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.