As much as I realize that page is all about destroying a knife, I kind of like seeing the things that make them fail or otherwise become damaged. If you are going to be rough on it, then knowing it's limits can be useful. It's not going to become the standard by which I evaluate all knives.

Also, I'm not going to do those things with a knife, but I did remember the tests on the Kabar before banging mine into tree last weekend.

Either these guys have great day jobs, or the chicom steel industry is paying them off. To bad they don't seppuku test a Cold Steel Tanto.Remember, children who torture small animals grow into adults who torture people. Today it's knives, tommorow 747s?

Amen to that.

So they broke another knife. So why am I not impressed?

I can see the logic behind accelerated edge testing and the like, but no-one except possibly The Hulk is ever going to be able to exert enough pressure on a Reeve, Benchmade, Buck etc to snap it.
You might break them batoning - but only if you are willing to stand there and whollop it for a day or three.

The technique shown in the video was seriously flawed.

If anyone wants to send me a Project 1 for testing I’m sure I can batton though a piece of wood without breaking it. Unfortunately I could only post pics not a video of it......

Adam

Which $50 knife passed the test? Just curious.....

Adam

I'm going to buy the axe that chops wood best(meaning that the edge profile, steel and heat treat should be better). Breaking rocks is a good test for a sledge hammer, not too meaningful for an axe.

To Ironraven: The "Beavis and Butthead" comment is funny. Really it is! But as Dan_Mcl points out: "I kind of like seeing the things that make the knives fail or otherwise become damaged". OK, it is pointless hitting a Porsche with a sledge but they do crashtest all cars! A car is for driving and moving stuff not for crashing it into a concrete wall, is it? What those guys do isn't that much different. I don't want to label them as children that torture small animals, because there are entire nations who consider just carrying a knife as sacriligious as some consider knifetest.com destroying one.
And there are cheap knives (less then 50 dollar) that go a long way: GI Tanto, Cheaper Than Dirt even the Bushman. I do love bushcraft and outdoorskills but in a survival situation you just don't know what problem lays ahead.

But if you test a knife's ability to stand up to abuse it is not designed or intended to do and it fails, what have you proven. Some cheap knives may pass that test because they've been tempered to a lower Rc in order to make them tougher. They won't hold an edge as well and would thoroughly suck at slicing because they were ground with a thick edge, but they can handle brick and rocks. I'd prefer a knife that cuts well and test for that. YMMV

www.cutleryscience.com

There ya go (another fine site with some semblance of actual science)

Personally I sort of like the site...to a point. It's nice to know what the limits are. I think it's a pretty naive view to think you'll never ever abuse a knife. You hope it never happens of course but situations can drive us to desparate measures...and accidents happen no matter how careful we are.

The Gerber LMF II did fairly well in his tests. But this knife was designed with escaping a crashed helicopter in mind...it was intended to be driven through metal. God forbid I should ever be in that situation but if I were and the knife snapped, then I'd be stuck AND without a knife to survive with once I egressed (I've always thought that was a funny term).

When I do search and rescue I carry this knife as a second knife partly because it's nice to have a big knife when you don't have an axe or a machete or something but also because if I need to dig somebody out of trouble, I know it's going to hold up to whatever seems like a good idea at the time. I don't even pretend to think what that situation might be but whatever it is, I know I have a suitable tool thanks to that site...call it a sharpened pry bar if you like but I won't be carving figurines or slicing tomatoes with it anyhow.

But the Chris Reeve is not designed as a hunting knife, it is a survival knife. You just do not know in advance what you intend to or have to do with the steel. Just out of curiosity I bought the GI Tanto and I can say it is shaving sharp and I can sharpen it this way myself. So it doesn't suck at slicing at all. The edge holding may be (maybe) less than Chris Reeve but in the field I am better at sharpening than at welding.