Northern,
The interesting thing (to me) about your Crash axe is that the Crash Axe is also SR-77.
Swamp Rat first used SR-77 for the Crash Axes prior to Scrap Yard being created.
From your photos of the edge of the Crash Axe, it looks to me to be the same type of bubble failure that has happened at least twice with Dogfathers.
I have to wonder if this "Bad Batch" of SR-77 was all from the same lot of steel blanks.
In any event, flaws can happen in such a way as being hard to detect from the factory. Pretty much ANY knife-maker is subject to having a given knife with an undectable flaw or weak spot.
The Great thing about Busse is they have a great documented track record of GREAT warranties.
I have witnessed a few Busse and Swamp Rat warranties as well. They have all been taken care of. There was even some guy (I will refrain from calling an idiot because Eric requested me not to...) who used his Rat Trap to pry ice chunks with. The Rat Trap is made from S30V which is not well suited for prying.
Eric replaced the guys Rat Trap even though most people believed the knife had been abused / used in a way that the Rat Trap shouldn't be expected to be used.
I don't want to say there were many other examples - because over the years considering the number of knives sold, there have been a VERY small percentage of defective knives that needed warranty work.
I beleive Jerry at one time said he averaged less than 1 INFI blade warranty request per year. - ...... But, the larger percentage of INFI blades appear to be safe queens compared <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> to SR-77 and SR-101. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
INFI may be super tough, but apparently too expensive to use for most. INFI seems to mostly be an investment commodity. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
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