Plain vs. serrated edge knives.

Knife Blades We get a lot of questions about the differences between plain and serrated blades in Defensive Folding Knife. The short answer is that I prefer plain edge blades simply because they are easier to sharpen, but both have their assets and liabilities.

A serrated blade is a trick to get a longer blade in a shorter package. The cutting edge is pinched into ridges and valleys so we can more cutting edge in same overall length. Because all of the cutting edge doesn’t usually contact the medium that you are cutting serrated blades will stay ‘usefully sharp’ for longer, and as they get dull they tend to tear the medium.

Once the knives are dull enough to begin tearing the medium is providing more resistance and the blade will more prone to getting hung up in the middle of a cut. Things like zippers and seams will frequently cause a serrated blade to hang up.

I’ll take a sharp knife over a dull one before I worry about serration or any other blade pattern.

Plain edge blades on the other hand simply skip over things like seams and zippers. They get dull more quickly because more the cutting edge is contact with the medium. You probably have more than one kind of knife in your kitchen and in a pinch you can carve meat with a bread knife, or bread with a carving knife, but the results aren’t really optimized. We don’t normally need a lot of optimization in our pocket knives (especially as defensive tools). I’ll take a sharp knife over a dull one before I worry about serration or any other blade pattern.

More about the Tueller drill.

In some of the on going discussion and commentary over at Joe’s blog I found a few more things I would like to address.

The Tueller drill is not obsolete, it is just that generally the drill is not set up to reflect reality. I would also say that many of the recomended theories and techniques aren’t very effective in practice.

Basically there is a target at 21 feet and an ‘attacker’ at 21 feet (perpendicular to the defender/target axis). On the buzzer the defender draws an shoot the target, while the attacker runs to tag the defender. The only thing special about 21 feet is that it takes the average defender about 1.5 seconds to get a shot on target from the holster and that the average person can move about 14 feet per second from a standing start.

In a real world encounter the attacker with the knife initiates the motion and the defender has to percieve and react.

One of the other issues with the basic drill is that an advancing target becomes easier to hit as it gets closer, and leaving the target at 21 feet doesn’t simulate this behavior.

So the Tueller drill models simultaneous, mutually assured, destruction. The defender gets stabbed and the attacker gets shot. It happens at roughly the same time and it is an open debate as to who will be incapciated first (my money is on the guy with the knife slicing up the guy with the gun.) This is not a “win,” this is a “draw.” In order for the defender to prevail he needs more than 21 feet of distance between him and the attacker, or he needs to do something different.

In a real world encounter the attacker with the knife initiates the motion and the defender has to percieve and react. This is an advantage for the attacker with the knife, so the defender needs more than 21′ to even achieve a tie, let alone a win.

Starting with a hand on the gun, or the gun at the ready position is an advantage to the defender, and he needs much less than 21 feet to shoot simltaneously as he is getting stabbed. Similarly, allowing the defender various forms of movement also changes the amount of distance required.

Victory conditions.

One thing that we need to always keep in perspective is what constitutes a “win.” Winning depends upon the context. As private citizens we “win” when we keep ourselves and the people we care about safe. If this is accomplished with avoidance, or deescalation that is every bit as much a win as prevailing through the application of violence.

As private citizens we “win” when we keep ourselves and the people we care about safe.

It is important to recognize that when it comes to fighting we win as soon as the assailant wishes to break off the attack. We don’t have to fight until the assailant is knocked out, or dead but only until he wants to get away from the situation. This is not to say there aren’t situations where the fight isn’t going to end up with the assailant seriously injured or dead, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Most criminal victimizations have a risk/reward balance and by increasing the risk to the criminal the reward just isn’t worth it any more.