Which knife should I sell?

well,the Mad Dog is worth 3 times as much as the others now, and will continue to climb. I have all three so I think I can make a reality based judgement. As an owner SURELY you have experienced the clear superiority over the other 2 good brands? Yes I like my Busses and they are right there with the Reeves, but a Mad Dog is a work of art , a dangerous nearly indestructable weapon and tool that was made with only one thing in mind- the best field knife possible.

If I had to sell one, sadly it would be the Reeves. The Busses are strong (although not as strong as the ATAK) , but that blade finish will come off in use.Once again, the Busse and Reeves are both together worth dollar wise what the Atak is worth . Check E bay for reality prices. I just got a Mad Dog Lab Rat on Ebay for the very low price of $700- used and sharpened! Unused ones are going for close to $1000 - quick! This is the smallest Mad Dog knife Kevin made-4" and 1/8" stock (sold new for $300)- it is hard to find one and they are in demand for a reason! The original ATAK seal knives are going for $3000 and the A series early civilian ones are fetching $2000. If yours is very nice you could sell it on Ebay for $700-800 in a heartbeat. Beats a 2+ year wait!

I'd dump the Reeves for the simple reason that I do not like hollow-handled knives.

You have some outstanding knives there.
I'm partial to the Chris Reeve knives myself as they make a nearly indestructable hollow handle. I have an NKONKA and had a Sable IV and that NKONKA is gonna be buried with me. I had to sadly(and I mean SADLY) sell the Sable due to job loss woes. I chose the Busse, because while it's another outstanding knife, you can replace the Busse a lot easier than that Mad Dog ATAK. If I had that one, that's the one I would be buried with.
I have Busse Basics in 5" and 7" blades so that's another painful choice to make if I had to make it.

When your ready to replace that Busse, you may want to check bladeforums.com's for sale section. I see a number of Busses come and go on that site.

So, I chose the Busse.

I would sell the Dog , why ? you will get more money out of it , if that is what you are needing , and the Busse will do everything the Dog can do.

why do you think the plain black plastic handled, no weird coated, colored and scalloped blade with no Tattooeen can opener super secret decoder rings cheap kitchen knife looking Mad Dogs , in their tacky kydex sheaths command so much money and go so fast in a reality marketplace like E-Bay?

I have no idea why the Dog's fetch so much money , more to do with limited availability and what the market will bear. Each person has their own idea of what something is worth , I would prefer to buy something other than a chromeplated 01 knife , but Mad Dogs have a following , I worked at a shop that sold them for years ( NCCW here in Henderson NV ), and we sold lots of them from the ceramics to the ATAK's. I could have had any of the Dogs I wanted from the inventory but they were not for me , I know plenty of guys who swear by MadDogs , doesnt make either of us right or either wrong , just personal preference.

The MadDog will bring more on the secondary , unless the Busse is a limited one ( too many variants for me to keep track of ).

The thread starter said he needed cash , the MadDog will sell fast due to limited availability and a long wait for a new one.

IIRC, Mad dog has been thoroughly discredited on bladeforums for sub-par knives. A long series of threads, I think... I might post the links later. I'd sell that one... CS service sounds horrible and the knives themselves to be junk.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=451299&highlight=mad+dog

Here's the threads in which the maker, Kevin McClung, was discredited and caught in his lies.

Gross failure of knives in these two threads.
here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295404

here: edge chipping cutting woods
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129972

^Where McClung tries to claim the failing knife is a fake, although it was purchased from an official dealer


http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130138

Other customers claim the same problems as well, reducing the odds it was just a fluke: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1020374&postcount=25

Two others also experience problems prying in wood.




Try pretty much any search for mad dog knives and it will yield many such hits.

Also here Cliff Stamp, the reviewer, does very thorough reviews with tons of quantitative data and is very well known on bladeforums:
http://www.cutleryscience.com/reviews/TUSK.html

See his problems with 2 knives and warrantee issues.

http://www.cutleryscience.com/reviews/blade_materials.html#mcclung_damage

.

I take a lot of tests with a grain of salt , I have some friends that swear by the MadDog's , I admit I am not a fan of the maker but the knives he makes are solid and those that I know use them do indeed use them pretty hard. ( Parker bud , I know you are hiding here somewhere ).
Price is a subjective thing , what is worth X to you might be worth XX to me , and the other way around as well.

so back to the original question , if you need a lot of cash , sell the dog , dont need as much , sell the Reeves. The MadDog will sell for more due to limited availabilty , and long wait.

I don't have any stake in it and mad dog was ostracized by the online knife community before I really came into it, but the evidence is pretty darn strong against them. I suspect your friends may not use them hard enough that any other knife wouldn't be able to stand for it, and not a real test of a hard use field knife. There are many reports by both ordinary customers in ordinary use, as well in controlled testing where the mad dogs failed catastophically when put up to hard use and even during mild use like cutting wood. It's followed up by the maker having issues honoring his warrantees. Do check out the cutlery science links and see what flaws you can pick out and mention them to the tester if you can. If I wanted a tough user knife, mad dog would be at the bottom of my list. As a collectable, it may have value to you.

razorburn , I am well aware of all the history with MD .
I would choose a Burke , Hossom , Rinaldi , Wheeler , Jones Bros , Strider or Simonich over a MD anyday of the week.
My friends do use their knives hard , I dont try to change their mind about a knives they like , and they dont try to convince me to like something I dislike , works better that way. ( plus I get to bust their balls with chrome plated Yugo bumper comments ).

I dont care how good a knife is , if the maker dont stand behind it and he/she isnt someone I believe in , I dont even entertain the idea of owning their knives . I have to have pride in ownership when I chunk down my cash for a knife.

Har, Har, Har, what a laugh! Besides abusing an Atak I have , because I don't care, and not being able to hurt it (without chipping rocks)I'd say that is hard use. Another Dog has slaughtered a couple dozen animals and is still razor sharp (never sharpened) another has skinned a dozen wild boar with out sharpening (although it needs to be sharpen now) other knives don't make it thru one pig with out touching up and two pigs need a sharpening. I admit my other dogs don't get "hard use" though
The A.T.A.K. was the only sole source justified US navy SEAL knife because it whooped all other comers hands down by a factor of 2 in their crazy hard use tests. Kevin lost the contract because he couldn't keep up and will not increase production like all the other knife maker you named do. I know how that goes with Gubbimint contracts, I won't hire other peoples problems to keep up either. :banghead:
Kevin has a lifetime warranty on all non intentionally abused knives-period! If you are an arselock in attitude- uh Kevin WILL blow you out! Hey he is not in the 'customer is always right' business be cause he is a craftsman not a poser.Use a rock to pound on the spine to split wood and you are on your own-moron! Since his knives are tested to a 30+ degree bend with out showing ANY sign of damage , when one comes in with microscopic evidence of being overbent- hey I can snap any non spring steel blade.
Lastly Kevin likes Reeves and has been known to modify his Sebenzas, he just doesn't like round hand knives that you can't figure which way the blade is facing at night, and the way they roll in your hand under stress. He doesn't like the way Reeves has gone to designer steels like SV30 for it's ease in manufacture (seafoam steels!) ect. As for Busse he thinks they are indeed strong, for a non differentially hardened blade, but doesn't think much of the blade coating which wears off on moderate use- they are OK for a semi custom knife.
I'll tell you this ; I got my first Randal, from Bo personally, 41 years ago they served me well but I sold off most of my collection 5 or6 years back because MD knives Perform better. I still have a beautiful mastodon gripped Randall Confederate Bowie that is much prettier than any MD knife. Also I used a REAL Loveless drop point skinner I got from Bob in the middle 70's , I still have it, but an MD Rat way out performs it on game dressing chores.I have a 14" Phil Hartsfield sword, the steel of which is probably on a par with an MD, BUT the handle design and whole execution is inferior to a Mad Dog Sword , like a Saxon in every way!
Lastly the 10" Panther Fighter and the BearCat 5.5" Utility knives of MD are just plain inspired, The former about a $1k and the later about $500 in price from the maker. I think a real handmade by Busse personally runs pretty much the same- Reeves uses workers as do almost all the other makers named here, so they don't have an Artist's soul in them. Like a REAL Darrel Ralph MAX versus a Camillus CUDA Max, kinda deal!

You got any sources for what you claim, Gordon? Besides the MD website, since he's proven himself to be an untrustworthy individual and a liar? If the guy is saying that his knives were the 1st choice after very hard testing and could've been the knife for special ops but there's no documentation or proof of it because in the end he decided he didn't want to ramp up producition, it sounds a lot like the guy at the gun range who says he could've been a navy seal and that the navy was begging him to service his country due to his elite skills, but there's no proof of it because in the end he decided he didn't want to do it because....etc. I don't particularly care either way, but it's widely accepted within the knife community that mad dog knives are of poor quality and that the owner is untrustworthy. The knives have recorded incidents of repeat failure in both everyday use and formal testing. Twice in a row with Cliff Stamps testing, the original and the replacement failed in chopping wood and prying. Can you pick out any flaws in his testing of the knife? Many warrantee issues exist, which I've also linked to.

He has chopped rocks with busses without them failing. Busse themselves perform live cutting of concrete and encourage the owners to do the same. They made thousands of cuts on 1" hemp rope to demonstrate edge retention. They're basically unbreakable by prying. Their demonstrated hard use performance is far, far more impressive than anything McClung has done.

Here, I'll edit in some pics from Swamp rat, busses less expensive sister co, just for kicks. This was done live, at a show.


Note that the knife is cutting, not smashing the block.




This was a sharp knife.

And basically no damage besides being dulled. Still sharp enough to cut cardboard though.




Here's a basic 7 used to cut the drain out of a kitchen sink. It did this quite well and cut easily, btw.



It was also driven into a wall and several hundred pounds were hung from it, to test it's lateral strength, as well as driving it into wood to pry it apart.

The mad dog broke under much lighter situations when it was used to pry with, snapping when it was driven into a piece of wood. It happened twice, actually.
http://www.cutleryscience.com/reviews/face_off.html

even very cheap, $20 flea market knives can handle this and that sort of failure is almost unseen.






If you really believe that the entirety of knifeforums and bladeforums have just mistakenly developed poor impressions of the knives due to just an unfortunate and prolonged series of freak lemons, and that they're really the messiah of knives, why not take it up with them? They could also provide many personal experiences and have many experts with a level of knowledge of every aspect of knife design and material far beyond that those who frequent a small section of a firearms forum.

Having cut up two game animals, edge retention is hardly the test of a hard use knife. The mad dogs do seem to show good edge retention but very low degree of toughness. My ZDP-189 Caly Jr. will also do that easily. I think you do not understand knife steels and use very well, and have fallen into the mall-ninja self aggrandizing hype that mad dog tries to surround itself with, as well as mixing up price with quality. And no, the rare busses are selling at several thousand dollars. The silent knights recently went for around $3k, I believe. However, I also understand that this is not the place to discuss it. Do you have a bladeforums account? It is the largest knife mega-site around and filled with many experts. It'd be a much more proper place for us to discuss it.

The following is a compendium of individual accounts of every steel bladed knife returned to Mad Dog Knives over the last ten years for repair or replacement.

1. A man named Kevin was given a previously used A.T.A.K. as a gift. While on a mountain climbing excursion in Washington, he accidently dropped the knife. He claimed that it fell several hundred feet before hitting for the first time, broadside on a sharp rock. He compared the sound of the blade breaking to that of a gunshot.

Mad Dog wanted to see the destroyed blade and requested that Kevin return it to him for examination. The failure of the broken A.T.A.K. was not due to defects in the steel or craftsmanship. The failure was caused by the excessive shear forces sustained during the 150+ mph impact.

Mad Dog replaced the broken knife with a new A.T.A.K. as a gift from us. He also instructed the owner in the use of the thong hole, so as to prevent future occurences.

2. A Texas bounty hunter with the nickname "Tiny" purchased an A.T.A.K. to use on the job. He sent the knife back to Kevin with a request to re-shape the blade. The first 1-1/2" of the blade tip was sheared off. Kevin also noted a curious pattern of depressions in the steel along the length of the blade. When Kevin asked how the blade broke and why there were depressions in the steel, Tiny offered this explanation:

He often used the knife as a pry bar to open the locked car trunks of his quary. The knife always survived the demanding task unscathed. He wondered how strong the knife really was so he decided to lock the knife down in a vise and use his considerable strength to see how far he could bend the blade. He was pleased to see that the blade again survived his "test". The hardened steel vise jaws had impressed their pattern deeply into the steel, thereby causing extreme stress in the metal. The blade subsequently failed when Tiny used the damaged blade to pin a lizard to a tree.

Kevin could hardly believe what he was told.
Even though Mad Dog Knives was not under any obligation to replace the knife, Kevin determined to replace, rather than repair the knife, as was Tiny's request. Since Tiny was approximately 30% larger than the average human male, Kevin decided to make a steroidal A.T.A.K. out of 3/8" stock with an 8" blade. Mad Dog sent the new replacement knife back to Tiny with his blessings, and an stern admonition to vise no more.

3. A customer sent an A.T.A.K. back to an authorized dealer with a request that we replace the knife. The dealer forwarded the badly corroded knife on to Mad Dog. The knife came back in a decomposing nylon sheath which was still wet with salt water residue. It was shockingly clear that the original owner had used a grinder to remove all of the manufacturer's markings and chrome from the blade. The deep grinder scars were unmistakable, and covered the entire surface of the blade. Approximately 3/4" of the tip of the knife was missing. Corrosive material was evidently allowed to remain on the blade for long periods of time, which caused extensive corrosion overall. This and the grinder scarring caused the tip breakage.

Amazingly, the handle was still securely in place.

Kevin was without compassion for the abuser of this blade. He offered only to reprofile the tip and sharpen the blade after cleaning the corrosion from it.
The customer declined, insisting that the knife be returned in the condition he had shipped it to us. So, it was.

4. A young man (his name escapes us)in the military bought an A.T.A.K. which he faithfully carried and used regularly. He had left it on a log next to a campfire one night and sometime during the course of the evening, the log caught on fire. The handle of the knife was engulfed in the flames. The next morning he retrieved his blade from the ashes and noted that the composite handle was singed in places. There was no other visible damage to the knife.

He returned the knife to Kevin with a petition to regrind the handle only because of the sentimental value the knife had for him. Kevin understood, and rather than replace the knife he removed the damaged handle completely and bonded on a new handle.
This work was done at no charge.
The young soldier was very grateful.

5. Cliff Stamp purchased a used TUSK from an authorized dealer, Shannon Lew, who owned and used the knife previously. The TUSK had also been used extensively at Knifegnugen '99. Shannon sold the TUSK to Mr. Stamp as a used knife, which did not technically fall under our written warranty. We did however, offer to cover it due to the fact that we knew it's history.

Mr. Stamp returned the knife to Kevin when he had snapped the blade into two pieces approximately 4" back from the tip. Kevin examined the exposed cross section of the blade and found a small inclusion in the steel that could have been the cause of the knife failure. Kevin replaced it immediately with a new TUSK.

6. Within a few days of receiving his new TUSK, Mr. Stamp broke off about a two inch by half inch piece from the edge in the belly of the blade. He returned the TUSK for replacement, claiming that it was defective. Kevin inspected the returned blade under magnification. There were no signs of defects in the steel. The workmanship was not questionable. Kevin did observe over 50 angular dents along the spine. Mr. Stamp acknowledged the indentations with the following explanation:

Mr. Stamp was "testing" the strength of the blade by hammering on the spine of the blade with other knives. He intended to use this technique to drive the TUSK blade into a piece of hardwood. He subsequently published his test evaluation on the forums.

The demand for another replacement TUSK was denied based on Mr. Stamp's description of the abuse he imposed upon the knife.

To my knowledge, no other steel knives have been returned to Mad Dog Knives by their owners for replacement or repairs. If I have forgotten any other situations that resulted in an owner having his/her request accepted or denied, by all means, please feel free to correct my error.
A while back, a guy sent in a Dog that had fallen into the camp fire during a camping trip. I'm guessing that it got a bit hotter than 200F. As I recall, he said that he fished the blade out of the ash the next morning, fully expecting the handle to be charred or melted off, but instead saw that the only real damage was that it's handle was a bit singed on the end. Other than that, it was in very good shape. He sent it in with the request that Kevin grind off the burnt bits, fully expecting to pay for the service since it's damage fell outside of our stated warranty coverage.

Naturally, Kevin chiseled off the handle and replaced it with a new one at no extra charge. That's how we handle our bonified customers.

That warranty, as written, is for our protection against the odious little cliff stamps of the world, who would abuse a replacement warranty at the drop of a hat if it served his purpose. What stamp often neglected to mention in his "articles" (and I use that term loosely) is that the first TUSK that he purchased was a second hand blade and was therefore NOT covered under our written warrenty! Because it was second hand, we did not have to replace it, but we did.

Just days after shipping out the replacment, he managed to break that one too. Now what are the odds of that happening, especially considering how many of our blades have ever been broken and why? Cliff is the ONLY person who has ever broke a TUSK, and he managed to break two in about a month! Clearly, he intended to keep breaking as many knives as we would send to him, thereby "proving" that our knives are crap while vindicating himself as an "authority" on the subject.
Yeah, right.

He and his buddies, Turber and Spark, had a real go at capitalizing on his (stamp's) hack work as an "unbiased industry journalist" and trying to boost bladeforum traffic (thereby boosting advertising dollars) by flaming us over bogus claims and outright lies. Between that and the suspicious ATAK that they auctioned off, the failed attempt at selling an on-line magazine (the first "issue" featuring yet another Mad Dog article by stamp), and their failed attempt at becoming a Mad Dog dealer (several times!), all their money making escapades are really rather humorous to look back on.

Water off a duck's back.

The vast majority of the other TUSKs that we have shipped have gone to spec ops guys and they have reported that they are extremely happy with it's performance under the harshest conditions. In fact, the TUSK is on display at a Military Museum because it is considered an important piece to military history.
Respectfully Submitted,
Teryl
Also the Navy giving him 2 years of sole source approval is a matter of public record which I won't even bother myself to find for you after calling me a mall ninja,which you wouldn't for sure to my face.
And you seem not to remember my mention of 40+ years using and knowing the best custom knives available from Randall , Bagwell and Loveless AND the fact that I own and have used Reeves and Busses and based my opinions and views on such. Of course I think chopping a cement block is the height of idiocy and not a real world test.I'm sure many knives would perform the same however.BTW when was the last time you skinned out a dozen wild hogs?Well I cannot really debate lovers of camo painted , paracord handled thinga ma bobs, it is harder than argueing over naked woman engravings on the handles, which do have merit for their artistic ability.I don't really want to argue over who is a liar or a poser or a felon knife maker- just wanted to clear the record and , like others "you need money- the Mad Dog is worth more" and will cost more money and time to replace.

KISS

Pick the one you like best - keep it. Sell the other two. Become an expert with the one you kept. Learn it's strengths and weaknesses as well as your own. Live the rest of your life without worrying about something as silly as whether or not you should have sold a knife.

Gordon, you again have zero sources to back up what you say and there's absolutely no way to validate anything you have said. And you keep saying "we" and "our" knives. Ah, so are you employed with Mad Dog?

Every other hard use knife had withstood the same batonning and prying. Only the mad dog failed. At the very least this means that the mad dog cannot handle the abuse which all others could take easily. You also do not have an answer to the other failures linked, turber's and the polish gentlemens. There are many, many other people attesting to their similarly terrible experiences with mad dogs sub par knives failing under use.

But now you're claiming that the owners of the biggest and only major knife forums on the net are really involved in some conspiracy with cliff to falsely smear mad dogs name, and all those many reports on the premier knife forums are actually an intricate web of fabrications and lies purported by the evil Cliff Stamp and Turber and Spark? Surely if these knives are as great as you say, if they are the absolute MOST superior hard use field knives in existence, they must have many supporters amongst the multimillion numbers of knife fans on the sites who will quickly bestow their knowledge upon us poor ignorants?

Why don't we discuss this in a proper knife forum with the knowledgeable knife nuts? Are you anticipating the public lashing and humiliation you'll recieve, being made into a laughingstock for these raving claims of mad dogs superiority? If these knives are as great as you say, there will certainly be knowledgeable people amongst the millions of members there who will be there to support you and enlighten the rest of the knife community?
Just like Lorcin and Jennings and Raven, you know? If I were discussing them on a car site with a member who says without a doubt they are the absolute finest quality personal sidearms made, I'd defer to discuss it on THR or Glocktalk or ar15, as is appropriate so we could benefit from the contributions of the knowledge that the members could also provide. So why not go to discuss knives on a knife forum? My bladeforums account is Eric_425. What is yours?

KNIVES IS SERIOUS BIDNESS, KAY?

Seriously, folks, we're not going to call each other names and sling mud in here. People either love Mad Dog knives or hate them, and that's just the way it is. McClung is a character for sure. I don't have much use for the guy based on his attitude on the internet plus his weird autobiography. But Teryl has said that the book was intended to be sold as fiction (though all the reviews seem to treat it as a real autobiography and it's in the non-fiction sections of Amazon and Barnes and Noble.) And people I do like and trust love the guy for whatever reason, so he must be doing something right.

Frankly I don't do anything that justifies the purchase of a Mad Dog, Busse or CR. I don't really care which one the OP sells; however, we will not be slinging mud in here. It is NOT out of line to question a manufacturer's claims for his product, and it is NOT out of line to question tests like the ones Cliff Stamp carried out. Both are well within the purpose and scope of this forum. All you have to do is cease insulting each other so you can continue to post here.