Online you see a lot of people talking about how full tang is a must for outdoor knives but 90% of my knife usage has been with rat tail tang knives and i never had any problems.
Even chopping and light batoning works absolutey fine, and i always used pretty low end blades, usually in 80crv2 and similarly affordable steels.
Especially when carrying an axe and/or saw in addition i dont really see at all how full tang is supposed to be necessary..
by _Ganoes_
7 Comments
It’s not necessary for most things. Most of the Morakniv models are not full tang.
Blade to tang ratio is just wow
It’s more about making me feel special.
I think primarily because IF a fixed knife should break, it would be at the tang (full or otherwise). Full just reduces that risk, even if that risk is already minor.
It never was an issue. Heck, kukris are traditionally stick/rat tail tang. But cheap knives being cheap catered to more people; and poor practices such as welding bolts to the blade, or roughly made tangs with sharp angles stained the reputation of anything not full tang.
It’s one of those things where there’s not really a downside, so having less than a full tang is… less
Full tang knives are nice for anything that’s going to see abuse, or relied on in rolls other than simply a cutting instrument. Heavy batoning, chopping, prying, etc.
It’s not necessary when you have the ability to carry or grab supplemental tools like an axe, prybar, or saw. However, you use case isn’t necessarily the same as everybody else’s’. Guys doing search-and-rescue, rappelling down a cliff to help someone may want one sturdy tool as opposed to 3 larger, specific tools. Firemen may need a tool more controllable than an axe to pry open a door to start the jaws of life. A kayaker may have overturned and lost his axe but needs to get to some dry wood in a hurry to stave off hypothermia.
For most use cases, a rat-tail may work fine. Hell, for most abuse cases it may work fine once or twice. For heavy use outside of normal cutting, I can absolutely understand wanting a full tang. A Mora is great for feather sticks, but I’d rather have a Busse if I need to extricate someone from a rolled vehicle.