a hockey mask. Is there some sort of comparative table of all those test results? Seems silly to do them all and then not compare one against the other. My interest was really piqued by the Chris Reeve Green Beret test and how poorly that knife did. Which knives did well? Thanks!
 
Many of the videos were removed, but there are still many left. Lots of knives did really well.
 
riderboy said:
First post here, my attention was drawn to the forum while lurking. I came across the Alloutdoor knife testing torture tests by a guy named Noss wearing a hockey mask. Is there some sort of comparative table of all those test results? Seems silly to do them all and then not compare one against the other.
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There actually is.

All the results for each knife tested are nonsense.

In my opinion, of course.
 
To the open mind there is always something to be gained from destruction testing. All those millions of dollars the auto industry waists on destruction testing makes the cars we drive that much more safe.
 
I seem to remember the 20$ cold steel GI Tanto doing really well,,
Busse obviously crushed the competition :D
I think they're entertaining regardless
It's funny though,,, the only test he did that compares with what most of us do 90% of the time is when he slices the apple and the webbing!
 
I sat thru most of the Chris Reeve Green Beret test, but Good Lord, it's like 30 minutes long. No way I can watch them all even if I wanted to. It did seem tremendously abusive and lacking in any sort of scientific, controlled, reproducible methodology.
 
The first 10 minutes is usually the easiest and it goes down hill from there. Any time you are hammering steel with steel bad things can happen. Tough shock steels will do better of course. Low carbon steels fare well and high carbon stainless steels will do worse. But they all fail eventually. Busse Battle Mistress did the best, with the basic 9 nearly as tough. Funny thing is that the basic 9 is 1/4" while the FBM is 5/16" so the Basic 9 did really well for being less thick. The Cold Steel GI Tanto also did very well. And there were many more. Bang for the Buck toughness, the GI tanto is a winner. Then the Basic 9 for overall toughness. The FBM is a beast but cost is high.
 
He did one with a Grans fors Bruks,, you could hear the tears hitting the floor in Sweden,, and my house
 
riderboy said:
I sat thru most of the Chris Reeve Green Beret test, but Good Lord, it's like 30 minutes long. No way I can watch them all even if I wanted to. It did seem tremendously abusive and lacking in any sort of scientific, controlled, reproducible methodology.
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Lol, if you find that too long, you wont be able to sit through the longer Basic 9 tests:D
 
BladeScout said:
Lol, if you find that too long, you wont be able to sit through the longer Basic 9 tests:D
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This is how I watched that one

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also forgot that the crowell barker,, a $100 dollar knife did VERY well per his test..
 
rcb2000 said:
also forgot that the crowell barker,, a $100 dollar knife did VERY well per his test..
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I absolutely love the crowell barker knife. Beautiful design. Good steel and very tough. Also razor sharp out of the box.
 
Also the 3/16 inch thick Busse Ash1 did super. That is skinny compared to many of the beasts he tests.

I have a GI tanto and I can tell you they are tough!

Course all the Busse I have owned were super tough too. Thick and thin. (though I would never smash one in a vice with a sledge hammer, or cut through steel tubing, or concrete........unless there was a real prize on the other side!).
 
Bigfattyt said:
. (though I would never smash one in a vice with a sledge hammer, or cut through steel tubing, or concrete........unless there was a real prize on the other side!).
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Nor would I. Unless asked to do so with someone elses knife. But it is nice to know how far they can go
 
Noss did keep a list of how he rated the performance of each tool on his now defunct website knifetests.com. Here is a wayback link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120112153148/http://www.knifetests.com/

HOWEVER, Noss himself many times told readers/viewers/etc. that the rating system was HIGHLY subjective and preferred that viewers draw their own conclusions based on watching the videos... which, by the way, is one of the reasons the videos are so freaking long. Noss wanted to leave them with as little editing as possible to show his personal integrity in the matter. He invested hours of his time to make these videos happen because people wanted them, people wanted to see how much abuse these tools could handle. His early videos were just for fun, destruction for destruction's sake, but as interest grew he "refined" the process to try and draw out the weakness of various designs.

I don't think anyone expects viewers to watch a WHOLE video from start to finish, they were originally posted in pieces anyway, but by recording and publishing the whole thing, viewers can skip through and find sections of interest to them, also it detracts from arguments that his "tests" were somehow dishonest - they were not. Some folk find them abhorrent, others find them a waste of time and tools, but many found them at least interesting if not entertaining, and they can help folk understand the limits of their tools, so people don't get caught off guard when the knife they bought because it was marketed as "special forces super strong indestructible tank knife" suddenly fails in use.

For example, the Gerber LMFII resisted destruction very well and seems to perform exactly as the designers/makers intended - it isn't the best cutter but it can withstand a lot of abuse. The BRKT Bravo 1 was marketed as a heavy-duty military knife and it turned out to be ground too thin, maybe had something wrong with the steel, etc., while the BRKT BooneII did great. ESEE (Rat) 4 also performed well considering its size/thickness. Noss even tested the Mora Clipper :eek: He ended up destroying the handle before the blade ever failed :thumbup: He beat on a Fallkniven A1 until the laminate separated! The videos show just how much abuse some of these knives can take before they cease to be "knives" at all, and it is impressive.

All that said, the videos aren't testing the cutting-geometry of the blades, they don't tell you which is a better choice for woods use or which is more efficient for cutting cardboard or carving wood or processing game, etc. and they never pretend otherwise. It is about raw durability, that's all.

Oh, did I mention the underwater D-test of the Sog Seal 2000? Who else has done something like that???

Like'm or hate'm, his "hammer of truth" certainly had an impact on the knife community. My personal guess is that his contributions increased both the size of the community and a level of honesty in marketing. If you market your knife as "super tough", you can now be sure that someone will put forward the effort to find out just how tough it really is, and Noss did it in a way that allowed comparison between models and brands. You can call him an idiot, but he was honest, and I dare say generous to invest so much of his time in our entertainment :cool:
 
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