The Combat Smatchet?

A

Adamantium

Joined
Oct 3, 1998
Messages
355
Hi. I was reading a very interesting article in "The Guns Digest Book of Knives"(5th Edition) about The late Rex Applegate and his knife designs. It basically talks about the lots of different knives that Rex made. And one of the knives was the Combat Smatchet. This is quoted from the article.

"Buck Knives manufactured the Smatchet for a season or so, experiencing excellent sales with the limited run of 500. However, Chuck Buck and his staff decided the big battle blade did not fit the corporate image they sought to maintain, and they declined to continue production."

Anyway, This is where I get confused. Being fairly new to knives and stuff, I don't quite get what they mean when they say "Corprate Image". And I was sorta wondering if anyone could help better explain it to me.

Sincerely,
Adam
 
Adam,
Yes we did make the run of Smachets. The decision to stop was made because Chuck Buck felt that It was too much of a tactical weapon. There was a feeling that it was too war-like. It was a huge knife. We generally don't do much in knives that are good for killing people. (yes I know we made the bayonet, but most bayonets are used for utility, not Killing directly.).

So in a nut shell that is why...

Jeff

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Jeff "Without data it's just another opinion" Hubbard
 
Geez, just when I was interested in a "Smatchet" I find out that they are discontinued. My understanding is that the "Buck Master", the "BMF" and the " Buck Bayonet (Knife)" were also discontinued. As an average knife collector I hate to see a knife discontinued so the company appears to be "PC" or wants to appease some fringe liberal element of our society. A quote from Jeff Hubbard "The decision to stop was made because Chuck Buck felt that It was too much of a tactical weapon. There was a feeling that it was too war-like. It was a huge knife. We generally don't do much in knives that are good for killing people. (yes I know we made the bayonet, but most bayonets are used for utility, not Killing directly.)" Pleez, let's get real. Any of the knives produced by Buck are designed to cut, stab or chop to some degree. Would I feel better being stabbed multiple times by a Buck 110, I think not. As a career law enforcement officer with 24+ years of experience I have yet to respond to a person stabbed with anything much more than a cheap kitchen knife, screwdriver, ice pick or have ever encountered a mass conspiracy of smatchet wielding crazed knife owners. I own many Buck knives for many reasons. I have always felt that they had quality, value and were utilitarian in nature. I look at knives as I do tools. It takes the proper tool or knife to accomplish a specific task efficiently, with the greatest of ease and safety to the user. A knife collector collects knives for many reasons. I like knives of all shapes and sizes intended for many purposes. As an appeal, Please do not let an excellent American knife manufacturer go by the wayside. Continue making fine knives for all. Do not turn to making just pen knives for the Politically InCorrect.
Thanks for listening,
Just My Opinion
 
Thanks for the reply Jeff. Now the whole thing makes alot more sense too me. Just one more question. The article didn't give very much info about the Combat Smatchet. Just a small picture and the paragraph I quoted. So could you by any chance post some specs here and maybe a larger picture? Or if you want to E-mail them to me that would be great.

Sincerely,
Adam
 
Sarge,
Chuck Buck's attitude with respect to "War Like" knives has nothing to do with PC.....
It's a valid religious position. While, I am also a Christian, I don't agree with him on all points of interpritation of Scripture.

As to business decisions regarding the company, I'm certainly not privy to all the factors that are involved in the decisions. But, I think Buck Knives is being hurt by some very bad Marketing decisions.
Dan K
 
Jeff,
Thanks for the reply. I was not trying to be obstinate, rather just state my feelings. The last war where anything of this nature was used against an enemy was the American Civil War or possibly trench warfare in W.W.I.
I was looking at the object in question as a collector's item of the unusual. Gill Hibben's Fantasy series has some horrendous frightening knives but I doubt they would be very effective in real world or battle situations.
I too consider myself a Christian but must face real world realities. And besides in most situations, I am reminded of the sage advice, "Never take a Knife to a Gun Fight"
The bottom line is that I respect Mr. Buck's opinion and decisions, that is what America is supposed to be about.
Now to Adamantium's request, photos would be nice, and a lead on who if anyone is making this item for sale.

Thanks for your concern and your prompt response.


Larry Taylor
 
Just to let everyone know my original reply to Larry, I did not realize he had posted here in addition to my E-mail
Larry,
I appreciate your opinions and position.
Let me clarify what I mean….
The Smachet was discontinued approx. 7-8 years ago. I'm not sure who was making them since then.
The Buckmaster, BMF and Bayonet were discontinued not to be PC, but rather for lagging sales.
Chuck is a devout Christian and does not care about being PC but rather the morality of killing. We have done tactical knives in the past, and the current Odyssey series is extremely tactical in look and feel. Chuck does not like that series either, but realizes that is what is selling. We will continue to do tactical series knives. Will we make huge non utility war weapons? probably not.
In my time here I have not seen any decision made to be PC, but the decisions on tactical styles have been moral ones. Chuck Jr. on the other hand, like the tactical look. So you will continue to see stuff out of us.

Just my two cents and humble opinion

Jeff


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Jeff "Without data it's just another opinion" Hubbard
 
I've got some Buck flyer from the mid/late 70's that describes the 120 General as an all around knife suitable for heavy duty camping or fighting, with a line drawing of a WW II type GI holding the knife out in front going through jungle foliage. As one of my favorites, the 120 would be the perfect Ka-Bar replacement if it had a thong hole and a steel hammer pad. - Brian
 
Somewhere, I remember seeing a book on hand-to-hand combat and CQC written by Fairbairn of the commando stiletto and many, many other sorts of fame. It is called "Get Tough!" and it was published during WWII. My uncle had one that I read as a child. It had a section in it on how to use a Smatchet in combat, along with such goodies as how to use a matchbox as a weapon. If you can find it, it would be one heck of a collector's item as well as a good instruction book for CQC. Certainly, its author has credentials!

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh
 
I am also interested in smatchets, but the large ones seem to be discontinued. There are only the small ones, Boker, Smith&Wesson and the largest of the current manufacture I know of, Ontario. I ordered Ontario Broad Point since it was the largest smatchet I could find. Don't have it yet, but I am waiting it to arrive soon. Anyone else has experience of that knife? Ossi
 
I have used the smatchet.I was trained in Fairbairn and the FM Combatives,an update from Appelegate and W,E,B. and whatever the various schools instructors had picked up.We used bayonets with scabbards for sparring.There were wooden and rubber knives as well.The thing to note is that the Maj.proved the effectivnes in Shanghai and in collaberation with Applegate refined it.It was further proven in WW11,I t uses gross muscle movements.It wasn`t known them but when the heartbead exeeds 165 beats a minute your only capable of gross motor movement.The other problem with combatives is that all the combinations share a leathal conclusion.This is not apprpriate for LEO`s or civilians.People so traned do not use full capebilities in civilian applications.And the history of restraint has been a good one.My question is,How can Buck set themselves up as a moral authority as to how their tools are used especially, as there is no evedince of a pattern of misuse?
No offence Jeff.I enjoy your birds eye view about the decision making process.I have a lot of Buck knives as well as the other ones of note.


.The smatchet lets you cut twice as much cane,bamboo and lop coconuts whithout sharping.my combat experiance required a more specilized blade.I don`t look on it, or a bolo, as primarily for combat.It is definatly in the tool catagory.I took my BMF to the jungle and wound up using the local cane knife mostly.I`ve never killed anyone with it and unless it was the means at hand,I wouldn`t think of it anymore that an entrenching tool sharpened on the edges.Lt.Inf.needs a multiple use to justify humping an already heavy load.I just don`t understand"Bad knife".No kudos here.

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Ihave an M-9 for collector purposes.When I went to bayonet school,
the 'Spirit of the bayonet is to Kill".There was only
expert and fail."There are only two kinds of bayonet fighters,the quick and the dead".

[This message has been edited by ghostsix (edited 03 April 1999).]
 
Ghostsix, we've all heard the media hype about the girl kicked out of school for bringing a SAK for an appropriate purpose. What I was unaware of til this month was that the murder weapon in the infamous Brentwood double murder may not have been a stiletto but a (possibly) lockback SAK. The media didn't touch *that*!

The despicable thing to me is that while Mr. Buck and I can disagree theologically on big knives as being killing instuments vs. safety-rescue tools in good faith, I have no problem with that.

*However* if he as conservator of a family business to be husbanded and passed on to future generations of the family decides not to offer big knives to avert potential scurillous and basesless lawsuits, I *have* to wholeheartedly concur he is simply being rationally prudent(#%*^!). Look at how gun manufacturers are now being sued by cities. Now that is what I find despicable.

I have no data, but I suspect that the truth is that "big knives save lives" far more often than they injure the innocent when it comes right down to it (kitchen knives possibly excepted). I believe there is a self-selection process at work here where those who purchase knives for defense and select tools suited for such emergency useage tend toward being responsible people. The predators know they can use body size and bullying to accomplish their purposes with a blade of more concealable size that is easier to explain away when stopped by the sheepdogs protecting the sheeple. Refer back to my comments on the Brentwood double murder.

So is Buck knives going to discontinue selling the swissbucks because a similar SAK knife was misused once? That question is beneath me, but the subject puts me in a rotten mood. Sorry, the world isn't the way I want it to be and that gives me indigestion.
 
Curious, that the decision not to make a purpose-built killing knife is called "politically correct," a term from the left, when it really comes from a position of deep conservatism. This is not the only case where we can confuse left and right, such as when being a hard-line anti-communist gets me onto a bunch of liberal mailing lists.

And if you look at the history of laws against carrying daggers and such, you will find that they go back to a long time before anybody heard of a liberal. A sword is the weapon of a lord, the spear the weapon of a foot soldier, but a knife, when seen as a weapon, is a disreputable weapon, the weapon of sneaks - spies and thieves, or of classes not expected to defend themselves - peasants and women.

We all know that any knife that can do work can do damage, and a lot of folks only think "nasty weapon!" when they see something like a Buck 110 - let alone a Smatchet!

I can understand Buck's decision not to make a "killing knife," even though I understand that good people sometimes need weapons, and I own a few guns that are primarily weapons, whose "sporting" uses are really recreational weapons training. Self-defense in the greatest extreme is a life-sustaining purpose, and most major religions (though not all) agree that it is not a sin. All major religions and most minor ones also teach that sex between husband and wife is not a sin, but married couples close the curtains anyway. Likewise, discretion dictates that we should be circumspect about the lethal potential of our knives.

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
 
James, Rusty: I agree with you on this one. any knife can kill some one. But some look more lethal than others. Which in some way brings us back to just being PC. IMO its more about the hands its being held in.

Jeff: One more question. If Buck does decide to make a big bladed knife in the future, would they make it out of a high carbon steel(1095,1084,L6 etc.) because of its better toughness?

Sincerely,
Adam
 
Ossi, go to Combat Smatchet thread in General Forum for info on a place currently making them.
 
I`ve read the Bible.It`s a rather bloody book.The use of edged weapons abounds.

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Jeff,there is obviously a great deal of interest in Fairbairn`s smatchet.Perhaps Chuck would reconsider knowing that most of these will be used for brush clearing and such.I do respect his principals,however,I think that they are misplaced here.

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I'll go along with Ghostsix. I can get one made somewhere else, and will if I have to, but would rather have a Buck made one. Social Work - helping, healing, and protecting people - is my trade for crying out loud, and if comes to using anything for defense, I've got rifles and shotguns. I'm the president of my church's congregation. But I respect and would like to honor the memory of Applegate and the many, many others including my father who served in WWII, too! (( edit 4/14/99 - and if the Al Mar smatchet was made in Japan, another Axis power, I'll decline that also. Wouldn't want a Fairbarn-Sykes copy made by the "enemy" either. ))

[This message has been edited by Rusty (edited 14 April 1999).]
 
I'm also with Ghost6 and Rusty. The combat Smatchet looks like a really nice camp knife. Just like rusty, I could get one made somewhere else. Heck, I could even make one myself in my shop, but its nice to give business to a company that has already done it. That way you don't feel like your ripping them off.

Jeff: It would also be really nice to see some info posted about it. Because alot of people might not know what we are talking about.

Sincerely,
Adam
 
Something I thought of later, is that if we are honoring WWII vets, who fought against Germany, even if Boker brings out a full size smatchet, it wouldn't feel right to me to buy one made by the then enemy.

Again, up to Chuck and his beliefs, and I have no problem disagreeing with him without assuming that what my God wants *me* to do is necessarily the same thing that he wants Chuck or anyone else to do.
 
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