A shot of the CRKT M60-14NK :
The promotion for the M60 from the CRKT website :
Designed by our military consultants, these extreme duty Special Operations Tactical Fixed Blades (SOTFB) are built to withstand the hardest possible duty in combat. The knives themselves are built like rocks, by far the heftiest full tang fixed blades CRKT has ever offered. All M60s have AUS 8 stainless steel blades with a titanium nitride coatings for superior corrosion resistance. Their injection molded black Zytel® scales have an aggressive operator’s pattern. A double guard hilt, with thumb friction grooves and pronounced butt pommel give maximum security and grip.
This M60 weighs 260 grams and is handle heavy with the center of mass at the index finger position on the grip. The blade is ground out of 0.165" thick AUS-8A stainless steel, with a 0.75" high flat grind which tapers to a chisel ground edge, 0.031-0.039" thick ground at 26 +/- 1 degrees included. The edge just has a slight hint of a bevel on the other side, likely hit with a buffer. The tip is slightly thicker, ground at 34 +/- 2 degrees and 0.050-0.062" thick. As the the knife was used it was sharpened before any work was done with it.
With a full sharpening, the M60 had no trouble achieving shaving sharpness, easily able to push cut newsprint and catch hair above the skin.
Push cutting 3/8" hemp required 24 (2) lbs with the plain edge, the serrated section can't cut as much as tear and requires very heavy force to do so, much more than the plain edge.
The point on the M60 is fairly thick, it tapers 5.5 degrees distally through 0.865", and the blade is 1.1" wide at the back of the point. With a 50 lbs push it sank 134 +/- 2 pages into a phone book and with a hard vertical stab penetrated 518 +/- 11 pages. It worked well as a 2x4 digger, making holes with 33 +/- 4 stabs and taking 3.5 +/- 0.7 minutes. However the serrations on the top section of the guard do become abrasive fast with repeated contacts.
The M60 isn't well suited for kitchen use, the blade is short and thus doesn't work well for utility use plus is too thick for paring type chores and the serrations can't cut foods efficiently. The only real use for the M60 is on heavier work such as breaking apart frozen foods, chipping ice, and working around bones.
For wood carving, the plain edge section of the M60 does well for a tactical knife, it has the same whittling ability in terms of roughing wood as the Spyderco Vagabond. However the point style in limiting and makes some tasks very difficult such as carving a hole for a bowl for example. The point is very robust though and easily handles digging in dense hardwoods. The biggest problem is that the serrations are in the section of blade which would be most efficient for carving and the serrations do not cut wood very well at all. Comparing the serrated portion to the plain edge section, even with the plain edge section being much further from the handle giving it a leverage disadvantage, it still outcuts the serrated section four times to one.
As a chopping tool, The M60 has very low ability due to its size and weight. Chopping through even a 2x4 is a very time and consuming process. It only has about 15% of the chopping ability of the Wildlife hatchet for example and is thus limited to very small woods a fraction of in inch thick. This knife would see significant benefit from being paired with a small saw or hatchet.
The M60 has a very robust profile and thus is well suited to heavier abusive work. The blade has no problem sustaining a 200 lbs pull up. The only concern is that the very pointy serrations will not take impacts well. The serrations prooved near useless on ropes, they are too pointy and thus just tear and rip, similar for clothing, leather and such materials. The only advantage they have over fluid patterns like on the Silver Trident is that they can saw into plastic better. Some comparative runs show the difference is fairly large, 2:1 in favor of the M60 sawing various plastics.
The M60's edge was reset with an x-coarse SiC waterstone and then polished up to 4000 grit and finished with 0.5 micron chroimum/aluminum loaded leather. The entire process took less than five minutes. The edge now push shaved easily and cut straight down into newsprint. Overall it responded well to the honing, forming no large floppy burrs, just a crisp and clean edge.
Sharpening the serrations requires a hone which can work inside the grooves. A Sharpmaker works well, but small dowels can be wrapped with sandpaper which also works efficiently. As a maintenance step, the back of the serrations can be honed with a flat stone. This won't restore the edge to full sharpness, and will leave a burr, but will restore life to heavily worn serrations if the ability to work the inside of the scallops isn't available.
The handle has a working grip length less than 3.5", use of a large rawhide glove isn't workable. Barehanded the handle is solid in hammer grips, but cramped in reverse, and the traction grooves cut into the steel of the upper guard chew into the hand, such as reverse grip heavy stabs.
As the M60 has a full tang construction, the pommel could be used to hammer however if anything hard hit the plastic handle slabs fracture is likely so care would need to be taken in that regard.
The sheath is standard cordura with a kydex liner, decent, but a fairly obvious step down from the Blackhawk sheaths. It lacks a drainage hole for the liner, which can't be easily removed and doesn't have the ability to convert from low to high ride.
This is a common tactical knife with a focus on more general utility than cutting. It is very much in the sharpened prybar class of knives.
Comments can be emailed to cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or by posting in the following thread :
More information can be obtained at the the CRKT website.
| Last updated : | 04 : 29 : 2005 |
| Originally written: | 04 : 22 : 2005 |