WASP INJECTION CO2 KNIFE - THE WORLDS DEADLIEST KNIFE?
20Sep
THIS FIXED BLADE FEATURES A CO2 CARTRIDGE IN THE HANDLE, AND DELIVERS AN 800PSI BLAST OF COMPRESSED GAS AT THE PUSH OF A BUTTON.
Written by PATRICK MCCARTHY on June 29, 2017
.A knife is a relatively simple tool — a piece of solid metal (or some other hard material) with a sharp edge and sometimes a piercing point. Over the years, a few designers have tried thinking outside the box to develop knives which can deal more damage to a specific type of target.
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CO2 injection weapons were originally developed by divers as protection against sharks. They were once known by colorful names like ‘Barf The Magic Dragon,’ and cause frightful injuries to any animal they’re used against. When instantly injected with several dozen cubic feet of CO2, sharks were known to expel most of their internal organs out their mouths (and other orifices) while rocketing to the surface.
These effects are similar to the effects of powerheads or bang sticks, but without the concussive effects of detonating a firearm cartridge underwater.
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WASP INJECTION CO2 KNIFE is currently marketed as a defensive knife for divers, hunters and outdoorsmen. I’m not a diver so I won’t speculate as to its utility as an anti-shark weapon, other than to say it looks a hell of a lot better than nothing.
But I’d never plan on using any knife against a bear or mountain lion, unless I had nothing else available. Bears and cats are a lot stronger than us, and can kill or disable a human with a single blow. Unless you’re a fearless badass with a gassed and spinning chainsaw, any distance weapon is preferable to any hand-to-hand weapon when it comes to fighting wild animals. (I would count spears as distance weapons for this purpose.)
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This knife injects CO2 in an attempt to expand and freeze a wound cavity.
A few of these unconventional knife designs have utilized compressed gas. Ballistic knives, for example, have used compressed air or CO2 to fire a blade a short distance from the handle. Outside video games and movies, the effectiveness of ballistic knives is dubious to say the least. But there’s a second type of knife that uses compressed gas — the injection knife.
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It is designed to inject high-pressure gas into a wound cavity through a hole in the blade, rather than using gas to propel the blade forward. This is said to expand and freeze the wound, inflicting more damage to the target. On Wasp Injection, the knife’s manufacturer states:
“This weapon injects a freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball, at 800psi 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.”
These are some bold claims, but how does the knife’s injection system fare in reality? Unsurprisingly, there doesn’t appear to be any video footage of SCUBA divers stabbing sharks with the WASP, but several YouTubers have tested the knife on ballistic gel, plastic bottles, and watermelons to show how the system works:
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One downside to this knife is that it can only inject CO2 once before the handle must be unscrewed and a new cartridge must be installed. Also, it’ll set you back $500 for standard models, or $600 for the larger WASP Bowie model.
So, what do you think of this unconventional injection knife? Tell us your opinion in the comments below.
