I can actually pretty easily envision a scenario for reject blades winding up in ersatz "unintended" ATAKs through the subterfuge/embezzlement of a sinister employee (try to stick with me here, we'll be playing a quick round of "You Are There"):
Okay, so you're MD, and you make some really kicka** knives, and they're in high demand, so you're living large parts of your life in front of a grinder and a furnace, because your meticulous hand grinding and heat treating is what makes the knives so special. But grinding and heat treating aren't the only things a knife business needs, so you hire some Elves to answer the phone, handle the paperwork, do shipping and receiving, maybe help put on handles (I don't know, you tell me, after all,
you're the Dog). But, unbeknownst to you, one of the Elves is Evil (oooh, foreshadowing, spooky music, closeup of the Evil Elf at a 45degree camera angle, and all that) ...
So, you're MD, you're grinding and heat-treating away, and you find a blade that doesn't meet your high standards. You bite a notch out of the tang (which is weird, but it's part of your quirky nature) to indicate its inferior status, and throw it on the reject pile, which nobody pays much attention to, since, after all, well, they're rejects...
So your Elves come to you and say, "Mr. MD, sir, we're sending out two dozen finished knives to dealers, and we're ordering some more Milk Bones, and we're sending 50-mumble blades out to be hard-chromed, and we're ordering parts for another 50-mumble handles," and you nod and thank your Elves, and chomp down on another Milk Bone, and get back to your constant grinding...
But, unbeknownst to you, the Evil Elf has found three or four blades in the reject pile that look pretty good (to an Evil Elf, anyway), and has added them into the 50-mumble that went out for hard-chroming, and made sure that three or four more handles emerged out of the 50-mumble sets of parts that were ordered. And you're busy grinding, always grinding, so you don't really pay attention to the "mumble" part of 50-mumble.
When the hard-chromed blades come back, the Evil Elf says, "Mr. MD, sir, here's those 50 blades we sent out for hard-chroming, all ready for you to finish." Of course, the Evil Elf has already pulled the notched blades out of the shipment, and hidden them away. Later that night, the Evil Elf uses your own gear to glue the extra handles (who knows, maybe they're even the handles are rejects) on the extra knives, while supposedly "closing up shop for you", while you're snoring in your doghouse, dreaming of eating kittens.
So, the Evil Elf ends up with a small, but possibly continuous, supply of ersatz ATAKs... maybe he sells them to a friend who nods and winks and sells them at gun shows or swap meets as "barely used" MDs. Maybe someone buys one, then resells it to a legit dealer later on when they need money (with the dealer assuming the knife had been bought straight from the Dog), maybe that legit dealer sells it to a customer who later offers it up to Mr. Turber for testing, and only the Evil Elf and his swapmeet friend know the awful truth of the knife's real origins.
... so, does this scenario sound too far fetched? Embezzlement in the machine shop beyond belief? Well, none other than Jerry Busse described a vaguely similar situation to me a couple years ago, where an employee was sending legit orders through their system, and then grabbing the finished knives (before the customers got charged), hiding the paperwork, and selling the knives off at a swap meet. What occasioned him to tell me this? Because my Mean Street arrived
many moons later than expected, after they found the stash of hidden paperwork (including mine), and had to complete the orders a second time. So, I can certainly see how it could happen...
For the record, I think that both MadDog and Busse build kicka** knives, the former optimized for fighting with a nod to utility, the latter optimized for utility with a nod to fighting -- and I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a crazed grandma armed with either one...
...but I'd
still like to see the results of X-raying a dozen randomly chosen ATAKs
...
My apologies for the length of this post,
(way past) time for sleep...
------------------
Carl /\/\/\ AKTI #A000921
Think this through with me ... Let me know your mind
Wo-oah, what I want to know ... is are you kind?
-- Hunter/Garcia, "Uncle John's Band"
