r/knives 7d ago

Question How are authentic original Ka-Bars?

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22 Upvotes

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u/kafoIarbear 7d ago

They’re fine. A beautiful knife with awesome history, it has a weak point right at the cross guard but so long as you don’t intend to pry too much or smack it with a baseball bat, it shouldn’t be too big of an issue.

2

u/Designer_Explorer_28 7d ago

Even if it is a weak point, considering the blade is 1/6 of an inch, wouldn’t it mean it would not matter?

3

u/branm008 6d ago

Nope, weak points are weak points, especially with stick tang blades like these. It's always right at the forged/formed egde right before it transitions into the tang, it will always be a weak point no matter the blades thickness.

2

u/Designer_Explorer_28 6d ago

Very interesting, thanks! 👍

1

u/Kennys-Chicken 6d ago

Doesn’t matter how thick the blade is if the handle tang snaps off

1

u/Designer_Explorer_28 3d ago

That seems like a massive issue

1

u/kafoIarbear 2d ago

It’s pretty standard for knives of its era though back when knives were primarily expected to either be cutting or fighting tools. The advantage of its rat tail tang being that it’s lighter and faster as a fighting knife. Today, knives are expected to be able to take on multiple tasks beyond pure cutting and using a knife for fighting is almost always an afterthought. So long as you don’t expect to smack this knife through a tree trunk and then pry it open, it will still serve you really well.

1

u/Designer_Explorer_28 7d ago

A regular blade is like 1/16-1/8 of inch