ultimate hard use / abuse knife

Perhaps we need a consensus on what level of prying people are talking of before we can actually decide if a knife should be able to handle it.
There's some prying that would bust the tip off a Busse no problem.

Then there's the other end of the scale, prying a staple out of paper.
 
stabman said:
Perhaps we need a consensus on what level of prying people are talking of before we can actually decide if a knife should be able to handle it.
There's some prying that would bust the tip off a Busse no problem.

Then there's the other end of the scale, prying a staple out of paper.
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Isn't this simply a matter of materials science? We need to know the lateral load level that a specified cross-section of steel "A" at hardness "H" can bear before taking a permanent bend or fracturing. Also, each test steel must be as free of defects (occlusions, etc.) as can be reasonably expected. And we'd need a lot of these samples. Then we have a consensus on what level of prying a sample of steel "A" should be able to endure. If a user experiences failure in their own sample of steel "A" at a lateral load level below the expected range, we know that something was wrong with the product.

But I suppose the real challenge is getting people to translate lateral load levels and cross-sections of steel into real-world examples of knives and prying activities. Lacking that translational capacity (numbers), I generally advise people to pry slowly and gently, feel for the bend. Slimmer blades have reduced cross-section and will bend or fracture before a thicker blade of the same material. Beware of laterally stressing your blade edge where the cross-section is smallest. If you blade bends without much success in accomplishing the desired task, get a stronger tool...

Anyone have actual translational values?
 
I don't need the toughest knife in the world, I doubt anyone on this forum does either, but the mere fact that there are knives out there that are better than mine will always mean that I am tempted to waste money on something I don't need. I guess most of us here suffer this affliction.
 
The toughest knife in the world would also be the worst-cutting knife in the world. I think that's a point that bears a little consideration. :D
 
Moses2792796 said:
:mad:
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What are you mad about?

FortyTwoBlades is right.
I could take 1 inch thick S7, make it 2 inch height blade, with a saber grind coming up half-way to the spine.
I could get it so it did indeed have an edge.

It would be tough, tough, toughetty tough tough tough.

It would also be a truly horrid knife.
 
I didn't literally mean the toughest knife possibly conceivable, I was referring to stuff like Busse, Fherman etc. All I'm saying is I definitely don't need a knife that you can baton through a brick or pry open a Humvee door with, but the fact that they exist makes me want one, which I'm sure is the very thing that allows these guys to sell enough of these knives to make a living. I'm pretty sure 99.99% of their customers don't actually need a knife that performs as well as the ones they are making.

I don't buy expensive knives, mostly Kabar, Buck and similar brands, and when I get out in the woods I don't hold back on my knives at all. I've never broken one yet. If my knives were breaking/going dull all the time I would certainly be spending the extra money on Busse or similar, but since they are performing perfectly well I can't really justify the expense.
 
I too have to wonder, what some people are prying. I'm old school and my big go-to survival knife is an old Randall Model 14. I can't imagine what I would need to pry that I couldn't do with that. If I did encounter a 'prying situation' that I'd not want to thrust my Randall into, I'd look for another solution. Really, if your intended environment of operations is likely to require exceptional prying power or activities, carry a dedicated pry bar. This frees up your knife from having to be designed to pry and it can be more specifically designed to serve knife like functions of cutting and chopping. I don't know what that environment is--the one where one must be ready to pry open bank vaults at a moments notice--but since it appears to be a critical issue for many folks, it must exists.

Now chopping, that's a different issue but that doesn't seem to be the point of contention here.
 
Moses2792796 said:
I didn't literally mean the toughest knife possibly conceivable, I was referring to stuff like Busse, Fherman etc. All I'm saying is I definitely don't need a knife that you can baton through a brick or pry open a Humvee door with, but the fact that they exist makes me want one, which I'm sure is the very thing that allows these guys to sell enough of these knives to make a living. I'm pretty sure 99.99% of their customers don't actually need a knife that performs as well as the ones they are making.

I don't buy expensive knives, mostly Kabar, Buck and similar brands, and when I get out in the woods I don't hold back on my knives at all. I've never broken one yet. If my knives were breaking/going dull all the time I would certainly be spending the extra money on Busse or similar, but since they are performing perfectly well I can't really justify the expense.
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I got exactly what you were saying, but was pointing out that while "toughness" is an important point of consideration, the other factors of performance must be balanced against it to produce a good knife. Focus too much on toughness and prying, and you end up with one of these:

stanley-fubar-demolition-tool.jpg

Pretty far from being a proper knife, isn't it? :D I could make the toughest knife in the world and it would be made out of Silly Putty. Bet you couldn't break THAT! :D

So ultimately I'm agreeing with you. We don't really need--or even want!--the toughest knife in the world. It's all about balancing various characteristics to achieve optimum performance for our typical (and sometimes atypical) needs and uses. Busse meets the needs of some folks. It also exceeds the needs of many folks. And also doesn't meet the needs of others, still. And many more people than that just don't have a clue what they need anyway! :p
 
Yes, Mission knives are truly amazingly strong. My MPK seems so light for being as tough as it is!
 
hardheart said:
I was going to have some infi charpy tested by sectioning the tang of a knife, but Moletta or someone else associated seems to have already done it. I think it was about 160 J, but I don't know if that is unnotched, or c/v notched. Either way, it isn't all that high.
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Excuse me? Do you know what Charpy results are for other blade steels? Because that's about THREE TIMES as high as S30V!
 
meanwhile said:
Excuse me? Do you know what Charpy results are for other blade steels? Because that's about THREE TIMES as high as S30V!
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That wouldn't surprise me at all. For hard use, S30V is one of the LAST steels I would choose. Actually, it is one of the last I would choose, for a variety of reasons.

For the OP, INFI is a good steel for what you are looking for, as is 5160 (Himalayan Imports) and CPM 3V (Fehrman).
 
sodak said:
That wouldn't surprise me at all. For hard use, S30V is one of the LAST steels I would choose. Actually, it is one of the last I would choose, for a variety of reasons.
.
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S30V's Charpy measurement is actually respectible. (And its cross-gain Charpy is unusually good - it's almost half the with-grain figure, and with some steels you get only a tenth.) But some very disappointing knives seem to have been made from it - teething problems, makers not adapting their HT, whatever.
 
meanwhile said:
Excuse me? Do you know what Charpy results are for other blade steels? Because that's about THREE TIMES as high as S30V!
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Getting three times the results of S30V is not all that high relative to the claims made of the steel and how it is compared without test results to other alloys. There are posts that unequivocally state that INFI is the toughest steel used to make knives. That is not true. It is a tough steel, but it has peers and superiors in that specific property that are used as cutlery steels.
 
BK2 is it. You can beat the hell out of it and it will keep on kicking. If you can manage to break it, you're out less than $70? Go buy another.
 
Where the heck is Cliff Stamp when you need him most? JCTMI. I just coined the term " just chuckled to my self inside."
It's the new LOL substitute.
 
BePrepared said:
I agree. It's the other .0001% (60 thousand or so people) to whom incredible toughness is not just a hobby but an absolute necessity.
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i'm not sure this is quite as accurate as we are led to believe... true, there are a lot of troops in the military who do ride around in humvees (up armoured @ that) and true, they do flip over and get stuck, however i'm not sure that 60,000 people are going to require a knife that can pry open a humvee door, and i'm not convinced it ever happened. knowing the mechanics of such a door and the weights involved as well as the leverage required to open one... that plus the fact that the door was stuck, and that there are a lot more suitable tools carried by most soldiers in such cases, i would probably lead me to call bullshit on this one. I agree, Soldiers need a tough knife... for the main point that most don't know how to properly treat one, and will use it from everything from prying open an ammo can to spreading jalapeno cheese from their MREs and then throw it at a tree for two hours when they are bored. that being the case, there are a lot more factors that go into a useful knife than jacking up a truck.
 
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