I need someone to explain what they mean by "cultish" and the rest of the descriptive words they use in a derogatory fashion in regards to Busse forumites.
Well, I can't neccessarily speak for everyone but here's what I think they mean...
Close-knit: This isn't a bad thing by any stretch, but just as it imparts a feeling of closeness to group members, it also has the effect of making outgroup individuals feel a little awkward.
Having a distinct set of traditions that are observed by the group: E.g. having an name with a porcine theme, having an avatar with "heavy titties", abusing punctuation, using large type, using different fonts, different font colours (these aren't neccessarily bad things, but they are kind of jarring, like ALL CAPS to me), knife & scotch pictures, etc. These aren't neccessarily unique to the Busse crowd, but they occur with an unusually high frequency among them.
Having an identity as 'Busse knife owners': Just trust me on this, you've got it. Most of you guys are as invested in the Busse name as Jerry is. Note the bruised feelings that result from someone suggesting that they've found other knives that work better for them.
Having your own language: Busse certainly isn't the only knife company to have ever used an acronym, but they do take it to the extreme. There's a reason there's a big list of acronyms stickied. Then there's also all the references to pigs and such.
Having your own hierarchy: Witness the public list of "Hogs of the round trough". Stickied at the top of the subforum.
These things are not neccessarily bad, but just as they unite you guys, they distance you from everyone else. And some people just will never enjoy it. I don't really understand how anyone would find this fact surprising.
It is difficult to separate feelings about the Busse community, the spotty availability and lack of sheath from feelings about the knives themselves, because it is all part of the cost. Now, if you enjoy the Busse community and the hunt for the knife you want, great. But if you don't and you're a working guy looking for a working knife you have to consider that your time is worth something.
When I got my GW (oops! sorry, Game Warden) I was making just shy of $35 an hour. I paid ~230 for the knife (the dollar had not hit parity then), another 40 for shipping, 35 at the border, and I spent who knows how many hours over a period of months checking the website to see if they had any models other than the one that was featured, wondering why the Busse Company store showed pictures of knives but never had any, eventually registering for a forum account here, trying to figure what the heck you guys in the Busse forum were talking about with your acronyms, feeling inadequate because I don't have expensive scotch/fas car/large breasted girlfriend/stockpile of guns/material good
du jour, trying to figure out what a gaanzaa was, checking the exchange looking for knives I was interested in and could afford that weren't CONUS only, finally understanding why the company store never has any knives and the Busse website only shows one model (because lord knows they don't bother to explain it there), compulsively checking the forum to see if there were any knives headed to the company store, *finally* spotting a knife--holy sh*t a real honest-to-goodness knife--although not the colours I was looking for (it was black/black&green G-10, I'd wanted satin/any solid earth tone), and buying it anyways because, hey, it was the first time I'd seen a Busse for sale at the comany store. Then one a little closer to what I was looking for showed up right afterwards as someone who'd had a bunch in their shopping cart decided to let them go. @#%&er.
It is hard to estimate how much time this took, but adding it all together over the period of months I think a very conservative estimate would be something like 10-12 hours. This makes that first GW a $700 knife and there's no way I'm making that back by selling it. And that's before even getting it a sheath. Sure, I won't have to go through that again if I want to buy another, but who the heck knows if they'll want a second before they get their first. In a strange way it was a bit of a disappointment, because although I think the asking price was fair, it just ain't $700 knife. Still, I've had fun with it, and I'd do better (and be a lot more selective) now than I did then, but that's what it looks like to the uninitiated and that's why someone interested in the knives would want to consider the Busse collecting community itself if they're thinking of buying one.
I don't think anyone seriously considers it a cult, but I suspect these are the things they mean when they refer to it as cultish. I'd prefer to avoid the term myself given the derogatory connotations associated with most uses of the word and not wanting to be rude to the other folks on this forum, but I think I can see where they're coming from.
People here aren't all just happy with Moras. Quite a lot of people want more quality from a knife than Moras can provide, extremely good value for the money as they are. Machetes won't do here, that is true. Something like the Battle Mistress? It's not an axe, but it would be fun, and be much more useful in chopping than any machete or a smaller knife.
