Just wondering, when it comes to a small fixed blade for self defense, how small of a blade is to small to be effective? Im currently looking at the CRKT Minimalist Drop point as a budget clinch pick type knife I can use when OCONUS. The blade is slightly smaller than the clinch pick at only 2.16 inches. To small?
Not a knife expert, but two inches of blade swinging for my face is long enough to make me back off, which seems to head in the right direction of breaking contact in a self defense encounter for a civilian. plus the draw of a long blade has more chances of being stuffed in an entanglement.
Those fruit knives that Ed Calderon and Bang Tang sport are 2.25 inches.
Just an opinion.
Last edited by Otaku.edc; 12-21-2018 at 08:25 PM.
“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” Machiavelli, The Prince
Don't have to be particularly large to be effective...a couple of my Fred Perrin's by way of example:Originally Posted by Otaku.edc
There's nothing civil about this war.
Too.....
I’m plenty comfortable with 1.94”...
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Long time ago I had a guy who got carved up with a box cutter. The slashes were scary looking but ineffective. Two stab wounds, one to his abdomen and one to his upper leg/pelvis, nearly killed him.
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If you're only aiming to pierce through to the heart with one thrust, you may have a problem. If normal clothing around you is bundled up for an Alaska winter, you may also have a problem.
Other than that, while I prefer to have a minimum of a CP length blade (fruit knife lengths make chores more of a chore), it should still work fine.
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The handle is far more important than the length of the blade. For example a 7 inch blade with a two inch handle is practically useless. From there a short blade needs to be used on appropriate targets. Cutting large close to the surface muscle groups or blood sewers that are shallow.
You have to keep in mind the optimum way to use such a knife. It is not the substitution for a 10" Bowie or some dedicated fighting knife. It is used in a specific envelope in a specific way - Get off me or Stay off me. In doing that, you target only specific places - the upper yoke (neck and above) and lower yoke (the crotch) and you stab. So you don't need a big blade, but going much below the CP length can be problematic. Craig designed the CP to be at essentially the minimum envelope to do some good. Going just barely below it probably will not diminish usefulness too much, but there is a limit.
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I was an expert in a case (told this before). An old guy gets into a car accident with a young stud. They get out of the cars and face each other. The young big stud yells and screams at the old skinny guy as how scary is he? Old guy pulls out a paring knife (the little thin one with a short blade that you cut up an apple with). He sticks into the stud's chest. Stud drops stone cold dead. Old guy hit some magic pathway to a major vessel and that was that.
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