Which actives stress the tang of a knife?

[19-3ben]

Hi All,

Long time lurker, just signed up a couple days ago, and first time poster. Been a knife guy for a long time, and I have sort of an odd question.

I see a lot of emphasis on the importance of a full frame tang on fixed blade knives. It seems like rat tail tangs kind of get poo-pooed a little. I'm by no means knocking it. I appreciate the strength of the full frame tang as much as any guy. Even for my own primary general purpose/outdoors/camping/bushcraft knife I went with a full frame tang model (Esee LS).

But my question is, what activities do we do with knives that actually stress the tang, or connection between tang and blade? For regular knife duties like breaking down boxes, cutting cordage, cutting food, accidentally cutting our fingers, etc... even a SAK would be fine. And then even with hard use bush crafting use, it seems like battoning with whacks on the spine put stress on the spine/blade, but no so much on the tang. For chopping, if it's a shorter bladed knife you'll never get enough energy to break a rat-tailed tang, and in longer blade knives the energy is all down the end of the blade, so I would imagine the force of the blade coming to a sudden stop in wood, does not really stress the tang either.

I can think of things like when people stab a knife in the wall and stand on it, that would obviously really test the strength of a tang, but apart from lunatic type abuse like this, what activities do we do with knives that actually cause us to desire that much strength in our knives? Or do we all just like overkill/enormous margin for error?

Are there any records of knives being used in very harsh conditions and tangs breaking? When our military had the USMC Kabar and the pilot survival knife were those rat-tail tangs breaking in combat and field use? (asking seriously, not to be a sarcastic jerk)

 

[T. Erdelyi]

The only time I think it becomes an issue is when it comes to chopping or batoning a blade through something. If ask you're doing is cutting and skinning there won't be a problem.

 

[killgar]

Stress-risers where the tang meets the blade, or holes drilled in the tang for production purposes would concern me more than the width of the tang.

I have a few full-tang knives that I have used for prying (still use one of them for prying). They perform such tasks well. But I wouldn't use a stick-tang knife for such purposes. If I'm going to pry with a knife, I want there to be as much steel there as possible.

As for the types of prying I've done/do with my full-tang fixed-blades- prying up the lids of packing crates, prying up heavy-duty plastic crate bands for cutting, prying drywall and plywood sheets off walls, etc.

 

[Shotgun]

For me it's prying. I've battoned a mora plenty and if done right isn't all that stressful to any knife. I have however flexed 3/16" thick sr101 digging at a fatwood stump. That would probably have killed the mora. If prying is never going to happen I think a thin stick or hidden tang is perfect.