What tests do you do before you trust a SRKW knife?

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kgriggs8

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I recently got a nice SRKW Battle Rat. I got it to put in my bug out bag and for camping. It is not going to be used all the time but when I use it, I am going to want it to work.

What tests should I preform before I feel safe to put it in the BOB and trust that it will prefrom in an emergency? I don't want to go nuts but I do want to test it far enough to make sure there are no hair lines cracks in the blade steel or some other flaw that I don't notice yet. I just don't want it to fail when I need it. I don't expect anything to be wrong with it but it is always a good idea to test your equipment before you rely on it no matter ow good of a rep it has.

I wouldn't pack a gun in the BOB that I hadn't tested and knew it was reliable so I don't see why I should expect anything less of my other gear.
 
Chopping and batoning?

Those are reasonable, real life hard use chores. They should not damage the rat in any way (unles you hit a screw or something;) ), but are good practice. While you are batoning, you could get the knife wedged in someplace and do some prying/flexing tests.

I am not one that would enjoy hacking apart a car just to see if the knife would fail.

It is nice to see some of the torture tests that others have put their rats through though....in case you did have to hack apart a car :)
 
What I've done in the past is this. I'll throw it at a tree - HARD - until it sticks. And when it does, I'll cover my eyes and cringe while River-8 [Removed, because I cringe just reading about it]

Once I dry the tears from my eyes and realize that it's unbroken...I'm pretty confident in that blade. :D
 
This is a little off topic but can a man break a Battle Rat by prying it? Lets say you have it in a vise or a stuck deep in some wood, could a man of above average strength (well above average if you are talking about me:D ) break the blade without using a pipe for a lever? From what I have seen, even with the help of a pipe as a lever, it would be pretty hard to do. I am just wondering if a man could even physically break a BR in half.

I know I could break some of my other fixed blades but the Battle Rat is a different animal. I am not talking about just snapping off the tip, I mean breaking the blade in half.
 
Here's a pic of a Battle Rat being bent in a vise. From this and from personal experience, I'd say that breaking a BR without the aid of any other devices would be very VERY unlikely. The way the heat treat and cryo are done will usually result in the blade taking a "set" long before the steel actually breaks.

Like you mentioned, that type of bend assumes that you're grabbing onto a little more than just the taper of the tip, but not much. ;)

115486SR101invise.jpg


I've bent my blades to around a third of that by hand. It ain't easy.

:D :D
 
Just remember that in terms of the amount of energy transferred to the material, there is a huge difference between a smooth, slow pull and a sudden jerk.
 
Rephrasing the off topic question. NOT including knives broken by hitting them with steel or using mechanical means, does anyone know of any of the larger or medium (Howling rat size) sized Busse or Swamp Rat knives being broken (not tip bent) under "User" use?
Ron Athay
 
Yeah, there was OwenM's basic 5. He was using it to break apart pallets and one of them was so stubborn he started jumping up and down on the handle or something trying to pop the boards apart. Searching the busse forum should turn that up.
 
kgriggs8 said:
This is a little off topic but can a man break a Battle Rat by prying it? Lets say you have it in a vise or a stuck deep in some wood, could a man of above average strength (well above average if you are talking about me:D ) break the blade without using a pipe for a lever? From what I have seen, even with the help of a pipe as a lever, it would be pretty hard to do. I am just wondering if a man could even physically break a BR in half.

I know I could break some of my other fixed blades but the Battle Rat is a different animal. I am not talking about just snapping off the tip, I mean breaking the blade in half.
Click to expand...

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No way--just using hand strength would you SNAP the Battle Rat blade in half

No one is that strong
 
The thing about testing something (anything) is that it may fail in some way the very next time. You can test it and I doubt you'll do anything to it that would cause it to break in normal use. But if you are smart, you'll have a back-up blade, preferably another SR or a Busse.
 
Cobalt and O-T-E have it right. What you do in destructive testing can result in stress fractures that cause the blade to fail when you need it not to fail. Destructive testing is fine and good, but I'd say only on a blade that is uses as a representative for other blades and one that will not be used for emergencies.

The Busse/Swamp Rat crews have done plenty of testing on these knives to convince me, but I have also used them enough to know that they work. Go out and chop through some tough wood that would put dings in other knife edges. Your Swamp Rat should do fine, and only need stropping or a few swipes on a ceramic rod to get it back to shaving sharp. Beyond that, you'll just have to have faith in 1/4" of 52100 heat treatment and cryo treatment, and maybe the above flex images to give you confidence in it as an emergency tool. I think that the existing body of evidence is valid enough that you don't have to spend another $250 or so on another knife to destroy in proof tests.
 
JWBirch said:
Cobalt and O-T-E have it right. What you do in destructive testing can result in stress fractures that cause the blade to fail when you need it not to fail. Destructive testing is fine and good, but I'd say only on a blade that is uses as a representative for other blades and one that will not be used for emergencies.

The Busse/Swamp Rat crews have done plenty of testing on these knives to convince me, but I have also used them enough to know that they work. Go out and chop through some tough wood that would put dings in other knife edges. Your Swamp Rat should do fine, and only need stropping or a few swipes on a ceramic rod to get it back to shaving sharp. Beyond that, you'll just have to have faith in 1/4" of 52100 heat treatment and cryo treatment, and maybe the above flex images to give you confidence in it as an emergency tool. I think that the existing body of evidence is valid enough that you don't have to spend another $250 or so on another knife to destroy in proof tests.
Click to expand...


Yes, I think what most people don't understand, especially newbies, is that wen you pound a knife into steel using a steel hammer or chop concrete or hack on metal. You will damage the knife, plain and simple. there is no way around it. the purpose of the test is not to see IF the knife will be damaged, it is to see if it fails prematurely or if it fails as expected per the manufacturer. I have had many knives fail on me with very little abuse. I know that a Rat or Busse or Scrapyard will not fail in that manner, early and CATASTROPHICALLY.

So if you wish to hack on stuff or baton with a metal hammer, then assume that your blade will eventually fail. But it will take longer to fail than most any other knife around and that is why the Hype.
 
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