Trying to recreate

[@knivesiguess]

Here's Outdoors55's video for reference: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYGZdZqin5qspaMsi=-6OTMbybcsxioRqz

[@OUTDOORS55]

Crazy a $10 knife would bring so much attention and controversy😂 I think there's enough data to suggest that the qc is an issue. And I got a bad one, and others got better ones. I do thinks it's funny people think i was paid off by "big knife companies" for the review😂 To be honest, my video would have done alot better had the knife been better than any of the other knives I tested in that video. Let alone something $100+. I even went into the testing biased, thinking it was going to be way better. Anyway, good insights and good video, thanks for the support. Really appreciate it👍👊

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, the claim that you can't be trusted because of affiliate links is a weird take. I was happy to try this out though. Hand still hurts but that's the price of admission. I knew this was gonna happen as soon as I saw them, which is why I got my first videos out so damn early in the game. After last year's kinda trashy axis locks blew up like they did I saw it coming.

[@cavemandanwilder5597]

It’s genuinely hilarious that anyone thought “big knife companies” would be so intimidated by a $5 Walmart knife that they’d pay off reviewers to badmouth it.

[@charlesh6519]

Benchmade will just file lawsuits!

[@knivesiguess]

Benchmade's patent on the lock expired quite a while ago. They can't sue anyone.

[@bryanCLXT]

i dropped my V1D2 instant blade wiggle took it apart and re tighten it and it's fine now

[@kylearmstrong21]

Everyone just appreciate Ozark Trail giving people good knives. Don't argue it's a great thing

[@knivesiguess]

They sell a lot of trash but a few are good

[@rudymendoza1264]

i saw the outdoor55 vid when it came out. crazy how much of a difference in the edge retention. plenty of qc problems in the build/assembly of ozark trail. i have been switching between the white walmart knife and the orange d2 one for the past 2 weeks. they are both great. white one is super light weight and cuts fine. orange is a lot more comfortable in the hand. i only make a few cuts at a time when i need, so hot spots aren't really an issue for me. hope your hand recover fast. and great job handling those trolls!

[@knivesiguess]

My hand will be fine by tomorrow. Thanks!

[@ShiozakiSama]

Basically every single video I see, it all boils down to the Bugout being YOU, and the OT D2 being the guy she tells you not to worry about.

[@knivesiguess]

Nice. They each have their place. The Bugout in S30v is still waiting for it's run at the Cardboard Slayer™ gauntlet to see if the edge holds up better.

[@TacticalLlamaEDC]

Really impressive breakdown and awesome video!! You know your edge geometry and great testing. Really glad you commented because I have not seen your channel pop up yet. Absolutely crazy that KZbin hasn't shown it before however THANK YOU!

[@knivesiguess]

You're welcome, man. I appreciate the input that got us here. That was an interesting experience.

[@brandongoede5907]

Thank you for your great testing.

[@knivesiguess]

No problem! I enjoy doing it!

[@TheDemocultis]

Tossed a 15 degree edge on mine. Absolutely no complaints for 10 bucks.

[@knivesiguess]

No complaints at all. Even at 15° it still held up respectably well.

[@chrluc]

I’m not at all surprised and results are all over the place with this knife. It would seem like it all depends on the person in the factory that did the sharpening and wether or not if the burnt the edge. The heat treat doesn’t seem to be the issue at all. He showed this.

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, he got to the bottom of it after this. I don't think I had any effect on him digging deeper for what that's worth. Before he did his follow-up it DID look a lot like a totally borked heat treatment though.

[@DrewDragoon]

Appreciate you digging into this and trying to find the truth, leaving a comment for the algorithm

[@knivesiguess]

I and the algorithm thank you

[@9mmmike642]

Al Gore has no rhythm!

[@strikenryken]

Wouldn’t sharpening it 10x make the thickness behind the edge super thick and draggy? I wonder if that would have been a lot of the difference.

[@knivesiguess]

It wouldn't make enough of a difference to matter. If anything a little extra support material behind the edge would have helped it out.

[@roger10coutinho]

Hi, I love your channel and so I do the Outdoor55. Suggestion: can you send him one of yours. Maybe he could redo his testing.

[@knivesiguess]

If he wants to further tests, I'd be game but I don't know if he's gonna want to touch another one of these.

[@Whatever-gv3gq]

I watched this yesterday and You mentioning freehand sharpening made me want to try it. All I have is a dollar tree sharpening stone so I spent awhile today trying to figure it out. I got one Surprisingly sharp with it. Definitely not as sharp as my guided system gets it but I think it’s a good skill to have so atleast I know I can do it now. May end up getting a better freehand setup just for the heck of it.

[@knivesiguess]

I'm sticking with my crusty block and strops for now. If you don't have a good strop you should grab one and good compound for it.

[@Whatever-gv3gq]

@@knivesiguessI just started using a strop a 7-8 months ago crazy how much it helps!

[@knivesiguess]

You ain't kidding. I switched over to diamond paste with 5 steps of grit progression on my strops and the results are impressive.

[@daily_pocket_review]

I really do think there is quite a bit of unit variance of these knives getting put out. They are so cheap they probably do little if any qc on the hardness etc. That’s probably why we’re seeing so many different results.

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, if Ozark Trail would fix their QC issues and list all of their materials they'd be really doing something here.

[@quickdrawz05]

Dude this is pure science. Let’s go!

[@knivesiguess]

We had to know

[@wretchedmess]

There was an interesting discussion between outdoor55 and Neeves Knives before outdoor55 did his test. The takeaway was, that to achieve the $10 price point, the production of the knives would have to be so massive, and a factory mass production, that there would be no way that the heat treat would be done correctly and consistently. They talk about how D2 is finicky to heat treat to begin with, and wouldn't really be possible to do on such scale. This sort of makes sense with all the varied results, if you imagine that as a "batch" are being heat-treated, some are located in the "sweet spot" that ends up getting a decent heat treat, while others in the same batch, but in a different location, are either too cool or too hot. That is assuming that the steel is actually D2, which, to my knowledge, there isn't a way to confirm without scientific testing. Here is a link to their talk. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnKxdoWuqaqVlacsi=N3fc6leLwsaUud-m The Ozark Trail knife talk begins at 58:27.

[@knivesiguess]

I've had 2 of my guys have them metalurgically tested and both came back as a version of D2 with some slight variance. One was K.O. Knives, I can't remember off the top of my head who the other one was at this point, a lot's happened since then. I do believe the QC on the heat treatment is probably like the QC on the rest of the knife though. I'm still a little surprised I ended up with all 3 of mine performing as well as they did with no real issues.

[@wretchedmess]

@@knivesiguess That is cool info! It is weird that Outdoor55 tested his at a hardness of 59 Rockwell which one would think would be hard enough to maintain a durable edge, although he does note that is just a surface hardness. I'd be interested to see the hardness closer to the edge. I wonder if these are hardened before or after they are ground? We've all probably wasted WAY too much time being curious about this😁😁😁

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, but we do love this kind of time wasting.

[@wretchedmess]

@@knivesiguess HaHaHa! Totally! I just want to know "why"- which is why a lot of my projects seem to expand😂

[@knivesiguess]

I think the "why" here is learning.

[@SaxaphoneMan42]

They have been in stock more near me lately, may not be a bad idea to buy 5 more or so just to test the edge on various examples and see what happens, possibly taking the worst example and the average example and breaking them just to see the heat treat differences. I have about a half dozen of these and some are certainly better than others, the QC for sure isn't consistent on a 10$ ozark trail knife.

[@knivesiguess]

Dude they aren't showing up near me, even trying to have them shipped from the website. I don't have plans to try to run 5 of them through that many hours of testing any time soon.

[@SaxaphoneMan42]

@@knivesiguess the lack of stock near you is really unfortunate, the lack of time to test all of that is 100% understandable.

[@knivesiguess]

It's partly my fault they're gone in the first place TBH. I was the first one on KZbin pushing them and I pushed them pretty hard after that for a few weeks

[@SaxaphoneMan42]

@@knivesiguess tbh I wouldn't put the blame on you, maybe partially but a rather small part. It is a solid knife especially considering the price. While you may have been one of, if not the first channel letting people know about it, your first 4 videos on it combined got less than 20K views as of right now, I'm not saying that to be mean, I enjoy your channel. A bigger problem is likely a few people noticed how popular they were becoming, starting buying as many as possible, and selling them for more on ebay. Or simply the lack of production to supply the demand that was generated for this budget knife. the Harbor Freight D2 had similar issues, not for as long though.

[@knivesiguess]

You're not being mean, I know how big the channel is right now. I was being somewhat facetious. I knew it was gonna happen as soon as I saw my first one.

[@rtz549]

That one the blade isn't centered. See if the blade is straight or warped.

[@knivesiguess]

It's straight. I've already checked it out, pretty sure I showed it on a past video. Held the edge up against a straight edge and it's fine.

[@michaelwaldeck7081]

When you use your sharpness tester do you do a slow press or a quick press? Are you saying you do this cutting for hours? Maybe cutting rope would be quicker?

[@knivesiguess]

It's always a slow consistent press on the tester. Trying to pop it fast makes it read lower numbers that it actually is. I can get all the cardboard I want for free and clean it up easily. I don't have the kind of rope you'd want for that kind of cutting and I don't want that mess all over my basement. Besides, after 7 or 8 months of doing this we know what the steels are supposed to do with my testing.

[@michaelwaldeck7081]

@knivesiguess the other good thing about your testing is a cutting board is not an added variable like it is when using rope. Your results are very handy but man I'm glad it is you doing all those hours of cutting. It would be interesting if you rated the ergonomics after that cutting. Thanks.

[@knivesiguess]

I almost always include ergos in my Aftermath videos. Report everything I learned once Cardboard Slayer™ is finished. I did make a playlist for it.

[@jimmylarge1148]

I believe humidity plays a factor in cardboard cutting tests?

[@knivesiguess]

Not really. When we spent a month with no A/C for a month back in August the house got humid as the underside of Satan's balls and it didn't make a meaningful difference.

[@mylesmoreno7215]

Hey!! How do I get a bead just like that??!! I’ve been looking for an orange one!

[@knivesiguess]

I made it from a handle I broke off of a Harbor Freight prybar

[@Badger77722]

I think you've hit it - the QC for Ozark Trail leaves a lot to be desired, at least as far as consistency goes. I've seen a few people doing testing (not just OUTDOORS55) who've had fairly poor results, and then there's guys like you who have absolutely amazing results in their testing. So the QC consistency is just not there - which is not really that surprising for a $10 knife, they've got to be cutting corners somewhere! If OT ever gets those problems resolved, even if the price has to go up some to cover the increased costs, I think they can make a huge dent in the low-cost knife market, even more than they already have.

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, it's a shame. Whaddaya do? I have more testing for new ones soon.

[@loosieclocker]

All hail our overlords in Fayatevillr

[@rcjoe406]

I got one of the first run was perfect sharp af ..i feeling they might of heat treated the 1st batch better but what do i know 😊

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, the next few batches may have been massive rush jobs.

[@JohnDoe-zb7dz]

Don't care if it takes you 10 minutes or 10 hours as long as the actual feet is recorded. The rate matters and makes it scientific.

[@knivesiguess]

At some point I might figure out how to measure the number of feet cut definitively on a normal test, but you're talking about 400ish feet an hour or more. Right now I haven't figured out a great way to track it like that so we have to go with time knowing we have a consistent pace and consistent results.

[@9mmmike642]

KIG typically has 2 bare feet in every Cardboard Slayer video.

[@SAINTSEDC]

Definitely a QC issue the second one got want that great cutting through cardboard. I tried looking for the new version in Texas, but they had the original version so didn’t end up getting one. As always awesome video wish I could’ve joined the stream.

[@knivesiguess]

The kind words are always appreciated!

[@americangraffiti6192]

Good content

[@knivesiguess]

Thanks, man!

[@johnwalters7415]

It hurts 😢 it's a $10 knife

[@lknives1931]

Personally, the only item from Ozark Trails ive seen worth buying is their insulated tumble. I own several. On par with the Yeti brand. Everything else imo is garbage.

[@knivesiguess]

That's fair. I dislike MOST of their stuff and always have. I DO however happen to like this one and the Stormpooper. Another one showing up in a week or two might be okay-ish aside from the 3cr.

[@LemonsAreTasty-yummy]

W content

[@knivesiguess]

Thanks!

[@nosrin1988]

Another thing I noticed about the inconsistency, is that I have one with a very dark and very light handscale, and another one where it's more of a slight difference.

[@knivesiguess]

Just about all of them have that. The NEW ones with the reversible pocket clip seem to have fixed that issue though.

[@gonzalez7805]

👏👏👏☕☕☕

[@Sway1177]

Those affiliate links in his bio makes me doubt anything on his results.

[@knivesiguess]

We gotta make these channels pay for themselves somehow. At some point I'm gonna have to look at more than just ad revenue and live stream donations. It can get real expensive real fast doing something like this.

[@OUTDOORS55]

I literally show the results in the video, but oh well🤷‍♂️

[@9mmmike642]

If OUTDOORS55 was shilling for companies, he would be churning out 2 videos per day like Metal Complex.

[@bryanCLXT]

my good sir do you sleep? lol your live was 5 plus hours I was there in and out for 3 hours wowzer

[@knivesiguess]

Live was 7hrs 25min

[@southside1975]

outdoor55 isn't going to put his integrity on the line for a 10$ Chinese knife the QC is trash on these knifes. I bought 6 for sharpening homing my skills and 2 of the six didn't perform close to the others.

[@knivesiguess]

I think you just articulated my thought on this way better than I have.

[@artosbear]

Yeah the two i got are great. One is better than the other but theyre still great. QC bs which sucks but i am so happy for $20. The lock is great. Takes an edge back easily too

[@MuvoTX]

Not familiar with that other YTer. As with anything on the www you can never completely rule out factors of bias and influence of the creator. The other factor here is random sample variation. The only way to quantify that is to test a sample population, and even that wouldn't be 100%. At any rate, its all in good fun. To even have a discussion like this for something so dirt cheap... that's the real win-win here.

[@knivesiguess]

Yeah, I wish I had a bigger sample size than 3 that just happened to perform well

[@ninjasack9134]

you need some water. When you were counting on your fingers, your skin left divits way longer than it usually should

[@knivesiguess]

I put down plenty of water. When you handle that much cardboard your hands dry out like crazy.

[@jimmylarge1148]

It’s because you had ozark trail make u one with Rex 121 steel to make everyone else’s knives look bad for 10$ 😂

[@knivesiguess]

I have those kinds of connections with my 3.6k subs and crippling debt.

[@travisrose2277]

First! 🥇 #TeamNoSprinkles

[@knivesiguess]

Early morning #teamsprinkles dub

[@travisrose2277]

@knivesiguess a dub for #TeamNoSprinkles

[@knivesiguess]

Wrong

[@travisrose2277]

@@knivesiguess not as wrong as your tip-up nonsense 😝

[@knivesiguess]

I feel like you need an intervention of some sort

[@LemonsAreTasty-yummy]

Wsp

[@nosrin1988]

I finally broke mine after his video came out. Just by fidgeting with it. No actual hard use, just opening and closing it over and over, but I think it's the retightening that I kept having to do that really killed it. So i tried to take it apart and see what's up. Couldn't put the ball bearings back in. DOH. It's still a bit of a fidgeter but uh, ya.

[@knivesiguess]

Oof. Sorry about that.

[@nosrin1988]

@@knivesiguess eh, it's just a 10 dollar knife, no biggie. I got 2 more!

[@knivesiguess]

I'd still be a little bummed breaking it like that.

[@nosrin1988]

@@knivesiguess ya, you'd think it wouldn't break that way of all ways, but it IS a 10 dollar knife. I've broken an old mtech by just loosening and retightening the pivot. one time. So im used to cheap knives just being bad.

[@knivesiguess]

OH LAWD NOT THE MTECH

[@DrewDragoon]

One thing is for sure, if his claims are to be believable he needs to be more transparent with his process and he needs to repeat the results because it's clear he has an outlier

[@knivesiguess]

More testing would be good, I don't know if he'd feel like it's worth it all things being what they are.

[@jazenka99]

Bought one, it is kinda trash.

[@knivesiguess]

Not surprising. Everyone's been getting different levels of QC and quality depending on the day.

[@anthonyrollins9825]

personally my opinion - there have been lots of ppl that have tested this knife and got the same results as you , better than average D2........... and then this one dude tests it and its complete crap .....and you don't see his test at all just the results .......I SMELL B.S. my opinion he laid the edge back way to fine ...... to propagate a bad test result ..... I am of the mindset he did it to get clicks ..... which turns me away from anything outdoors55 produces.... I cant trust anything he puts out.

[@knivesiguess]

I mean, I laid the bevel on mine WAYYYY back. Probably farther than he did. He showed the cardboard being diced up. I doubt he'd put his reputation on the line over an Ozark Trail.

[@anthonyrollins9825]

@@knivesiguess I dont put anything past anyone....... and a single person reporting a complete garbage result is highly suspicious and the fact all you see is small snippets of the cut test not the whole test SCREAMS B.S. to me.

[@knivesiguess]

Fair enough, I guess.

[@ChadCarney-hu3du]

I don't get why these knives are sold out, just bc a knife is 10 bucks doesn't make it a good deal, I wouldn't take it for free😂 everyone falling for the marketing strat. "It's horrible but it's only 10 bucks" is the worst logic ever

[@knivesiguess]

It's not that, I think. Once they started showing up on KZbin and Faceballs FOMO kicked in pretty hard.