Why people hate on tantos?

LostCause said:
I went to woods in the wild with friend and some people my friend usually goes with, and I took my Recon Tanto instead of AK47 field knife, to give that thing some use.

And long story short, I had several guys asking me why am I having a tanto or why not SRK? I was even suggested to get a garberg like some other guy, or at least that black/orange companion knife.

The biggest irony is, nobody of us even needed to use a knife for anything (even the meat was pre-cut and spiced). Everyone who did use a knife did so just to use a knife. And to make it better - you can do all of that shit with a tanto too.

Tanto knife is still a knife and cuts like a knife should. So why so much hate?
Click to expand...
Hanging with the wrong crowd
 
Cobalt said:
So what is it about them that's harder to sharpen? I find them easier since the blade profile is straighter than the average. no belly or changing line like a bolo etc.
Click to expand...
Some people try to keep the original angle as intended and sharpen in two parts.

Me personally I stopped doing that and love to see what the shape wears into. But I don't have any collectable tantos.
 
hhmoore said:
I used to hate on tantos...because a person I thought was important did so. A few decades later and I've chosen to let the knives convince me. I have two tantos - mentioned in my earlier post, one I carried almost every day for about 2 years...the other I never gave a fair chance
Click to expand...
I used a kershaw brawler for basically everything and it had a tanto blade, never found the shape to get in the way, ultimately I prefer a drop point but..
 
Short answer: tastes and preferences differ.

Longer answer: I have these. My favorite and most used is the one on bottom, and it's been used for food prep, carpentry, and every sort of EDC biz one might use any other knife for. I carried the Benchmade Emerson for years and, aside from knife things, used it for non-knife things like hammering and prying simply because it's what I had at the time. When I was in college and worked in a convenience store, I used it to saw and hack apart a wooden crate someone had tossed into our dumpster, sans permission: those saw teeth and chisel edge eventually took it apart, and I was glad to have had it. I even carried it while hunting, though my Buck 105 Pathfinder was my main working knife, then. The Cold Steel is relatively new in my collection, and I like the gigantism, light weight for its size, hollow grind slicey-ness, stupendous lock, and sturdiness of the thick tanto point. Like the others, it's been used for food prep plenty of times, and otherwise ordinary EDC tasks. Were I camping, and of these three, the XL Cold Steel Voyager is what I'd carry.

Live your life. Enjoy the things that make you happy.

 
When I got into this hobby many years ago, I was a hater of tantos. My group of friends didn't have a lot of money, except for one who would always get into a hobby and shortly after buy the latest and greatest professional piece that goes with the hobby. I thought it was strange that he bought a tanto folder when we were big outdoors people and would go shooting all the time and rabbit/bird hunting. Then, when I got onto the forum, there was quite a bit of dislike towards tantos also. In that time everyone was very weary of looking like a mall ninja. However it's different times now and I don't think people care as much about what others think.

Within the past year I've bought a few tanto knives. They're pretty sweet if you ask me. However I like more of the traditional japanese style of tanto that has a little bit of belly in both the main edge and the tip edge. Then I came across someone who was selling a "bundle" of 3 Chris Reeve knives for super cheap (comparitively). I really had no choice (in my mind) but to get them immediately since I could at the time. It was basically a buy 2, get 1 free sort of price. The only problem was 2 of them were tantos. Not only that but I won another tanto CRK in a raffle that I put like 20 dollars down on. So, now I have a handful of tantos on my very serious group of top knives. But they're super sexy and very useful as well. The tip on CRK tantos takes a bit of getting used to as far as sharpening goes for sure, however the way they grind them is really cool and gives you a super sharp chisel on the front of your blade. It's really good for scraping gaskets and stuff. Now I kind of have a thing for them, however I make sure that my tanto to other blade shape ratio is very low because of how specialized they are. I keep thinking that I could trade one or two for the drop point or Insingo equivalent, but haven't done it yet.
 
Tanto is the most versatile blade in history. It gives 2 tips for different piercing and fine cutting applications and 2 leading edges for different fine slicing and cutting applications. No other style offers that. A slight curved type also steps that up like my CRK tanto. Wouldn't have any other style for every daily purpose.
 
I find the secondary point on the tanto blade (where both angles come together) to be extremely useful for very precise tracing along a dotted line when cutting out a coupon for example. Not having to worry about a tip breaking is just a bonus but one that is important to me. If I could only have one knife for the zombie apocalypse, it’d be an American tanto.
 
HexY3co said:
Tanto is the most versatile blade in history. It gives 2 tips for different piercing and fine cutting applications and 2 leading edges for different fine slicing and cutting applications. No other style offers that. A slight curved type also steps that up like my CRK tanto. Wouldn't have any other style for every daily purpose.
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly
 
HexY3co said:
Tanto is the most versatile blade in history. It gives 2 tips for different piercing and fine cutting applications and 2 leading edges for different fine slicing and cutting applications. No other style offers that. A slight curved type also steps that up like my CRK tanto. Wouldn't have any other style for every daily purpose.
Click to expand...
But I guess what you said doesn't apply to traditional tanto because it only has one tip and one cutting edge.
 
My favorite edc fixed blade is a CPE Tanto- I love it. I personally would not give 2 dumps what someone thought of my choice of carry guns or knives. We like different things and do different things. If the knife does what you want it to do, and you like it- that is a good knife for you. Just my .02
 
At first the Cold Steel type "Americanized" tanto was either hyped and loved, or hated , as tactical /armor piercing .

Eventually they got used for stuff need doing for work , like prying and scraping , chiseling etc .

For several years now , I've seen them sold here in rural farm/ building supply and hardware stores as utility knives .

Not Cold Steel brand , more tool brands like Milwaukee etc .
 
VorpelSword said:
In thinking this over some more (more coffee), it occures to me that most other warrior cultures did not also adopt a tanto-like point for swords or knives. Even the Persian Khyber or Pesh-Kabaz knives, while designed for piercing mail armor, do not have a tanto-style point, but rather an acquit point reinforced with a t-spine.

Someone please correct me if I have the nomenclature wrong.
Click to expand...
Tantos are hard to do?
 
Slice-E said:
Tantos are like that cool uncle who smokes cigars, has a bunch of tattoos with stories behind them, and rides Harleys. Some people just don’t like, or can’t handle that energy.
Click to expand...
Damn. I'm a pretty cool uncle with great stories, no tattoos, and rode a Honda. Some people just don't like, or can't handle that energy.

I had a meet up with the Outlaws (1 %er group) down in South Fl with my spanking new ST1100 back in 1994...and when one of them walked up to check out my bike I thought, "here we go", but he ended up admiring the bike and wishing me good luck with it. I guess he appreciated another brother of the road. (And I didn't volunteer that I was a "Fed".)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top