Tough thick tanto?

[00ChevyScott]

I've been thinking about picking up a tanto blade lately. I usually don't like tanto blades, but I'd like to try one now. I'm thinking a more acute tanto shape like the tanto umnumzaans. Is Cold Steel the best direction to look for something like this? I'd like to look at Benchmade but most of their blades are pretty thin. I'm looking for something strider-esqe in blade thickness.

 

[gomipile]

Cold Steel is good for low cost options. For fixed blades, their Kobun is exceptional, actually. The tanto Recon 1 and Voyager are probably their best tanto bladed folders.

Outside of that, I have a CRKT tanto M16-04, which I can recommend. CRKT's warranty isn't perfect, but is much better than Cold Steel's.

For a light option, the Kershaw tanto Zing is an excellent little knife.


As far as the utility of a western style tanto, they make better emergency can openers than most blade profiles. Also, the straight section of blade near the tip makes an excellent scraper, which can be quite useful in some professions. My father used to work in the steam turbine industry, and carried a small tanto bladed folder which he used for scraping high spots and bits of grit out of the soft babbitt used in bearings.

 

[OrdnanceBubbaUSMC]

Voyager would be best one to try the blade style out if you are wanting a folder.

The ones where they try to make it into a spearpoint-tanto hybrid (Benchmade and some others) give up penetration ease and weight/geometry at end of the blade for hacking, slashing, using second tip to initiate cut, etc. Knives with blades and handles designed for looks bug me personally. Seems even with the popular brands a lot of knives had designers who don't know crap about using a knife.