Buck/Strider folder

Description

The folder is 0.675" thick and 5.4" long when folder. It has a four inch long blade ground from 3/16" ATS-34 heat treated by Paul Bos to 60/61 HRC. The primary grind is about eight degrees and the edge grind about 18 degrees and 0.053" thick behind the edge. The leading Tanto edge is not finish sharpened for durability reasons in regards to heavy duty stabs. A shot from the side comparing it to a Rucksack :

and another top down :

Initial sharpness

New in box the knife took 380 +/- 13 g of force to push cut through 15 lbs braided nylon (Strikemaster), well below optimal (less than 300 grams). The edge is ground flush, but chipped. Under magnification [10x] there are small fractures (0.1 - 0.2 millimeters deep and about as wide) pretty much the entire length. Some light work on a fine ceramic rod (10-15 passes) had the edge shaving, though roughly. According to Joe Houser (of Buck knives) this somewhat rough edge is intentional. His description of the sharpening process [ref] :

If I remember correctly, the knife is edged with a 100 grit belt, then sharpened on a hard leather wheel. The edge looks rougher because the mini serrations from the abrasive are left on for better cutting.

Cutting ability

Thuogh the edge is ground at a decently acute angle, it is fairly thick and the primary grind shallow, both of which will lower cutting ability. Compared to a very high performance cutting blade, a drop point hunter from David Boye, the Buck/Strider was readily out cut. On wood, cardboard, rope (natural and man made) and lots of heavy fabrics. The Buck/Strider either needed much more force, or required much more time to do the cutting. As an example of just how much of a difference was seen, whittling some scrap wood was done with both blades with both light force and very heavy cutting :

The edge angles and distance to cut are similar on both blades, the primary grind on the Boye is also just a couple of degress under the Buck/Strider. Thus the major influence in the difference in the cutting ablity is just the edge thickness. While the loss in cutting ability is not linear with the edge thickness ratio, which would not be expected as the wedging force that materials exert isn't constant with distance from the edge, there is a very large difference seen in cutting ability. On the very heavy cuts the Buck/Strider folder is out cut almost 3:1. The same level of performance difference is seen on all binding materials. For example on some cordage :

The the rope cutting shows a similar performance ranking as light wood cutting. On smaller rope the relative performance of the blades will become closer together, they will pretty much equal once the diameter of the rope is less than the width of the edge on the Boye hunter. As the rope gets larger the Boye blade will start to widen the gap in its ability over the folder.

The above comparison is with push cutting, and the lower performance of the Buck Strider was also influenced by its lack of edge curvature. If a slice was used, and a a semi-coarse finish applied to the edge, a 600 grit DMT rod, the Strider/Buck folder would cut through the 3/8" hemp rope using less than about 35 lbs of force and only needing a few slices.

UPDATE : these are two radically different knives. The contrast is informative as it shows just how much cutting ability is lost in such an extreme tactical design however it would have also been useful to benchmark the performance against another knife in the same class such as the Fulcrum or Paramilitary.

The edge on the knife was later modified to increase the cutting ability by reducing the edge angle. More wood cutting was repeated (heavy force) with the new profile to examine the influence on performance :

Even though the edge angle change was only a few degrees, there was a large change induced in the cutting ability which could even be seen from the size of the wood chips cut. The enhancement in cutting ability was also due to having a much sharper edge free of all the chips that were in the NIB edge. The rope cutting also showed a large difference :

With the new edge some cutting was done on thicker rope, one inch poly, and as noted in the above the difference in performance between the Boye Hunter and Buck/Strider folder was larger than on the 3/8" hemp. The Boye hunter would take 86 - 90 lbs of force to make a cut, but the Buck took 150 + lbs.

Edge retention

Using both blades for some push cutting on 3/8" rope, the folder suffered less blunting than the Boye blade.

UPDATE : some details would have been nice here.

Grip

The grip is a box-like with a very deep surface texture, this makes for very aggressive edges on the handle corners which induces some low ergonomics. The inside liner is also squarish which is a high abrasion point in extended use. However the aggressive surface texture does give high security. Hard stabs into a piece of pine (0.75"+ penetration) were no problems even with liquid soap on the grip. No need to wrap the thumb around the bottom of the grip for extra security.

Lock strength and security

The lock does not release under spine whacks nor white knuckle grips. The stability in tight grips is due to (a) the liner thickness, (b) the decently low set of the liner, (c) the not that aggressive liner texture, and (d) the very aggressive texture of the grip. The thickness of the liner means it has to move more than usual to get it to release, and it is harder to move as it is stiffer. As the liner is set down and is not aggressively textured means the hold by a "flesh pinch" is weak and the aggressive surface texture of the grip also prevents the hand from slipping/mashing around the folder. It also reduces the force necessary to maintain a stable grip which directly reduces white knuckle type releases.

However after significant use (about 250 applications of heavy push cuts 50 - 150 lbs) the folder started to display a slight amount of play in both the vertical and horizontal. The cause was wear or deformation of the liner which was causing it not to meet flush with the tang of the blade. The liner was push over to engage more of the blade and again the knife was rock solid. Of course this will not happen naturally once the blade is opened. It might be possible to fix it by taking the folder apart and putting more of a bend in the liner.

Soon after the knife was being used to splitting some wood with the folder and it jammed on a knot. Really heavy batoning was not used to cleave the knot for fear of breaking the lock. The blade was stuck well and thus torqued from side to side to loosen it and then leveraged up and down to work it out just flexing the wrist. This combination of rotation and leverage work caused the lock to disengaged. The knife was removed using another piece of wood to pry the round open.

To examine the nature of the release, the blade was viced and force applied. First off looking just at the up/down plane, lock was fine, 200 lbs on the handle did nothing. However if light force is appied sideways away from the liner it can cause the liner to move and lose contact with the tang of the blade making it necessary for only a small amount of force to cause the liner to pop off the tang. Using just the wrist it was possible to easily bend the folder sideways and then a sudden push down, again just with my wrist, to disengage the lock.

During one of the high load torques (150 - 200 lbs) with a slight sideways distortion, the liner slipped just enough so that it was barely engaging the blade and since the tang was then only on about 1/3 of the liner it sheared a piece off with a snap and some sparks. The blade now had a lot of play because the liner face was not whole. It would also now fail spine whacks. However once the liner was pushed further to the side the lock up was again completely secure. It also looked like that the cutout on the back of the blade was a bit impacted.

This disengagement failure was the expected performance from the designer : ref.

Blade durability

With very thick stock and grinds the blade is very strong. Exerting enough force across the blade to easily snap a thinner folder (Swiss Army Fireman) did nothing but lightly flex the handle of the Buck/Strider folder. The tip is also very robust, getting over 1/2" penetration into pine and spruce it could readily pry pieces of wood out. The edge was also used for cutting through various chicken and turkey bones with no visible damage to the edge. The Boye hunter mentioned in the above chipped out during kitchen use on an accidently impact off of bone. Here the greater cutting performance also came with a significant reduction in edge durability.

Summary and modifications

A very heavy duty blade profile which gives up a lot of cutting ability on binding materials. The lock security is very low considering the nature of the blade design. In regards to modifications; the clip should be threaded into the liner, remove the choil notch, round the edges of the inside liner to increase comfort, use another locking mechanism.

Comments and references

Comments can be emailed to : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com. Comments can also be seen in the following ARCHIVED thread on Bladeforums :

• Review : Buck/Strider folder

There is also a website for Strider Knives.