The Wasp

[Big Don]

The WASP:
From the website:

This weapon injects a frozen ball of compressed gas approximately the size of a basketball at 850psi nearly instantly. The effects of this injection will drop many of the world's largest land predators. The effects of the compressed gas not only cause over-inflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea

Well, I am intrigued. The idea of sticking a knife into your attacker and literally blowing them up, is, novel, to say the least.
Are the physics good? HellifIknow.
It looks kinda cool, but, could clearly look cooler.
No price, no sale date...
What do you think?
BTW, I think I saw the stab them, they explode bit in a crappy Wesley Snipes movie...

 

[tellner]

It's an interesting idea. I'm a little concerned about a couple things

• Accidental discharge of the gas
• Effects of a broken or bent tip, say if you hit bone
• For the gas to be effective it must be discharged while the knife sufficiently far in the body. If the shark doesn't hold still you may have problems
• Shifting grips in the heat of a life or death situation is problematic
• The expanding gases may simply dislodge the knife or at least move it enough so that the gases mostly vent. How significant is this? We can't know withoutdoing some experiments
• If you're underwater an old fashioned bang stick might work better. They are both one-shot devices.
• The WASP is not a terribly well designed dive knife. They are used as tools almost all the time and as defensive weapons very rarely if ever. I'd rather have a good dive knife and lug around a speargun or bang stick than a mediocre knife.
• It's just going to suck as a hunting knife. The geometry is wrong for a skinning knife. I can't see it as a camp knife. It won't stand up to much of the abuse that an outdoors knife gets. If you're getting in knife fights with bears or mountain lions you already have serious problems; the trick knife is not going to solve many of them
• It seems like it would be at its best as a man-killing knife.

Other than that it seems well worth considering. I'd prefer to see the same technology applied to spears in a way that automatically discharges the gas when the barb is firmly set. Of course, that's going to cause problems if you're spear fishing. When the tuna turns into a rapidly rising and expanding ball of frozen hash before your eyes it kind of ruins the trophy or dinner possibilities

 

[tellner]

The WASP:
No price, no sale date...
What do you think?

Will you hit me if I call it
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*Drumroll*
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Vapor Ware

 

[Big Don]

Will you hit me if I call it
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.
*Drumroll*
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Vapor Ware

Hit you with, a different imaginary weapon? The BFStick 9000? guarundamnteed to hit 87½% harder than similar sticks, pricing, sale date, production facts to be announced...

Isn't Vaporware one word?

 

[Big Don]

With all it's possible problems, imagine this:
It's Thanksgiving, and Bubba is carving the turkey when he accidentally hits the button...
BOOM.
Oh the huge manatee
Seriously, what good is a toy (or a tool) whose capabilities you cannot field test (try out)?
You'd almost have to blow up a pot roast or a ham, twice. (Once when you first got it, once with your friends in attendance)

 

[MA-Caver]

This is a video of the knife against a watermelon (or two) and gives an idea of what exactly it can do.
[yt]Sa_NC-_fvKs[/yt]

Now granted if you can get the blade into the person this would indeed be devastating. They won't blow apart like a melon but the internal damage would be too much for even the most skilled surgeon.

Scary blade to be sure.

 

[jks9199]

It's scary... but I'm skeptical of it's actual effectiveness.

And watermelons don't impress me for a demo like that (anyone remember the time that the editors of Black Belt responded to 60 Minutes demon on how dangerous shuriken are by sticking all sorts of stuff into a watermelon?)...

Especially for this sort of thing... try it on a rump roast.

 

[Kacey]

It's scary... but I'm skeptical of it's actual effectiveness.

And watermelons don't impress me for a demo like that (anyone remember the time that the editors of Black Belt responded to 60 Minutes demon on how dangerous shuriken are by sticking all sorts of stuff into a watermelon?)...

Especially for this sort of thing... try it on a rump roast.

I agree - watermelons are used for this sort of demonstration all the time because they have such a high water content and explode so easily. If someone was attacking me so intently that I had to stick a knife in them, I doubt I'd have time to make sure it was properly seated and then trigger the mechanism.

 

[Big Don]

Especially for this sort of thing... try it on a rump roast.

That's what I was waiting for.

 

[ChukaSifu2]

These are starting at $379.99. They have done other tests on ballistics gel and other things....to find out the effects of it's uses. They say with practice you can stick a shark and discharge the gas in a single motion, obviously they originally designed this knife for people who have had or may have encounters with sharks. The other sales pitches are to make the product more marketable to survivalists and such.You can go to their site at www.waspknife.com.

 

[thetruth]

Mate, our weapons laws are so strict that I wouldn't even bother looking at the purchase. It would get stopped at customs and I'd probably be asked what the hell I want with such a knife (it'd be fun to blow up some butchers meat but I'd have no real use for it). I can't even get a shock knife delivered here.

Here is a question. If you defended your self against an attacker with a wasp and blew his guts apart would it be seen as defendable in court as opposed to just stabbing them with a regular knife? A bit excessive I would say.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[tshadowchaser]

The darn thing can not really be legal can it
That is one scary knife

 

[takadadojokeith]

For some reason this reminds me of the "sharks with with friggin' lasers" in the Austin Powers movies. Sometimes just having a shark (or a knife) isn't good enough.

 

[jks9199]

The darn thing can not really be legal can it
That is one scary knife

Why wouldn't it be? It would be subject to the various laws about concealment, but it'd be legal.

For it's original design purpose... Maybe. I'm still skeptical; as someone else said, there are other things out there that are better for each use. I see this as a "in case of" more than a "I expect to encounter" for a diver... but it's adding a piece of gear that is questionable for any use.

For other marketed purposes... Stick with a regular knife, in my opinion. Too much I can see that looks problematic and failure prone with this.

 

[theletch1]

While reading this thread I kept having the Monty Python skit running through my head where the guys are police cadets learning self defense... Alright! If someone attacks you with a watermelon what are you gonna do?! :lfao: