Tactical Knives, Utility Knives, Killing Knives Rant

G

ghost squire

Joined
Feb 1, 2004
Messages
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Could someone please clarify what the differences in these categories are? To me there is no such thing as a tactical-utility knife, because to be separate from a pure killing knife it must have better intrinsic utility value already. The perfect killing knife is a boring thing, probably spring soft steel with a dull tip so it won't stick in bone (soft so it won't shatter)... And fairly dull to induce pain on slices. And it doesn't need to be sharp to stab anyway...

In other words, a screwdriver, although ideally it would be wider to enhance bleeding.

I hate how makers call their knives tactical, or tactical-utility, but when it fails critically in tests designed to test its tacticleness (:barf:) or utility value they quickly scatter backwards and claim that its a knife designed for killing/slashing only. Prying in soft pine shouldn't break the tip off of a "tactical utility" knife! A prison inmate with an IQ of 80 can make a killing knife why should we pay $799 for yours?! Does it kill them more dead or something?

Whats even worse is when a maker advertises their knife being able to chop through concrete blocks, pry your way out of a helicopter, chop your way out of a car etc, only to see it fail doing these exact things which a kabar could do without shattering... Then inevitably slander and verbally abuse the person who simply did what it was advertised as being able to do.

What if you were in the military and trusted your life to one of these blades, and died a fiery death because of false advertising? Really sickening.

Anyway, there is a purpose to this thread. I want people to outline exactly what they think a tactical knife should be, and be able to do without critical failure.

For example:
Over 6 inches blade length
Strong enough for a 250 pound man to do pullups on
Able to withstand batoning from a metal object
Able to chop through a concrete cinderblock
etc etc.

We need to establish a battery of tests that are repeatable, to determine if a makers entry into the tactical market is really worthy of its name.

Another layer of complexity, are there different levels of tactical? Is anything less then a heavy duty tactical really tactical in a fixed blade, or could its role simply be filled by a utility knife.
 
There are as many definations for tactical knives as there are makers who sell them, because it isn't well defined, it is in general a useless term, like surgical stainless. In general it usually means made for military use.

Some makers have really specific criteria, McClung for example wrote a page on what a knife should be able to do for it to be a tactical. Strider has wrote in detail about the same topic and feels strongly about the lablel.

A utility knife is something I would see as fairly versatile, unlike say a dedicated blade pattern like a fillet blade, or extreme upswept skinner which is in general made to do a fairly narrow scope of work and do it really well.

Combat or fighting knives are generally advertized as being optimal for cutting or penetrating flesh, some promote them as being better for wound channels, Strider does this for example.

It is in general *extremely* difficult to get makers, or even users to agree on a set of tasks for which a knife of any class should do. The main reason is the massive amount of hype in the industry and standards smash this completely.

This is why you will find over and over that makers who are open about discussing how to evaluate their knives, and performance in general usually lead in terms of performance and have little to no hype.

Phil Wilson is an example of that, he will tell you exactly how he checks the performance of his knives, what he expects them to do, and is very interested in the work done by others on his knives.

Glesser and Busse are two examples in the production field of people who have similar viewpoints, very easy and productive to discuss such matters with them in detail.

As a few examples, the Boker Applegate is a fighting knife, the Gerber Silver Trident is a typical tactical knife, and the Ratweiler a typical utility knife. All of these are of similar size but vastly different in design.

-Cliff
 
But shouldn't we, as in the BF community, attempt to create some set of standards that we can hopefully largely agree on and apply to heavy duty tacticals such as Striders, TOPS, Mad Dog, Fehrman, Busse etc.? There could also be some crossover into Swamp Rats and other knives sort of on the fence between a tactical knife and a utility designed knife...

I'm not attempting to get the makers to agree on standards, but hopefully we can lay out a set of groundrules that we can vote on. For example a heavy duty tactical should be able to chop a pine 2x4 without taking damage... I think we can all agree on that. Theres some more controversial stuff like batoning with a piece of metal that we would have to vote on though.
 
ghost squire said:
For example a heavy duty tactical should be able to chop a pine 2x4 without taking damage... I think we can all agree on that.
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You would think so but this isn't the case. You can readily see people defending such knives which chop really poorly and/or get damaged because axes should be used to chop or other similar arguements. To me the answer is immediate, you set the standard by the best performance. You can't judge something as abusive if even one knife does it readily, as all this does is admit vastly inferior materials/design (for that task).

Of course there are always tradeoffs in regards to performance so any work should always attempt to find the counterbalance for a test to show the strong/weak points of a design. This is where most promotions by makers fail as they usually leave out what they have to give up to get the really high performance. Can you chop up a cinder block and take no damage, ok, how much force does it take to cut a piece of once inch hemp.

In order to get high durability did the edge have to be left that thick and obtuse that it is a horrible cutting instrument, or is the steel of high enough quality and you have enough confidence in your quality control that it is still very much a knife.

-Cliff
 
My $0.02: If a manufacturer markets a knife (folder/fixed) as 'tactical' it better be capable of doing things that knives weren't meant to do. I'm no operator, though I do work for the Government (does state/local count? :D ), and I think that if I was an operator, and I was in the middle of Hell trying to do who knows what to who knows who, while a bunch of the enemy wants to find me and do you know what with me... the last thing I'd want to worry about is whether my 'tactical knife' will hold up to the punishment that I just might have to give it, in the name of the mission.
Hypothetical Operator said:
BAD F___ING LUCK, :mad: my liner just failed, and my blade folded and chopped off the first three fingers of my left hand because I put too much stress on my blade while I was fighting off whomever, who was trying to grapple me for my gun..."
Click to expand...
As an I.T. guy I have to put non standard stress on a blade once in a while (that or carry a multiplier in my pocket, or on my belt, which I'm not ready to do yet...), and I'd like it to hold up, though my life doesn't depend on it the way that the hypothetical 'operator''s life depends on it... </$0.02>
 
They used to be promoted in this manner, really aggressively. Les Robertson for example would consistently push custom tacticals over production tacticals because of his experience with production tacticals breaking under significant prying. As more and more information flooded the internet the promotion of such uses has fallen off dramatically, it is way harder to overhype a product now than it was ten years ago. I think what would be interesting would be to just start asking all the makers what criteria of their knives makes them tacticals, what are they made to do and what don't they do. The answer to this question, even if it is a refusal to talk is usually informative.

-Cliff
 
Allen Elishewitz is a well-known custom knifemaker. He also had a previous career as Force-Recon Marine. These are his thoughts which are user and design-specific, hence practical for "combat" knives. The "tactical" monicker (in reality, more of a specialist term rather than a catch-all label) seems to have been hightly abused/misused in terms of marketing that it came to a point of parody and ridicule now.

http://www.knifeart.com/combyalel.html
 
At this point, trying to use the word 'tactical' to describe a bomb-proof operator's wet dream of a knife is like calling a cheerful person 'gay'... the word just doesn't have the same meaning anymore.
 
All I know is a survival knife is anything that will open my paycheck envelope.
 
I think a tactical folder is simply one that:
1) Opens and closes with one hand
2) Has a pocket clip
3) Locks the blade (at least in the open position)

I have no idea what a tactical fixed-blade is meant to be.
 
inspira said:
I think a tactical folder is simply one that:
1) Opens and closes with one hand
2) Has a pocket clip
3) Locks the blade (at least in the open position)

I have no idea what a tactical fixed-blade is meant to be.
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I have to agree with inspira. Tactical is defined as "of or pertaining to tactics", and a tactic is "an expedient for achieving a goal". In the broadest sense, the most typical "goal" of a knife is to cut something. A knife is "tactical" when it has features that make it easier to deploy and cut with. Pocket clip keeps it in one place, so you know exactly where it is and can get to it quickly without fishing around in your pocket for it. A pocket clip also allows you to make contact with your knife in the same way every time you reach for it. One-hand opening allows you to, well, open it with one hand. If you've got the neighbors cat in one hand, you don't want to have to fumble around with a slipjoint to get the job done. So a tactical folder is one that you can get out of your pocket quickly, open with one hand, and make your cut. I'm not as certain about the lock, have to think about that one.

Most everything else, which we've come to associate with the word "tactical", is just marketing. I'd say any folder with a pocket clip and one-hand opening is tactical. And most of those do have locks (only exception that comes immediately to mind is the UKPK).
 
Tactical Knives, Utility Knives, Killing Knives Rant
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Another 2 cents worth.
A tactical knife seems to me to be a term for a knife which in a pinch, you could defend yourself with, a utilty knife with self defence pretensions.
A fighting or killing knife or to seperate things, a fighting knife is something to fight someone else with another weapon, knife to knife, stick,club etc. A large bowie knife would be an example.
A killing knife is one to kill a person unarmed or not expecting a knife attack, a Fairburn Sykes would be an example, a useless knife except for stabbing, but very widely used in WW2 and widely copied, most boot knives for example.
 
I think part of the confusion on "tactical" is that the term also describes knives suitable for police work and self-defense, not just knives for soldiers. The term "tactical folder" would be an oxymoron to an infantryman, who is going to want a fixed blade knife. Likewise, a civilian carrying a knife for self-defense is going to be concerned about concealability in many cases. This leaves us with a definition of "tactical knife" that means something like this:
Tactical knife -- A knife designed for, and suitable for, knife fighting.​
And we ought to be able to come up with some reasonable standards of what that means (e.g. rapid deployment, locking or fixed blade, proficient at stabbing/chopping/slashing, resistent to lateral stress). Hopefully most folks could agree that a knife able to withstand around 100 lbs of stress in any direction to the blade, and possessing a blade shape with the necessary characteristics, is suitable for knife fighting. If not 100 lbs, then some number that the majority can agree on. I suspect that even the relatively low number of 100 lbs disqualifies most of the "tactical folders" out there.
 
I guess I have a fairly significantly different view on what constitutes tactical.

To me, tactical knife means the opposite of gentleman's knife.

Non tactical knives are characterized by natural/organic handle materials, slip joints, two hand opening, etc...

Tactical knives, conversely, have grippy "modern" handle materials (G10 is the most obvious), or high tech synthetics, some use of steel or titanium is pretty normal. They have one hand opening or AO. They have one hand closing. They have locks.

This is concerning folders, of course.

When I hear about a "tactical" knife, I think nothing about its lock strength, deadliness, etc...I just see a different basis of the knife altogether. I think this may be the only realistically suitable definition at this point, because no matter what tactical originally meant, the marketing has definitely pulled it away from the definitions outlined above (which would be just fine with me, but they don't really describe what people now see as tactical). Ultimately, it's just a word. Something is tactical because we say it's tactical. It's not quite an arbitrary designation, but it also isn't too far away either.

Because the term tactical is outside of our realistic control (except within our group), it would be best to create a new word that represents specific features or strengths of the knife. The word could be very strictly and specifically defined here, and through the virtue of our using it, we can have a term that people can actually rely on, because, well, it'll actually mean something. When someone says a knife is BF Spec or something, people will know that the lock is tested tough, that it has a grippy handle material, that the blade is of such and such width...you guys decide. I think this is the only realistic way to go about making this sort of standard.

It might even constitute some sort of certifcation.
 
Larry Harley once wrote that there are only 2 kinds of knives:
Working knives & killing knives.
Makes sense to me.

Tactical, IMNSHO, is not only a compromise between the 2 mentioned above, but a marketing gimmick used to trick up one of man's oldest tools.
By creating "tactical", a whole new list of responsibilities for the knife have been created. Now a knife has to chop, dig and pry. And more ;)
By creating an artificial need to chop, dig and pry a new market share was also created.
A market share filled with product made by the folks that created the genre.
And vehemently defended on these and other forums around the world.

When I got my first knife (I'm 49), first 2 things my dad said was:
"Be careful with that & it's not a screw driver."
 
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