Quote Originally Posted by Ken White
I once had a Randall, a Model 1. My wife gave it to me for Christmas, took it SEA and broke it in less than a month. A friendly PBR Squid at Cat Lo gave me a Ka-Bar (USN Mk II, made by Camillus) as a replacement. Used that Ka-bar for the rest of that tour and two others and a few years more....
Randalls breaking is not a usual occurence; even under severe conditions. Mine has been used and abused going on its third decade and its still a great knife. Randall is also really good about replacing the rare defective blades - especially for servicemembers.

But you're right about the Ka-Bar. It is a sturdy field-worthy knife and is all that most will ever really need. The vast majority of troops are really just wasting money putting out anything over a hundred dollars for a knife. The prices that Randalls are going for now is ridiculous.

But even though I picked up mine for much less - even in inflation-corrected dollars - than they are going for now, I still didn't take it anywhere that I figured I may lose or ditch it. As I mentioned, I'm also a big fan of Eks, and I used to keep a few around as alternates if I thought I might not bring the knife back with me. But that was in the days when Eks cost just slightly more than a good Ka-Bar - and the full tang as opposed to the rat-tail was definitely a deciding factor between the two. But today Ka-Bar prices remain relatively steady, while the cost of an Ek has more than quadrupled.

As an aside, I've been into the edged-weapons corner of the martial arts neighborhood since long before I enlisted. I've put a wide variety of knives (all fixed blades) through severe punishment while training, cutting and penetrating all types of materials. The only major manufacturer whose knives have consistently failed is Gerber. I've had'em break off at the hilt and the blades just snap in two. I've never had any Gerber stand up to real abuse.

Cold Steel is great, Strider Knives are outstanding, but looking at it realistically, a good Ka-Bar or just the service bayonet is good for everything the average troop will need a knife for in the field.