Oh boy.

I tease my friends all the time with this one. I have been involved in plenty of sketchy operations in my time, some were providing assistance to some very "special" troops and I nor any of them ever felt the need to have a tactical blade. I have friends that will pay top bucks for so called tactical blades that break at the first real world use.

I think the black coatings were originally used as anti-corrosion measures as older knives were prone to rust. The then became a marketing scam to get civilians to buy Army surplus.

When the 25mm Bushmaster runs dry of ammo in combat I will switch to the co-axial or the GPMG.
After my GPMG runs dry I will switch to my rifle. When those 10 mags are gone I will switch to the 870 in the sentry hatch, and then my grenades. Following that it will be my side arm, followed by Para flares, pen flares or anything else that shoots. If still in the fight I will attach my bayonet to my rifle and swing like a madman till it breaks. Then, assuming I cannot find any thing longer than my knife I may consider throwing my helmet, handfull's of rocks, my keys and shining my flashlight at the guy. Then I may use my knife as a weapon......By now I am sure the enemy knows where I am, and a shiny blade is the least of my worries.


But, For those who insist on black blades you may want to consider cold or hot rifle bluing. The latter may require removing the handle and then baking the knife in the oven to make it really stick to the blade. Depending on the type of blade steel, these bluings work really well.

Eventually with any hard use, all finishes wear off and need to be re-applied though.