Spear point vs Tanto for OTF

[adamsredlines]

Looking at an OTF.
I like the looks of Tanto, but have no practical justification for it otherwise. I think Tanto is better for piercing tough materials, but I'm not sure how strong actions on OTFs are for that type of application (or that I'd even do that anyways).

Is one arguably better than the other for daily use?

I blame Chazroh

 

[BrandonM]

In my experience, the flat lines on the Tanto are not ideal for daily knife tasks. The edge where it angles up from the flat belly sees 90% of the action and it goes dull quickly at that point only. After repeated sharpening it looses its hard angles. The tanto definitely looks cool, but I won’t ever have one that I plan to use for daily knife stuff.

 

[mouthpiece]

Really depends how you use it and what you want it for.
I use my pocket knife pretty much daily.
In a weeks time the blade is sharp(DULL) as a hacksaw.
I don't do pointy blades because they get broken tips within a few days.
Mine at the bottom, tip has been broken and sharpened many times and it use to be serrated which I do not prefer either.
I like a thicker spine with a not so pointy tip.

I know a guy that carries $400 pocket knife, but he never uses it! What's the purpose really?

 

[Firpo]

Unless you’re really adept at knife sharpening it’s really easy to get the point off center on the spear-point. Sure you’re going to loose the sharp point on the bend of the tanto but it’s still way easier to sharpen.

 

[beardking]

On my OTF, I went with the needle point from @mouthpiece's picture. But, then again, I also only paid about 30 bucks for my ViperTec mini OTF, so I'm probably not the best judge of usefulness around. Although I do put that cheap bastard through its paces on a regular basis. :-) Only had to sharpen it once so far in the couple months I've had it.

 

[mtngunr]

Toughness depends upon steel and heat treat. The one I trust to open (OTFs VERY sensitive to dust or even excess lube) and stay locked open (liner locks buckle under loads), and not break during use is Old Yaller, and is the one which gets daily carry.



Try this with the fancy tacticals and see what it gets you.



Can't say I care for either of the OP blade choices, the spear point far too fragile, and the tanto critiques spot on. The tanto is good for stabbing, but in an OTF, it had better be a good locking mechanism and hard handle material to back the lock. Of the two, I'd pick the tanto for toughness and utility, the spearpoint essentially useless.

 

[Rez Exelon]

Really depends how you use it and what you want it for.
I use my pocket knife pretty much daily.
In a weeks time the blade is sharp(DULL) as a hacksaw.
I don't do pointy blades because they get broken tips within a few days.
Mine at the bottom, tip has been broken and sharpened many times and it use to be serrated which I do not prefer either.
I like a thicker spine with a not so pointy tip.

I know a guy that carries $400 pocket knife, but he never uses it! What's the purpose really?
View attachment 523906View attachment 523907View attachment 523908

Well ain't that chart the tits right there!

Yeah, a knife is a tool, but like all my tools, I'll abuse some before others. Last night I was sanding shellac off a bunch of doors and my sander kept getting gummed up on the belts. So I take my knife and scratch the crap off it (sometimes while running lol) to clean it because I don't want to go home and get proper stuff.

I mean, I'll have to put a new edge on it later, but that's why I have sharpeners. Plus it was a $60 knife (that I paid waaaay less than that for) as compared to a Randall or something.

End of the day, it's a metal tool.

 

[beardking]

As a follow up to my post about my cheap OTF, here are a couple pics and a quick video of it. Just for the heck of it.

 

[SoonerP226]

I’ve only had one tanto blade; it looks cool, but I found that it was not particularly useful for my use cases.

FWIW, I have the Kershaw Livewire, but with neither of those blades. Mine is a spear point, but it’s not double-edged; I considered DE, but decided against it for two reasons. First, as noted above, it’s more difficult to keep the tip “balanced” while sharpening, but more importantly, putting one’s finger on top of the blade for leverage isn’t recommended with a DE blade…

 

[SoonerP226]

I don't do pointy blades because they get broken tips within a few days.

If you do something to break the tip on the Livewire’s Magnacut blade, you’ve pretty severely abused the knife.

In all the years I’ve been carrying knives, I don’t recall ever breaking a tip. The closest I came to that was when I managed to take a chip out of the edge of a Spyderco just behind the point, but I don’t recall what brand of stupidity I was trying when I did that. It definitely qualified as abusing the knife, though.