Tanto blade

orork

orork

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Sep 18, 2010
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I am wondering the purpose of the Tanto blade. According to Google results, it's a blade of Japanese origin, I get that part. But why the strange tip? I found no definite answer. So using my form of logic, I believe the tip was made in the Tanto style to make the tip less susceptible to breaking. What do you all think?
 
Do a search.

You are actually asking about the Americanized Tanto which has the tip you are talking about.

Original tantos were Japanese knives and typically did not have that reinforced triangular tip that you are talking about. It was not meant to penetrate armor but was carried more as a field knife, although they were probably used to cut-off the heads of already dead foes.

Americanized Tantos were probably first introduced to the American market by knifemaker Bob Lum. This tip was designed for piercing and was a beautifully-ground knife design.

Come along Cold Steel and Lynn Thompson. He borrowed (stole) the design and started hawking his versions of the tanto knife. In order to sell more, he created the hype about the high penetration power of the "tanto" and made videos of himself piercing 55gal drums, car doors etc. Part of the hype was how the tanto used to be carried by Samurai to pierce the armor of their opponents.

Now it is a common knife design with a mostly made-up history.
 
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The Japanese Tanto is a completely different blade design. The squarish blade design you are referring to is the Americanized Tanto.

A properly made "Americanized Tanto" keeps the tip in line with the spine, unlike drop points and clip points that lower the point.

Lowering the point allows for greater control over the knife, but limits the amount of material you can put at the tip. So the point of the tanto was originally have the tip rapidly achieve the full thickness of the blade.

On top of that, the WIDTH of the blade widens very quickly to achieve the full WIDENESS of the blade so that way if you were to stab something very stiff (like say.. a car hood) the tanto point would be able to puncture through and introduce the entire thickness and width of the blade using the full momentum of your stab. On the other hand a dagger may not penetrate at all due to the thinner tip, but if it did, as you pushed the dagger deeper, the force required would get bigger and bigger, which is hard to accomplish. The tanto would takes advantage of the strongest part of your stabbing motion.

Realistically what does this mean? A properly made tanto is designed to maximize tip strength at the cost of sacrificing utility value (point not easily controlled, awkward blade profile). If you decide you do want a tanto, be careful because it is very easy to improperly design a tanto so that you don't have that strong tip, but still keep the awkward secondary point. Like for example the BM Warn, BM clips the tanto point, and the point is rather thin, so really it is closer to clip point, but it still has the secondary point so it is not as good for utility as something with a belly, but it still won't have a strong tip. The only well made tanto points I have actually played around with / owned, Cold Steel really is the only place to look.

Consensus will tell you to look into other blade designs, and I agree.
 
CWL said:
Do a search.

You are actually asking about the Americanized Tanto which has the tip you are talking about.

Original tantos were Japanese knives and typically did not have that reinforced triangular tip that you are talking about. It was not meant to penetrate armor but was carried more as a field knife, although they were probably used to cut-off the heads of already dead foes.

Americanized Tantos were probably first introduced to the American market by knifemaker Bill Lum. This tip was designed for piercing and was a beautifully-ground knife design.

Come along Cold Steel and Lynn Thompson. He borrowed (stole) the design and started hawking his versions of the tanto knife. In order to sell more, he created the hype about the high penetration power of the "tanto" and made videos of himself piercing 55gal drums, car doors etc. Part of the hype was how the tanto used to be carried by Samurai to pierce the armor of their opponents.

Now it is a common knife design with a mostly made-up history.
Click to expand...

CWL, you are referring to Bob Lum right? :p
 
The secondary point on a Tanto is great for opening packages and scoring things. However, a belly is always better =)
 
First off, the word tanto does not refer to a particular design, it just means short sword. There are many different styles and shapes of tanto in Japanese sword culture. One of these is called shinogi. Its a short sword made from a katana or other longer sword that has been broken. This tanto style does have the angular tip like the American version. The armor piercing tanto blades referred to in the Americanized story are more in the tae yari style, made like a short spear with a triangular cross section and pointed tip.
 
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