Busse has a lifetime warranty that covers all forms of accidental damage. ESEE has a lifetime warranty that covers all forms of accidental and purposeful damage. Whether the two are really different in reality, is up for debate.
ESEE:
"No Questions Asked Warranty. If you break it, we will replace it. Warranty is lifetime and transferable. In other words, we warranty the knife no matter how many times it's been traded, sold or given away. Please note: ESEE Knives are not made to be thrown. They are hardened to a higher Rockwell than throwing knives and will most likely break if thrown, possibly harming the user. So, do yourself and your ESEE knife a favor and DO NOT throw it. Using any knife not meant to be thrown as a throwing knife is idiotic! We would rather idiots not buy our knives."
Busse: "We guarantee against any and all major damage, including the handles, including accidental damage forever. We highly encourage gross abuse as it is covered by OUR warranty."
Both cover purposeful damage (Busse's warranty has been around longer), but one company gets pissed at the customer (and encourages their fans to do likewise), the other just gets pissed... as in
drunk 
... and encourages the users. One company makes an unsubstantiated claim about knives breaking when thrown and insists that anyone who throws their knives is an idiot for using them in a way they were not designed/intended; the other company does not, again encourages or advises the users, and also does not (to my knowledge) make a practice of insulting their customers. Are these different warranties? *shrug* Is one "superior"? *shrug* Should the more recent one be considered the "standard"?
I really
really want to see the data on the likelihood of 1095 knives at 57 Rc breaking catastrophically. You'd need to focus >50 ft.lbs impact force into a cross-sectional square centimeter of the knife to accomplish this, hard to do without a vise and pendulum... which, by the way, Noss basically did with the RC-4 without inducing catastrophic failure, so... Cracking off bits of the edge, sure, but a catastrophic failure? Prove it. Until then,
MYTH.
In my mind, the "owner" of the knife is the company that the knife was produced for. ESEE knives are produced by Rowen for ESEE. They're ESEE knives.
I guess that I am more proletariat *shrug*. As you pointed out, ESEE was RAT, and their knives have been made by a few different manufacturers now. People compare the RTAKII to the Junglas, RAT-3 to RC/ESEE-3, etc. Most people prefer the Rowen-made knives to the OKC's. *shrug* To me that is the same as comparing KaBar-made vs. Camillus-made vs. Rowen-made Beckers. But that's just a difference in how we think, and we both agree it's more obvious when it's just one company doing all the work
ESEE hardly published the information to promote themselves; people were curious and asking, so they answered. I agree that it's impossible to make an objective judgement without knowing both sides, but if Ontario was genuinely in the right, you'd think that they'd try to defend themselves. In this case, their silence speaks against them. Oh, yeah: and if you weren't thinking of Ontario, who were you thinking of?
I tried and couldn't find the reference posts, etc. regarding denigration of other makers (even OKC), so I'll abandon the supposition without proper documentation. But you'll find that most companies prefer to handle private business matters
privately rather than publicly attack and encourage an out-lash from fans (this list most decidedly does NOT include BRKT). That's also how our justice system is supposed to work. It's a tragedy that justices & jurors must be sheltered from the invasive, prejudiced and uninformed declarations of the media regarding matters that don't concern them. The courts exist for a reason, to prevent judgement by tyrannous ignorant mobs.
But other companies most certainly DO answer their customers' questions even on such business matters. The usual answer: "this is a matter which concerns only ourselves and the other party, we hope to resolve it amicably and through the proper legal channels. That is all."
If you then read about one company/individual winning/losing a lawsuit over the other, you'll know how things turned out. Everything else is hearsay.
I never said that someone who throws their knife is an idiot, everyone's done something they shouldn't do with a knife at least once. But posting it on youtube takes it to a whole 'nother level.
Also, it's common knowledge that throwing a knife that isn't meant for the task puts a huge amount of stress on the blade. Why do you think throwing knives are all around 54 RC?
The warranty says:
"Using any knife not meant to be thrown as a throwing knife is idiotic! We would rather idiots not buy our knives." Why is it idiotic?? A maker is free to say "don't use
my knife this way or you're an idiot" but to say "don't use
any knife this way or you're an idiot" needs to justify that. They haven't. No explanation, just a blanket statement that their knives are too brittle to throw and so are everyone else's. Really?? With millions of throws on similarly designed knives that did NOT result in catastrophic failure, that seems like a bizarre assertion to me. Throwing knives, or rather the impact, subjects them to stresses beyond mere in-line cutting. If you can quantify for me what those stress levels amount to, both I and the entire knife and physics community will be much obliged!
It is "common knowledge" that steel is strong and, when HT'd properly, tough as well. At 57 RC, 1095 has a Charpy impact toughness of 50 ft.lbs., at 54 Rc it's 75 ft.lbs. - these are
both at the level of
springs. Toughness increases as hardness is tempered down following HT, but without hardness you can't keep an edge and will take a bend more easily. To resist bending, thicken the dimensions. The "common knowledge" you speak of, about breaking knives by throwing, has insubstantial empirical basis. My assertion - if your 57 Rc 1095 knife breaks from throwing, you either have one wicked throw or there was a serious material flaw in the knife to begin with. Care to prove me wrong?
Everyone has their own standards, so agree that ESEE isn't that standard for most people. They are for me, though; it's subjective. I do think that they're second to none in terms of warranty.
Well, if you'll use the words "
my standard in warranty and CS" for future references to ESEE, I'll be satisfied with that, but I think the minor differences between their warranty and Busse's (including which came 1st) has been established. And you're right, we must have different ideas about what makes a 'good' company. *shrug*
Oh, and until someone empirically demonstrates this notion of 1095 knives (or ANY knives) at 57 Rc being too fragile to throw (esp. given the plethora of empirical evidence contradicting the assertion),
please stop repeating it as "truth" or "common knowledge". It is common
ignorance, and I am ignorant as well, which is why I keep asking for definitive proof.
