Guy's knives thus far have been built with a level of robustness MORE than capable of handling throwing.
There is a LOT of misinformation/paranoia about the stresses involved in throwing a knife. It is just that:
misinformation. The impact forces involved in throwing a piece of steel into a piece of relatively soft wood (I'm not hitting mesquite here) are
minor, WAY below the stresses involved in batonning and other uses. A well HT'd piece of steel this thick is more than capable of enduring such activity. The martensite matrix is strong. I've read nonsense theories about "harmonic resonance" damaging the knife, but the vibrations that remain in the blade after impact, even when it misses, are
below the threshold of the yield strength which must be overcome to induce a crack where one was not already present. You can certainly build a knife to be weaker such that it
will break on impact (e.g. less thickness in the blade, skeletonize the handle, harden the steel to brittleness), but you should see this fragility already in batonning.
Take for example: Swamp Rat Knives, part of Busse, currently offers their cutting tools in "SR101" steel - 52100 + proprietary HT, maybe some slight additives - tempered to 58 - 60Rc. Included among those tools -
all at the same hardness 58-60Rc - are little knives like the Rodent 3, mid-sized knives like the Ratmandu, large knives like the Rodent 9, and
tomahawks. I have no experience with the tomahawks, but the only damage I've inflicted throwing my R9 was to knock the scales slightly off flush (still tight, maybe tighter). Swamp Rat offers a lifetime warranty against any and all unintentional damage, they consider neither batonning nor throwing 'abuse', they are confident in the durability of their tools.
You can find videos of other rats being thrown, including the hawks, but here is my R9:
[video=youtube;iCphmLgvaV4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCphmLgvaV4[/video]
Here is Crucible's compar-o-chart that includes 52100:
http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/prodbyapp/tooldie/t&dchemtbl.html
It is rated as ~50% the toughness of S7, maybe 60% as tough as CPM-3V in the same HRC range.
The GSO-5.1 is much smaller than the Rodent 9 so it releases less force on impact than the R9, and it is also a LOT thinner in the blade and particularly behind the edge (0.020 GSO-5.1 vs >0.050 Rodent 9):
[video=youtube;QyBhMK5zlxU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyBhMK5zlxU[/video]
Not only did the knife
not break in half like that BK2 discussed in the thread-link,
it didn't even dull substantially at the edge.
How is this possible? Simple: the BK-2 was made of less tough steel, it was no HT'd to the same standards, AND most importantly it had
an inclusion in the steel from which a fracture propagated. Inclusions are not always obvious on the surface, and inspections to reveal them can be costly, so manufacturers must balance using the highest quality materials and highest standards of inspection to the cost increase translated to consumers. This is where warranties come in. You can't catch every lemon, but a good warranty shows your confidence in the quality of what you are building.
I have thrown Gerbers made from 420HC in similar geometry with no ill effect. I'd be willing to bet that hundreds of Beckers and Kabars have been thrown hundreds if not thousands of times with few failures occurring. Is every non-failure a fluke?? Just the opposite, the
failures are the flukes - bad piece of steel or excessive stress before and after throwing.
One more, very small amount of throwing of a FOX Trakker in N690Co, described as similar to 440C and VG10, against a concrete wall at ~6:00:
[video=youtube;ez7VrvsYwro]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez7VrvsYwro[/video]
If you have never seen the Noss destruction tests, they are being re-uploaded to youtube by All Outdoor:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCReKyb0rO1E2Leamipn7Yfg/videos
He didn't do a lot of throwing but LOTS of other MUCH worse non-knife 'tests' for durability.
I am not declaring what should and should not be covered by any company's warranty as 'abuse', that is not my place. What i am elucidating is that "throwing" is not as bad as many would make it out to be.
I do own one knife specifically designed for throwing, a Boker Magnum Mini Bo-Kri, made from ~1/4" 420J2 steel. It throws well... but it is hollow-grind and
very soft, ~1" of the tip bent under similar use as seen in my videos above, and the edge will not stay sharp (duh) rolling and flattening if you so much as scowl at it. Swamp Rat and Survive! offer knives than can handle the "abuse" and keep their edge as well :thumbup:
HOWEVER, throwing a knife serves no real purpose beyond sport and IS a very good way to lose it in the woods
(like archery with poor aim).
