Home Front: Impact testing

I wanted to do a bit of a demonstration on the effects of some of the impact tools I have been covering of late, and throughout my reviews.

Here's the lineup:
1)Cybernetic Research Labs Tactical Pen
2)Ti2 Techliner pen
3)RaidOps MF Delta
4)RaidOps TM Joe
5)Sharp Shooter keychain




I asked a group of my hitting and hacking peers and came up with "pumpkin" as as good a target for testing as any.

I wanted a good solid target, which would offer a fleshy impact simulation, not be pulped, but also not shatter on impact. I happened to have a butternut pumpkin handy and it being winter here, wanted some with dinner.

For good repeatability of the tests, I chose a downwards punch from about chest height for each strike. I didn't put any hip into the strike, nor follow through, just a static jab type punch. For the pen type tools I used a downward stab, from the heel of the fist. I braced the pumpkin with a pencil, just to stop it rolling, and turned it for each strike to hit a fresh surface 

The CRL. Tactical Pen sunk in only to the depth of the tool tip, stopping at the body of the pen. It collected a lot of material on the way out. In fact, my pen still has pumpkin wedged into the fluting.

The Ti2 TechLiner pen sunk in further than I would have expected for a blunt tool, but it's sleek lining offered little resistance. It also cored some pumpkin, but not nearly as aggressively as the CRL pen.

The MF -Delta had a fairly shallow penetration, with the flat head giving a regular indentation and the bottle opener head giving a shallower, but jagged indentation. I wasn't surprised that the Delta didn't dig in more, but it did feel very comfortable in the hand. 

The TM -Joe dug in a surprising amount, all the way to the "jaw" of the tool, which upon reflection, shouldn't have been surprising, given the chisel-wedge shape of the teeth of this tool.  

The SharpShooter was an interesting test. I did two, one from the key-end as a flail. Again with my hand held around chest height, and the second as a pen-strike as with the CRL and Ti2 pens. 

The flail end of the SharpShooter left a very shallow, but messy set of intends, one for each key, as well as the shackle, and even one from the ring (which I accidentally had left loose, rather than around my finger as per the instructions).






The pen end of the SharpShooter was fairly disappointing, but not unexpected, mostly because of the combination of the rubber stopper and the paracord knot. It left a bit of a bruise on the skin, but no discernible penetration. 

I then started cutting up my pumpkin, and got to see the trauma dished out by each tool.

The CRT and Ti2 pens showed their depth of penetration and the tissue trauma really nicely.

The MF-Delta's shallow penetration belayed the broad spread of trauma beneath the skin, which was quite pervasive all around the penetration, to a respectable depth

The TM-Joe offered a comparable amount of trauma, but deeper and wider. This is definitely the nastier of the two tools to strike with. I shudder to consider the combined effects of skin and flesh and bone when struck by this titanium tool.


The Sharp Shooter didn't display any significant penetration, nor trauma beneath the rind of the pumpkin (which was delicious, I might add).

All in all I'd say that the RaidOps TM-Joe was the most devastating tool to make a mess of a pumpkin with, and perhaps I will move on to some meat-tests with it, like I did with the SuperHammer and KA-BAR knives ...