Military and Paramilitary: Point Strength?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

This has been touched on elsewhere indirectly but here is my question: The Military and Paramilitary appear to be excellent knives. The issue: Do you here who are fans and users of the PM and Millie, consider the point to be strong enough for your uses, or, is it considerably too thin and not thick enough, whereas a knife like the Endura or Pacific Salt or Native has a stronger point? Thoughts?

[Evil D]

Depends on what you expect the knife to do. If you drop one on a tile floor, the point is going to chip...no doubt about it. It's not built to pry at the tip and it's not built to tighten screws, but otherwise if you're doing regular knife stuff I've never had any issues. But, I've also EDC'ed a Nilakka for some time now along with several Yojimbo 2's so I know how to treat an acute tip and help it live to see another day.

[Surfingringo]

The fillet knife pictured on bottom probably gets the hardest use of any knife I own. The tip is a fraction of the thickness of a military and far more pointy. I use it daily to stab through skin and scales and often make contact with bone. I have zero fear of breaking the tip. I would rather have a functional tip and have to use a bit of common sense than have an unbreakable tip at the cost of functionality.

[kjd2121]

I have a PM2 and when I looked at the tip it chipped. I had the knife for a week and I must have done something, but I don't know what. I didn't even use it for cutting anything. Not sure what happened. Eventually it will come back, but it is fragile. Beware!!! Nice knife though.

[Ankerson]

Had more than a few Military's and Para 2's over the years and never had any issue with the tips.

Common since goes a very long way in knife use in general.

[Bill1170]

The splinter-picker tip is one of the PM2's best assets for my use. I use that tip often to initiate cuts. Yes, a fine tip is easy to break, but it is worth the being careful in order to have that functionality. The straight spine makes the tip very easy to locate, easy to place on target when piercing bags and whatnot.

[awa54]

There's always a design trade off when you make an acute tip on a knife, if you opt for thin and pointy, it'll be more prone to breakage *if* you pry with it or cut in to something hard. There are point designs that are nearly unbreakable, but those are *not* good for any sort of precision cutting...

It's not that the PM2 tip is fragile in an absolute sense, but it *is* more easily damaged than the rest of the knife, which is quite rugged. By comparison the Manix 2 has less distal taper, a more abrupt taper toward the tip from spine to edge and a thicker edge than the PM2, which IMO makes it a somewhat more durable blade when presented with potential abuse.

Lance, that fillet knife isn't necessarily a fair comparison, it's ground and tempered to have flexibility, where the PM2 has a rigid tip and probably a harder temper... I get where you're going with that though, it certainly is true that a tip that doesn't break when used "hard" doesn't have to be thick and obtuse.

I'd still wager that if you stabbed the tips into hardwood and then twisted them out forcefully, the PM2 tip would fare worse than the M2 tip in the same steel. No, I'm not going to break the tips off of my Manix and Para to prove or disprove this, that certainly makes me a bad scientist, but a good Spyderco owner

[bdblue]

The point stands up to my use just fine, but I remember not to use it as a screwdriver or pry bar. It does look suspicious though.

I recall some time back, maybe a year ago, there was discussion of an online video where someone was stabbing a board and digging out pieces of wood. I think they were using a PM2.

I used to watch the "hockey mask" tests on youtube and one of the interesting parts of the tests was digging a hole through a wood 2x4 by stabbing the point into the wood and then levering the knife sideways to pry out a piece of wood. He was typically using fairly substantial knives but it was interesting to see that the knives could do it.

[bearfacedkiller]

It is totally subjective but I like thin knives and acute tips so it works great for me. I have carried both a lot without issue.

[anagarika]

Echoing what many has said, useful but needs care. Not having one, but I'm sure my E4 SB tip is as thin and so far no issue.

Someone test: https://youtu.be/omp5yL8NDhw
No, it didn't break.

[Joris Mo]

They're obviously not made for cutting your way out of a car but they are 2 of my favorite knives because of the fine tip and the usefulness of it. I definitely wouldn't want these blades to have a stronger tip but be less useful for the fine cutting that they are so good at while still being able to take a decent beating. Also like them very much for stuff like digging out splinters.
Btw, the only Spyderco tip that I ever broke was on a Native1.

[Surfingringo]

There's always a design trade off when you make an acute tip on a knife, if you opt for thin and pointy, it'll be more prone to breakage *if* you pry with it or cut in to something hard. There are point designs that are nearly unbreakable, but those are *not* good for any sort of precision cutting...

It's not that the PM2 tip is fragile in an absolute sense, but it *is* more easily damaged than the rest of the knife, which is quite rugged. By comparison the Manix 2 has less distal taper, a more abrupt taper toward the tip from spine to edge and a thicker edge than the PM2, which IMO makes it a somewhat more durable blade when presented with potential abuse.

Lance, that fillet knife isn't necessarily a fair comparison, it's ground and tempered to have flexibility, where the PM2 has a rigid tip and probably a harder temper... I get where you're going with that though, it certainly is true that a tip that doesn't break when used "hard" doesn't have to be thick and obtuse.

I'd still wager that if you stabbed the tips into hardwood and then twisted them out forcefully, the PM2 tip would fare worse than the M2 tip in the same steel. No, I'm not going to break the tips off of my Manix and Para to prove or disprove this, that certainly makes me a bad scientist, but a good Spyderco owner

The fillet knife is cpm154 - 61 rc. I am not necessarily against a stronger tip, especially in an edc or general use knife where you never know what type of work you might have to do. I recently designed a fishing knife and one of it's key features is actually a stronger tip, but this was accomplished by limiting distal taper rather than making the blade profile wider at the tip. The result is a very strong tip that is still great at puncturing and detail work.

[D-Roc]

I have three C36's. What I find odd is my CPM440V and BG42 models are actually quite thick at the tip, like there is more material there. I have a model all black from about 2011 that is much thinner closer to the tip.
Has anyone any pictures to compare theirs? Has anyone else noticed this?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Btw, the only Spyderco tip that I ever broke was on a Native1.

If I may ask how did you break the tip of that Native?

[Joris Mo]

Btw, the only Spyderco tip that I ever broke was on a Native1.

If I may ask how did you break the tip of that Native?

I'm actually not sure anymore, it was quite some time ago.. This was my first Spyderco around '00 but I don't recall ever doing anything very bad to it.
I guess breaking might also sound too harsh since it wasn't much more than a millimeter that "broke" off so maybe chipping is a better way of putting it..

[twinboysdad]

The only Spydies with tips too thin for me are the FFG Delicas and specifically the HAP40. Entire blade stock is too thin for me. Every other FFG has been fine for me, Millie, PM2, Endura, Dfly, Caly 3.5. For most EDC, a fine(ish) tip is a positive attribute. The FFG Delicas should have the same spine thickness as the Saber but still be FFG much like the Pingo is

[brj]

Have 12 Millies and 3 Paras, never had any issue with the tip being too thin, in fact I do believe the tip is one of the strong points (pun intended) of the whole Millie/Para family, truly useful without adding unnecessary material to a pocket knife.

What I find odd is my CPM440V and BG42 models are actually quite thick at the tip, like there is more material there.

Hmm, my experience is the exact opposite, if you check the pic below my BG-42 (circa 2006, left) has a slightly more acute point than my Orange S30V (circa 2009, right).

[T-1000]

As perfect as the paramilitary is, the tip is weak. The first time I used mine on a push cut through an industrial hose the tip snapped off.

[paladin]

Broke the tip on a Millie & a PM2, both in s30v. :o

The fine point combined with the distal taper makes for a very effective tool when used mindfully but they are relatively easy to push past the "point of no return." :eek:

But even with that inherent "weakness," I still want my Militaries & ParaMilitaries with fine distally tapered points, please & thank you! :) :spyder: :)

[Cujobob]

Plenty of videos out there of people using PM2 in an almost bushcraft sort of way. It's not a pry bar and shouldn't be one, one can add an inexpensive pry tool to their key chain if that's a priority. Would you want a really stabby gun that doesn't shoot so well? What situations would one need a thick point that a cheap Gerber Shard wouldn't be able to solve hidden away on a keychain?