For the past ten weeks, I have been using the same P-38 can opener on a daily basis. It opens approximately two cans a day (some days none, some days one, some days four or five). It also does general odds and ends duty- tightening a light screw, opening bottles, ripping into food packaging, that kind of thing. It gets cleaned with the two-lick method.

It has a slight curve to the blade now, outward, but nothing that doesn't improve it some microscopic amount. The very tip is a little bent, but I've not noticed it having any effect. It also has some discoloration, but nothing that is grungy looking- it is just darker, like a cast iron pan that has been used is compaired to a new one. The main part has some discoloration, but nothing else.

I honestly didn't expect it to last this long. I mean, it is a 50 cent steel stamping that was made to be fairly disposable, I figured it would have packed up after a month, and it is begging to open stuff. Weren't these things issued in every k-ration pack, one a day, during WWII? I've had electric can openers that didn't last this long.

*raising a P-38 to the sky in both palms, like a gift to the winds* I give you, the greatest piece of military equipment, for it's weight and cost, EVER!

More posts on the abuse of the P-38 to come in coming months.