+1

I like knowing the limits of certain blades regardless of his imperfect and inconsistent technique but I skip through those videos so fast that I usually watch the whole set in under 5 minutes skipping through trying to find just the bits with a 'failure'.

I definately skip the first parts. Watching a grown man try to peel an apple with a huge combat knife while wearing gloves and a mask isn't my idea of a good time.

The only thing I wonder when doing this is how does he sharpen the knives? Sometimes he uses them as they come, sometimes he sharpens them...and sometimes a lot and sometimes only a little. That's going to have a great deal of impact on how well a knife cuts 10,000lb webbing.

Are you intentionally trying to slander Chris Reeve and his work?
Yes I am! I am the productmanager for a big European knifemanufacturer and this guy, Chris Reeve, is going down right now! Ah, come on!!!
I 'm just a guy who is interested in survival and survival related stuff eg knives, shelter... For more than 30 years I have been practicing and reading about survival. Why should I be trying to slander anyone? It just strikes me that one of the best know and most reputable manufacturers comes out very poorly in these tests. I just am very surprised as I have said before. CR knives are marketed as military knives, just have a look at the website! I would be a lot less surprised if knifetest.com would break a fine hunting or bushcraft knife, let's say Bark River or Karesuando etc. Why two posts about Chris Reeve? Well if they managed to break one so early it could have been bad luck, but two knives from the same manufacturer? Cold Steel has even stronger marketing with DVD's like "Solid Proof" and "Sword Proof" and it would have been equaly remarkable if those knives had consistently performed badly.
And again: I do know about caring for your knife, choosing the right knife for the job... And I also like and use the smaller, more vulnerable knives with the same enthousiasm. I just think the results from knifetests.com can not be dimissed just like that!
Please don't judge someone on the amount of posts! I have been an avid reader and just sometimes poster because of my profession. I just don't have the time to post much. But if you do want to play: I registered almost a year earlier than yourself and at that time had been reading "Equipped" for years.

If he's out on the east end, it could be rural

Of course, you're NOT going to carry a large fixed blade on you in the "less rural" areas of LI - and if your going to leave it in your car/truck, throw a wrecking bar in there, or even a halligan tool

I think ulf has a valid point when these knives are being promoted as military knives.

It's been my experience both from reading real life accounts and from friends I know in the military that the folks in the armed forces are harder on blades than anybody (save our friend at knifetests.com) and could easily ask a lot of a knife and need it to perform a task for which it wasn't designed. Almost any time I hear 'the tips break off easily' or 'They won't hold an edge worth a damn' it's coming from the mouth of a friend who is in or used to be in the military...they just ask that much more from their tools.

I'd be willing to bet that over wherever it is out fighting forces are sent it's not an uncommon sight to see blade vs metal and blade vs concrete as much as it is to see blade vs MRE packaging. I've heard stories of snipers using their knives to chop a hole in a brick wall to make a gun port and knives used to hack through barbed wire to disentangle a trapped comrade...I'm sure the list goes on nearly infinitely.

Now that being said, I'm sure none of them are using a sledge to pound the blade into something but it's still food for thought.

Exactly. I've got a $10 prybar that excels at prying. Won't slice worth a d*mn, but I have folder for that job. No fixed blade required.

Function testing versus destructive testing:

I have issues when a ranking system is applied to a product based on subjective testing. I say “subjective” because there is no real way a person can cut the exact same way every time. In order to have an accurate and fair test, there must be a system to ensure an equal amount of force is used, in the same direction, for the same period of time.

Some dude saying the knife felt like it cut better doesn’t meet any real standards of consistency.

Cutting 2x4s isn’t fair because no two boards are alike. One can have easy to split straight grain while another may be a board pulled from Satan’s back deck and have grain like a maze. You need a consistent medium for cutting tests to be of any real value.

Cutting steel? BS. A cold chisel would cruise through that test but would make a crappy knife wouldn’t it? Why, because it is design to cut steel.

The comparisons to automobile crash testing are wrong because the auto crash testing is designed to, under strictly controlled conditions, show how the vehicle protects the passengers, not what it takes to destroy the vehicle. If we just wanted to destroy the vehicle, there are easier ways to do it.

I could literally go on for pages and pages about the issues I have with this type of testing but it would be pointless. For me, I will not be basing my knife choices on what I see on that site.

If I want a knife that will chop better, I will seek out a knife with the correct blade geometry and correct temper to perform that action. I also won’t complain when an axe (great chopper) sucks for delicate slicing. You must seek out the correct tool for the job. If you are using a knife outside its intended use, don’t be surprised if it fails to do it well.

Nobody is surprised that a Hummer would suck for drag racing. No one would find it distressing that a rail-job doesn’t handle off roading well.

I acknowledge the argument that in an emergency we’d need to use our tools beyond their intended purpose. However, to what level do we expect a tool to function beyond the design? I wouldn’t fault a light summer sleeping bag for not keeping me toasty warm in sub-zero temps.

Finally a quick aside: why is it people get all wound up about how sharp a knife comes from a manufacturer but don’t bat an eye about a Glock or Kimber’s break in period? A Kimber’s groups reportedly don’t start to tighten up until a couple hundred rounds have gone through them, does that make it a piece of junk?

These are, of course, merely my opinions on the matter.

Patrick

If I wanted to play I wouldn't have asked you about your intent at all, and if I wanted to be confrontational for the sake of confrontation I'd have gone a different route altogether.

I saw something that I thought was suspicious and asked about it. You gave me a sufficient answer. I accept your answer regarding your intent.

I will disagree with you and do believe the results can be dismissed.

The tests on the site you linked are severely flawed, especially in the light of comparing one knife to another based on those tests as they were performed. There is no way a claim that the tests were exactly the same can be made.

Regarding this, I will say that at least they used a torque wrench while testing some of the knives in latter stages. Still, even then many variables could still apply.

Well, my perspective isn't escaping from an urban environment. It is based on hunting, camping and fishing in places where, guess what, if something goes wrong you might be there for a few days, assuming the weather doesn't kill you before you get out on your own or get found. I think, nay, KNOW I need to be prepared for that, anything else is irresponsible and delusional.

My choices are very similar to the knives carried by woodsmen in this area 200-300 years ago (although, I will admit to having replaced the patch knife with a SAK and/or multitool, and the hatchet with a small bow saw), who operated on exactly the same principle. If you aren't going to be able to crawl home by night, be ready to spend the night. Short of the metal-on-metal (not planning on being mauled by a cybernetically enhanced coyote) or metal-on-brick (nor getting mugged by a golem), the way I use a "hunting" knife is exactly as you have described a "survival" knife. The only knives I baby are my really good kitchen knives, my field knives don't live a tea party life, far from it.

As for what I can or can not "deny"... The Project I's blade isn't quite perfect, but it would do. A number of spear point blades were used by traditional outdoors men and still are by their modern counterparts, and even broader and thicker designs of double edged blades (as opposed to daggers and dirks- double edged knives that resembled shorter, sharper Roman gladii were in common use in the outdoors through much of the 1800s and before), even if my personal taste might run to the PII or the Sables.

Just curious, ulfhedinn, what knife do you have and could it stand up to the same kind of testing?

I have a Chris Reeve knife (Shadow). It is a nice knife and is a 'survival' knife but the grip is terrible, it causes blisters, and your hands to slip. I prefer my RAT-7 over it any day of the week! Better grip (awesome), better at chopping, still a beastly strong knife, good at holding a blade (D2).

The CR knife is plenty strong for prying wood (as shown in video), I have done very little of it, but did dig out some sappy pine

I plan to sell my CR Shadow here shortly and possibly get a 2nd Rat-7 in 1095, unsure. If I was rich I'd try out the CR Neil Roberts knife, but for the $ it looks darn close to a Rat-7 just in a fancier steel... oh well

Input from someone who owns a CR knife.
-Todd