Uneven clip point - Is that a problem?

J

jaredmccoy

Joined
Aug 13, 2015
Messages
2
I purchased my first Ka-bar, a becker bk9. I've been admiring it but noticed that the clip point is uneven. On one side the spine starts to taper about 3/16 -1/4" closer to the tip than the other side. So it's slightly uneven. Does this even matter? Is that an acceptable margin of error? Will it even effect performance? (Never had a large bowie style knife)
 
It won't affect performance. You should have a mod move this to the Becker subforum.
 
Mine is the same way, and I've never felt it has effected the performance of the blade. Is likely because the knives are hand ground, which leads to some variably.

Enjoy the new steel, the BK9 is great.
 
I have several 9s and I've never even examined them very closely for stuff like that. As ocn said, absolutely nothing hand ground is ever "perfect". You give me any knife that's hand ground and I can find differences between the pile side and the mark side.

Something coming from a low volume facility will be closer to identical comparing symmetry and large volume companies have a looser tolerance, if for no other reason than they have more folks grinding away. Almost every knife ground by the same person will be very close twins to others that he/she grind. As examples, Terrio Knives has one person grinding every knife. Every knife he grinds will be very close to identical due to muscle memory, experience and attention to detail. But there will still be differences. T.M. Hunt has 2 people grinding, himself and Murph. More variation between individual knives as you have twice as many grinders. Expand that to someone like Kabar or Ontario where there are many more grinders, even more variation.

I bet if I pull out the old ruler and went to measuring, I could find differences, not just on my 9s, but every Becker, Kabar, Western, etc. that I have. My attitude on every "new to me" Becker/Kabar user has been, "Let's see, I ordered a 'Brand X/Model Y'. That's a 'Brand X/Model Y'. Mark that one off the list as received." And commenced to using it. Haven't broken one yet. :D
 
Thanks for the feedback. I actually didn't realize they were done by hand. I found a couple other "discrepancies" but that just makes me feel like I can use it as a tool like it's intended and not worry about it.
 
jaredmccoy said:
Thanks for the feedback. I actually didn't realize they were done by hand. I found a couple other "discrepancies" but that just makes me feel like I can use it as a tool like it's intended and not worry about it.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great way to look at it :). Enjoy your new steel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top