Coming up, a very special gentleman Junkie giveaway knife.
Two interesting new civivi knives. And these
folders should be in every collection. I'm Bob
DeMarco. This is the Knife Junkie podcast.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob the knife junkie DeMarco.
Welcome back to the show. One of my favorite comics comments from this past week
was from my buddy Strings, who says, great episode, brother. That
bison, he's talking about the new concept. That bison is a banger.
I, for one, can't wait till you hit 50k. I would love to win
a Pinkerton. That's custom knife. How awesome of him to
make one for you to give away. And awesome for you to include us.
Include it for us. So he's talking about
a knife. Either this knife or another model Dirk is going to
be making when we hit 50,000 subscribers coming
up soon. So thank you very much, Strings. Greatly
appreciate your comment. Next up is from Bruce,
who says best knife content ever. This MF is
the goat. Thank you very much, Bruce. That puts wind in my sails. Thank you
for your kind words. All right, that said, let's get to a pocket
check. what's in his pocket? Let's find
out. Here's the Knife junkie with his pocket
check of knives. In my pocket today is the beautiful
Bison from Concept Knives. This thing is
designed by Ray Laconico, who
ordinarily, we kind of know him for his super clean
and much smaller than this. Drop points. Very
classy knives. Just an incredible designer
Conoco. He's not just a designer, he's a custom maker as well.
But this one is kind of out of his
wheelhouse and I really like it. You know, sometimes as a creative person,
you have to do something different, do something unusual
and really great things can happen. Bison is
definitely evidence of that. That's a four
and a quarter inch S35VN clip point blade.
And then of course, we know this is a titanium frame lock. Just
such a great knife. This was. I carried this to a.
An a. What would you call it, a crab fest
this weekend for a friend's birthday. And it got a lot of
oohs and ahs. A number of guys there, I got into knives
or were already into knives, but maybe. Maybe my
influence got them even more into them. Anyway, we were all showing each other
our knives. It was a great love, great moment. I pulled this one
out, of course. Ooh, it's nice and big. It's
got that super smooth action and it is thumb stud
only deployment and I've gotten used to it.
But it's a little stiff on the, on the detent though. Having it for
about two weeks at this point I, I've felt it break in
so Great knife concept. Does amazing stuff. I
love their work and of course Ray Laconico. I'm happy to finally have a
Ray Laconico in my collection. Next up
in my back, right back left pocket was the
awesome and very, very
highly carried. This summer I'm going to be doing a summer
update towards the end of the summer of my most carried folders. This
will definitely be in it most carried folders of the summer. This is the
JW Collab Tango. Just a
beautiful, beautiful knife. It's a collaboration with Cerberus
Blades and I love that compound ground
sort of sponto style blade drop point,
deeply hollow ground, main cutting surface. And then at the tip it
graduates to a more robust flat grind for
piercing and tougher tasks. Really, really
sickeningly smooth action. I love the action
on this. I can even front flip it with my left hand. Watch this.
I mean, you know, this old dog can hunt.
It's got the beautiful sun pattern,
sun ray pattern coming out of the pivot there.
Beautiful titanium, blasted titanium
handle. Okay, next up in my
waistband today. I haven't carried this in a while but this is
arguably the knife that really got me started.
Carrying fixed blade EDPs on the regular and that
is the hog Tooth knives EDC Tanto.
154 cm deep hollow grind of course with that robust
tip again for penetrating tasks and and such.
Usually this has a sort of textured sculpted handle but since
this is that rubberized
G10, he opted not to,
what do you call it, you know, put grooves in there for
gription. It already has that in the rubber that's exposed.
It's not rubbery, but you can feel a little bit of grip
to it. This is just such an awesome knife. This is the
platform upon which Matt and I did the
Nova 1 Bowie, the Nova 2 Kiridashi and
we're working on the Nova 3. I'll let you know when that's good to go.
This is a great knife. I've carried it so much. But also
I have heard a, a story from Matt.
He made one for a buddy's son who was deployed and let's just
say it came in clutch in a, in a pinch
and he was able to extricate himself from a
deadly situation with that very knife. So, so
I Like knowing. I like knowing that there's a pedigree
to the tactical knife that carry. Last up for emotional
support, I had the
Voyager XL from Cold Steel. This tonto
fully serrated and this one has a Snaggletooth MF on
it. My Chris, my serrated and
then two of my serrated vacuros have this on it.
These, these pocket catches are the best. I love them.
Rob Penna of Snaggletooth Tactical really came up with an
awesome little device when he created that. He's got it for
a number of different blade options, whether it
be cold steel or any knife that has removable
thumb studs. Speaking of cold steel, large cold steels, I just finally
broke down in order to Mayhem. So next time you see me, I will be
the proud owner of a Mayhem. He does make a Snaggletooth
MF that fits the Mayhem, so I will be getting that as well.
This I carried because on the weekend, this past weekend, I
had my drop point Voyager in pocket for two
days of backyard stuff,
backyard work. And it came in very handy for
removing several cedar limbs on a cedar tree we
have that is just beset by. By
creeping vines. And I had to basically take a couple of limbs off
to. To. Well, to. To handle the situation
that got me back into my Voyager xl. So this one I had with me
today. Love this thing. Look at that. What a great night. Everyone
should have one in their collection. Though this one in particular is not
in the list. That's coming up. This is what I had on me today. What
do you have on you? I had the XL Voyager Tanto
version. I had the Tanto EDC Tanto from Hog
Teeth Knives at the JW collabs Tango and the
concept Bison. Beautiful knife. Tell
me what you had. It's always a blast to hear what you guys carry.
All right, next up, this is a very special giveaway knife for this
month. That's August 2025 gentleman
junkie knife giveaway. This comes to me courtesy
of Shane, the edgy American of Edgy American Blade
works. If you come to Thursday Night Knives, you know Shane
and you probably know him anyway. He's. He's been around for the last
for quite a while in the knife
commentariat, if you will. But he's been making knives for
about a year, maybe a little more. But his skills have
really surpassed his time behind the
grinder. This is a clip point blade,
not his favorite style blade, but he made it just for me knowing that I
love clip points and all of you. So this will Be going out
as a gentleman junkie. Knife giveaway knife. Before I pull it out, I just
want to say 1931 leather works, who also comes on Thursday
night knives quite a bit. Made the really
nice leather sheath. Robust, tough leather sheet. I've
said robust thrice already in this podcast. I gotta, I gotta trim
that word out. Really, really beautiful. Let's pull out this
blade. Here it is. Here's your clip point blade.
I believe this is 3V or crew wear. Now I'm,
I'm not remembering. I. I'm pretty sure this is 3V.
It's nice and thin. 3V or crew wear will make it tough
and give it great edge retention. Really nice
G10 sort of jungle handle. And then these poured.
What do you call these pins? Poured pins. So that's
epoxy and colored coloring in
there and so it's all epoxied together. And then he made
his own pins. Basically fits nicely in the hand. You get a four
finger grip. This one I could see making a
Kydex sheath for. And carrying in the waistband concealed. It's
a, it's a perfect size for that. And there is his
little stripper girl logo or. Or is that a
mud flap logo? I mean I feel like I've seen that on the back of
semi trucks. In any case, a classic design done
by a great guy, great knife maker. And this thing is wickedly
sharp with a cool sheath. So
yeah, become a gentleman junkie and that'll, that'll
be. You'll be in the running to win this knife right here. The edgy
American Bowie knife. Speaking of
Patreon, you heard about knife notes. This is
a regular new feature for patrons
on our Patreon page. This is something Jim puts together
on the regular. I can't even, I can't even keep up with it.
So it's really cool. This latest one is
on. It is a. On this day in knife history.
And it just so happens that on that day in knife history, that was
July 26th, he's talking about the birth of Sheffield
Bowie craftsman Fred James. He was a legendary
Bowie knife craftsman, born in the 20s, 1920
I believe, and worked with IXL in Sheffield
and then later on became his own
maker, has started his own company and
really became famous for his classic chef field
style bows. If you didn't know this.
In the 1800s, Sheffield,
England, a the. The knife making capital of England, became
a huge maker of the American Bowie and a lot of Bowie knives. There
was a huge, what do you call it,
demand for Bowie knives here in the United States. And a lot of them
came from Sheffield, England, because there just wasn't enough manufacturing
capacity here at the time to make the amount of Bowie knives
needed to keep people happy here. And I love that we need
another Bowie Rush here in the States. I just think
it's really cool that it was a totally
ubiquitous knife at the time. So check it out. Check out
knife notes. It is really, really cool. You'll get a slice of history
or you'll get an inside look at a certain knife design. Like we
covered the M3 trench knife last week and the Bowie and the
Kukri. Lot of really cool stuff, even
ancient cooking knives. So go to the knife
junkie.com/patreon and check it out. And check out all the things
we have to offer there, including interview extras. That's
probably my favorite part. But besides knife notes, my favorite part of
what we offer you, Patreon. Plus you can be entered into
the knife giveaway if you're a gentleman junkie. That's the high tier of support.
You can do that by going to by scanning the QR code right here on
your screen or going to the Knife Junkie.com Patreon
that's the Knife Junkie.com Patreon adventure
delivered your monthly subscription for hand picked outdoor
survival, EDC and other cool gear from our expert
team of outdoor professionals. Thenif junkie.com
battlebox. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast.
And now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life news..
Okay, first up in Knife Life news, knife that was
released in 2024 by CRKT by
Princeton Wong. You know him as Prince. Custom custom
knives. This is a really cool design
based on these Korean Mecha
warriors. Remind me a lot of the Shogun warriors from when I was
a kid in the 70s. These cool giant robotic
robots. Robotic warrior robots that fight monsters and
stuff. Anyway, it's called the Nucleus
and we covered this on Knife Life News last year. Very cool
futuristic design in 12C
28 and steel. Well now they've come out with a
fully maxed out version and this is a a
full materials upgrade the new one. And you can get either
depending on how much you want to spend and what materials you want on your
knife. But the new one is Magnacut and
titanium. So that's a 2.23-inch magnacut
blade modified worn clif modified
sheepsfoot. You decide. With a cool compound grind
and flipper front flipper and a nice big opening hole for
that reverse finger flick. And then as you move aft,
you got the carbon fiber bolster and then a
titanium frame. See through titanium frame with sculpted titanium
pocket clip. 2.3 ounces. So super light.
That's almost an ounce less than the steel version
which is 3.1 ounces. So your choice, go to their website.
I was checking it out. Go to their website. You can kind of outfit it
the way you want. Beautiful black colored version there too.
That's available now. All
right, next up, Opinel. Opinel has been around for over 100
years, I guess well over 100 years at this point. The
French peasant knife or the French farmer's knife, or just the
French everyday carry working man's knife that we all know and love.
With the wooden handle, the carbon steel clip point blade
with the Vibro lock, that rotating
collar lock, it sits around the collar, right behind the tang. You
twist it and then that blade is not shut. It will.
After so much time they decided to give it an
update and it's called the Neo 6. Now up and
Opinel. Opinel has different
sizes of the same design. Starting at three I think and going
to 13. The number six and the number eight are
the two most popular. So they decided to do
an update of the number six called the NEO6. And what
did they do? They after a hundred years of continuous tradition, they
decided to change the lock to something called an OP
Flex lock. Its garage got a spring loaded peg.
When you open it that, that interrupts the,
the blade from going back into the handle. And,
and what else did they do? They blunted the tip. They made it a
more people friendly knife. It's, it's sort of a, a woke French
knife if you will. So a, a, a blunted rounded
off tip that I gotta say that depresses me, that really bums me out
man. You know, if you want to innovate, quote
unquote on the, on the lock after a hundred years, okay, fine,
do your thing. But the blunting of the blade is not an innovation. It's
a step backward. But who am I, who am I to judge? You can still
go to Opinel and get all of their other really, really awesome knives
with sharp tips which comes in handy.
That's a 2.75 inch blade up as opposed to the very
famous number eight that I was just talking about. That's a three and a quarter
inch. This rounded tipped Neo 6
with the new lock called the OP Flex is available
now. Next up, some sad news.
John Benner, a very famous KA Bar knife
designer has Passed away. And he
was the man who designed the very,
very popular TDI knives. TDI stands for
Tactical Defense Institute. It's a
shooting and tactical institute for civilians
that he created after his service for the country was
over. He was a longtime soldier, law
enforcement officer, SWAT guy for a long time
and, and then he retired from that to start
the most highly, one of the most highly respected training
organizations in, in the nation. And in doing so, he
created the TDI knife that, that's the KA Bar
that takes the extreme curve. It's got a pistol grip and
it's, it was originally invented for
police officers for gun retention. So they're in a struggle
and someone's going for their gun. This fits right on the
duty belt and it's shaped a lot like a gun. So it's a
very familiar tactile
format. They could pull that and, and use it to
keep their gun to themselves. So I've always
liked those knives. It really became a very large and
successful line for K Bar. So
best, best wishes, rest in peace, John Benner
and best wishes to his family in this
tough time. There he is, John Benner on screen.
All right, lastly for Knife Life News, I just want to make a
quick announcement that Knife Rights is Knife
Rights's Knife Rights is running its ultimate
steel donation drive. It's their
annual drive where they get a hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars, more than $125,000 in prizes
to give away to you. The, the, the
people who help, who donate and help Knife Rights stick around.
I mean they have changed the knife laws in just about 40
states now. I know they made automatic
knives legal in my state of Virginia like 100% legal even to
conceal. So really made a 180 in this state and
they've done that in so many other states. If you get in there
and donate, you double your chances to win with a tail end
bonus drawing. So if you donate 100 bucks, you get a
SOG knife. If you donate 200 bucks you get a Spyderco
400, you get this cool QSP 500, you get a
cold steel a thousand you get a Hogue. And
then at the tail end there's a drawing to
win the, the many, many other prizes they have. I mean they
have donations from the likes of Kirby Lambert
and, and K Bar and
gun manufacturers and all sorts of
custom knife makers who recognize the
value of knife rights and donate a piece every year. If you go
to Blade show and you go to the knife rights booth, you'll see all of
these amazing prizes. And there are even more waiting in
the wings that you could win. So definitely,
if you value your knife rights, go to
kniferights.org and sign up and donate to the
Ultimate Steel 2025. Or you can go to
kniferights.org
ultimatesteel/2025-ultimate-steel if you're listening.
All right, we gotta have Doug Ritter back on and we gotta talk
about that. It's got of an annual tradition at this point and it's a
great way to keep the knives you want in your
pocket. All right, coming up, we have the
state of the Collection. I got some really cool stuff to show you, but before
we get there, just want to remind you, Thursday night knives, every Thursday, 10:00pm
Eastern Standard Time. That's when you stand to win a
knife. Pretty much every week we give away a knife right now because
this is, this was not built into the original concept of a show. But
some very, very generous friends have donated knives to this channel
and I've got a bunch of them just sitting on a shelf over there waiting
to be won by you. And then of course, every
third Thursday of the month we do a special knife drawing
for gentlemen junkies. So go to the, go to the knife
junkie.com join to actually
come on the show and watch. But otherwise 10pm
Eastern Standard Time on YouTube and Facebook and you could watch
this awesome show Thursday Night Knives. It's a great chance to meet me and
meet other like minded individuals and just have a great hang as
the weekend begins. All right, coming up,
the state of the collection. If you search Google for the best knife podcast, the
answer is the Knife Junkie podcast. First up, in the state
of the collection, a production knife from Auxiliary
Manufacturing. So here it is. This is from the
Deadhead series of knives coming out,
produced by Miguron Knives and of course
designed by Michael Jarvis and Auxiliary Manufacturing.
So this is a custom version, I mean, I'm sorry, a production
version of his custom pocket Bowie.
Here's the pocket Bowie. I just shot the old sheath
off of it. I'll just place it down here for contrast. But
they did an amazing job. Megaron did an amazing job of taking
this custom knife and making it a
production item. Really added some,
there's some value added here. I would say this is a 99
knife as opposed to the custom which is more and harder to
get. They added a sharpening choil. It's
14C28 and blade steel. This is 80CRL2
up here. I'm sorry, this is AEBL up here. The custom
so and then micarta handles here sculpted.
This comes in all black. A black coated blade with black
G10. Or you can get it in this beautiful satin
with the green, the hunter green
micarta. Look at that thing. That is beautiful with that recurve.
Super sharp. I love the sweep on that clip.
Great sheath. Taco style sheath with the thumb push off and
a mini Tek Lok style clip on the
back. They also are producing this in a folding
version, a titanium frame lock folding version.
And that thing is spectacular too. I had a chance to check that
out at Blade Show. Those will run you 299. This will
run you 99. So get behind this design one way
or the other. It is a great small EDC
fixed blade. Carry this one. For the production
model they added jimping too, which, who doesn't love jimping?
I love jimping. Fits great in the hand forward or reverse grip.
You've got that coffin shaped handle. Just works like
a dream and is super comfortable. So check this out. This is
from Miguran and Auxiliary manufacturing. There's the
deadhead logo. That's the series for this production.
Coffin handled knife. All right,
next up, I got two new Civivis from Civivi in the
mail and they are interesting. The first one I'll, I'll show you is the
more interesting one. This one is called the
Natter Jack. We talk about this. We, we announced that
this would be coming out right here on the
midweek supplemental here of the Knife Junkie podcast. And now I
have it in hand and I'll be a hundred percent honest.
It's a little goofy looking, but wow. Does it feel
great in hand? Really feels it just melts into
my hand. So fully scalloped all the way around.
You've got scalloping on the spine of the blade which,
which trans transforms into
little Anzo style grooves coming onto the
surface of the G10 handle slab. But 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 scallops on the spine. You've got four corresponding
scallops on the bottom for your fingers and it really, it
nestles in there nicely. I, I, I gotta say, I'm not
crazy about how it looks, but I love how it feels. It's like that
line from Pulp Fiction.
Spine of the blade has a couple of scallops too. Looking a little bit
like a SOG MACV SOG bow with one extra peak
clip point blade. 14C 28 and button lock. Awesome
action. They've really nailed the button lock. It's a
bb. Comes in four different colorways. I Got this nice
storm cloud blue. I like saying it like
that. Or it's just gray. If you're looking it up and you want to buy
it, just gray. The great pocket clip. I love this
Civivi pocket clip. Very plain loop over pocket clip
without any, any writing or billboarding on it.
Standoffs there. No place to put a lanyard.
So tough for you though this, this one
here might be a, a place you could put a lanyard. It's between
those two thick standoffs. But
yeah, I'm. I'm digging it. I didn't think I would. And now
that I have it, I like it. But again, not crazy about the looks, but
crazy about the feels. I have not used this yet. This
just came in as I record that. I'm recording this so
haven't had a chance to use this yet. You'll see a
close up video coming up soon. Okay, next up
also from Civivi. This one has gotten carried. I carried this
yesterday. This arrived yesterday for me as I record
this. This is called. What is this thing called
again? This is the Guile. The Guile.
A really, really nice Little Wharncliffe
that's 14C28 and designed by Sean
Ashmore. Sorry, I had to, I had to refer to the spec sheet
here. Shawn Ashmore. Ceramic bearings.
Really nice wharncliffe shaped blade with an excellent
cutout here for reverse finger flicking or thumb
flicking or slow rolling however you want to open it. This
really works well. And one thing I like about the opening hole
here is that it's nice and sharp on the edge so it really
catches your thumb and or
forefinger for an easy flick out. Comes with
G10 handles. I opted for this obnoxious green. I really like
it for some reason. Same really great loop over
pocket clip. Here's Mr.
Ashmore's maker's mark there. And
yeah, the blade is excellent. Very acute point.
I. I dare say it would be great in reverse grip in a pinch if
you needed to use this defensively. Did I mention
14C 28N? I think I did. Open flow through
construction as most civivis with standoffs.
So this one is cool. Also comes in a number of colorways.
Highly recommend this so far. I mean with me
civivi is fire and forget.
If you will like. If you like the design,
you're gonna like the knife because it's going to be a great. I haven't had
one lemon yet. Knock on wood from
Civivi yet. So really great knife front
flips. Well, despite my poor performance on screen There we
go. All right, so that's from Civivi and it's called
the Guile. Civivi's got a knife in this next list coming
up. We're going to get to that in a second. But before we talk about
folders that should be in every collection, want to show you
this new design from Jim. Ask me about
my Rockwell Hardness. Yeah,
great, Great tagline. I like the tagline. Let everyone know
that you're still a, a virile dude
and wear this hat or, or T shirt
or what have you. So this is at the knife
junkie.com shop. You get the design
on anything you want, basically. You can get mugs, you can get
aprons, hats, T shirts, hoodies, long sleeve T shirts, all
sorts of stuff. I am currently. I just,
I just recently went looking for the Knife Junkie logo.
That's on page 20 all the way back at the beginning. So many pages of
cool designs that Jim has come up with. Check it out.
Ask me about my Rockwell Hardness
classic. I. I shouldn't say any more about that. All right.
Speaking of classics, these are knives. These are folders that should
be in every collection. That said, I'm not saying you need to have all of
these in your collection, but these are the ones that, to
me, these are folders that are just hit on all,
all cylinders and are standards for their type.
First up, predictably, is the buck
110. And for a lot of these, I'm going to present
alternatives. So here is the buck 110. Not
sure why that's not showing up exactly.
Clearly. And as an alternative, you can get the
smaller buck 112. Now the
112 and the 110 are
pretty much the same knife. Just the 112 is
shrunk, shrunk down. That's called the Ranger oftentimes. And this is called
the Folding Hunter 110 Folding Hunter 112 Ranger.
Really great knives. I put one of those aftermarket
thumb studs on the 112.
They've been around a long time. 420HC steel. They
come with beautiful leather sheaths. To quote
Rob Bixby of the Apostle P. This is old school
redneck tactical folders. And they're great.
They are heavy. They are not easy to just drop in
pocket. They are pretty solid and dense though. These days
Bucks makes a lot of different versions of these in lighter
materials. But this is the classic and they're
extremely sharp, deeply hollow ground. You get a great
cutting edge on these knives. So I highly
recommend them. They're back locks, you just gotta have one.
And a friend of mine is
liquidating some knives that his father had, may
he rest in peace. And he's got a couple of one
12s and I, I think he's offering me
one to buy and I'm definitely going to buy it. This one is a little
bit older from the 80s when things weren't rounded off
as much on the handle and they were more squared off. So I'm
excited to get one of those in my collection if he can part with
it and if he can't, I can't blame him. That would be an incredibly
sentimental thing for me. Next up, kind of going
in the opposite direction. That 112 has been around for over 50
years and now we're coming to one that's pretty new and it's
from Civivi. And I know a lot of people consider
this the best Civivi out there. This is
the Vision fg designed by Snacks,
Malaysian knife designer. This thing is
really great. It's got a neutral style handle. It's got
a blade that will pretty much do anything from
penetrating tasks with that tip to all sorts of
cutting tasks with that very, very gradually
bellied blade. It's 14C 28 and blade
steel, great blade steel. There's snacks
design here. And it's got this super lock which is a very strong
lock mounted on the spine. Does not interfere at all with
your grip. You don't feel it. It's kind of like the shark
lock in terms of placement. It will not
though. It looks like it should kind of get in the way. It does not
get in the way because of how the rest of the handle is designed.
You've got a clip up towards the top which always was vexed
me a little bit. It doesn't, it doesn't interfere too much, but I
can feel the clip ever so slightly. I always wonder why they didn't just
center it, but they didn't. Really, really
fidgety blade, I gotta say. With this lock style,
you can open it with the lock, close it
obviously with the lock, or you can use that thumb stud. But how it works
is there's that notch on the tang on the back of the
blade here. And as it opens up,
this lock has a little tab on it that falls into that
slot and then is held down with a spring. And then
of course, holding the knife itself reinforces the
lock. So a great locking mechanism. Very stylish and
cool looking. So you'll get, you get some of that in. Ooh. And ah,
cred when you pull it out. Oh, that's a cool knife, but not too
threatening, I would say. And then a
universally useful blade. The blade is just awesome. And then
Civivi, of course, grinds everything nice and thin, nice and
slicey. And for the most part, from what I've seen from other
people who, who really put them to the test, they heat treat their
steels magnificently. So the Vision
FG from Civivi is a knife that should
be in every collection. And one other thing I will add there also,
it's designed by a really great and innovative
designer who, if you want to get one of his custom knives,
save up and wait forever is what I got to say, because he only makes
like 10 of them at a time or something like that. So the SNEX design
Vision FG from Civivi. Next up is
no surprise. It's the Chris Reeve knives,
Sebenza, in this case the 21. Of course, you
can get the 31 or the one that preceded this. A 21
stands for how many years it was in production when it was
redesigned and. And then the 31, same thing.
The difference, one of the differences between the 21 and the
31 is in the interface here,
the detent ball instead of being down here
on the lock, the. I'm sorry, on the locking
leaf bar here, it's on the corner and it's a ceramic ball. So
much like the Umnum Zan and
other Chris Reeve knives, it's now what the
ceramic ball is what interfaces with the steel
tang instead of the
titanium. That said, there has never been an issue
with mine and I haven't really heard of anyone else having an issue
with any sort of lock stick on their Chris Reeve knives.
Sebenza with the titanium lock
bar engaging with the blade tang. Little schmutz in there. I
need to clean this out. This gets a fair amount of
use. I come in and out of
use with this. I'm seasonal with this. I just can't define the
season. Oftentimes it'll start with some sort of dressy occasion
where I think the most classy, most understated,
awesome knife that I have for the occasion would be the
Sebenza. I carry it to whatever that occasion is and then
it stays in the pocket for a while because it's just such an awesome knife.
And it's one of those knives against which all other
modern folding, locking, tactical, esque knives
are measured. It really is a do everything knife.
This one is the black Micarta
version which they came the scales came gray, these little
inlays came gray and immediately blackened up from
my hand and funk. So I
love the Chris Reeve knives. I, I have two and I feel like that's
pretty much all I need though. Every once in a while I'll start, I'll
get a wild hair up my bottom and I'll, I'll start looking at
Chris Reeve knives. But then I back off. I'm like, you don't carry them that
much that you need to go buy another Chris Reeves. Two
should suffice. Okay, next up is the
Kershaw Leek. This is my
wife's Kershaw Leak. Used to be mine, but she really
loved how thin this aluminum handle is and. Or
this, this is steel. How thin this steel handle is.
You know how ladies have really, really shallow pockets on
their jeans. Well, my wife has taken to
carrying her knives in the waistband and this
nice thin and smooth knife was probably the one she
discovered that form of carry with really
nice wharncliffe blade. It's got a bit of a belly, so you might,
you know, it's just a very slight belly. So you might not call this
a wharncliffe if you're gonna really nerd out about it, but we can, we
can, we can let that slide. 14C
28N on this blade. And I think they've made a number of
different versions of the Leak. I mean many, many different versions of the Leak
to include different steels. But it's got that
speed safe assisted opening, a hollow ground blade
and thumb stud opening too. Which is probably
my favorite way to open this because it just snaps up so, so
readily. If this, if you're, if this is a little too small
or you're not into the speedsafe assisted
opening. The other Kershaw that
I would say should be in every collection is in is a newish one
within the last two years. And I absolutely love this knife. This
is the USA made Iridium.
Iridium is an awesome
non assisted so bearings and
ambidextrous bar lock here. Just a great knife.
This has got the best, smoothest bar lock I have.
Period bar none to include
Benchmade and Hogue and Civivi.
This one is the, the butteriest. And I gotta say every
time I, I pull it out and I check it, I check the,
the blade for wobble, it's so free falling,
but it's not wobble. It's just awesome engineering and
really great build. So I would say the Iridium, if you
don't like the Kershaw Leak get the Iridium. But you should
have an a USA made Kershaw in your collection
and these fit the bill.
It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be USA made. They make a lot
of cool knives in China too. But Kershaw and,
and some of these classics. I'd say the Iridium is the new
classic and definitely the Leaf designed by Ken Onion is
a classic classic. So you gotta have one of those two. Next up
is the Ontario Rat series. I have a RAT
one that's in my Bugout bag in my car. My get home
bag in my car. But this is the two, the RAT
two with the three inch blade still you have those
nylon handles. Now this one is an older one so it's Aus
8. You can still get it in Aus 8 but now you can get it
in D2 as well. And D2 I just think is a
superior steel. Really great ergonomics on this knife.
Just a classic full flat ground blade.
This is. It's got to be 20 years this has been kicking it now
you've got just the right size here and that
upward angled. It's not upward angled but it's
upset a little high and I kind of like that. Gives you a
great place for the thumb. Gives you a very
useful drop point blade and
you can get it in all different color ways. This pink and black was a
gift from my older daughter via my wife
when she was a baby and wanted to give me a pink knife.
I suggested this one. I nicknamed this one Pinky
Tuscadero ages ago. And so that's what it is. We used to
name my knives around here. You may remember Sleepy
Bear, which will come up here soon. Soon. Both
named by by by my daughter. Really nice
knife. Everyone should have a rat 2 or a rat 1. It's. It's
that bang around knife that you don't feel guilty banging around
and that once it has some scars
from usage you're proud to to show off.
Next up, the Benchmade Bugout. This is the only Benchmade
on this list and it for me it beats out
pretty much all of them. I'm not a huge Benchmade fan as you probably know,
but I'm a huge fan of the Bugout and I also like the
Bailout quite a bit. I don't own one of those. This one has
been kind of tweaked to my liking. Of course you see the snaggletooth MF on
there because I carry this often in the back pocket or
in the inside pocket of my Winter jackets and I like just
having that automatic open feature. It, it
acts much like a wave to open it, snag it on your
pocket. I also got Allen Putnam scales here. So these are
aftermarket canvas Micarta
scales designed by and made by Alan
Putnam. I got them on Blade hq, I think.
And then of course you've got that short clip. I love the short benchmade
clip s 30v is what this one is made of. It
comes in other steels, a very smooth axis lock. Of course they were
the guys who invented the ambidextrous bar lock.
And here it is on my favorite Benchmade
Benchmade knife. If you want something super light, super thin,
very, very capable and fun to. Fun to
use and fidget with. The Benchmade bugout should be in every
collection. Next up, I spoke of Sleepy Bear before.
That's this. It's my Spyderco Delica.
In this case the Delica Endela which I don't have, or
the Endura should be in every
everyone's collection here. Got a.
A beautiful two versions of it with the blue and the purple.
This is a universally awesome knife. Full flat ground.
You've got a 3.75 inch blade on the Endura. It's got a 3 inch
blade on the Delica. And then in the middle at
three, three and a quarter you've got the Endela.
All great knives. You've got the FRN handles with the multi directional
texturing. So it grabs your thumb going this
way, grabs your hand going that way and nice and light.
Comes in a variety of colors. Cheerful, totally
unassuming. This one is my painting knife. So anytime
I have painting to do around the house, which isn't frequent, but
you know, every couple of years we decide to repaint a room or a hallway
or something. And this is the knife that goes in my pocket. I
don't know how that tradition started, but it did
and I love it. Very, very useful.
Thin, light, strong back lock knife.
And here is the Endura again. This was. I
want to get daddy a purple knife. And so I recommended this knife
and she promptly named it Sleepy Bear. That was back in
her Care Bear days. Spyderco
Endura and Spyderco Delica or Indella
I guess, even though that's a late comer, relatively speaking, should
be in every collection. Next up, in
lieu of the Spyderco, I mean of the Benchmade Griptilian,
is The Hogue Ritter RSK Mark 1.
This is what used to be called the Ritter grip
when it was made by Benchmade but this is
Doug Ritter of Knife Rights. This is his
knife idea. So he, he designed this drop point blade
and wanted to have it manufactured by the best manufacturers out
there. Back in the day it was Benchmade. He, he said just
use the griptilian handle. It's already there. It's
inexpensive, it's lightweight. But we're going to
make this different shaped blade with a super
steel. And at the time, you know, I think it was S30B was the first
incarnation of it. It went through a number of different steels with Benchmade and
then Benchmade stopped making OEM knives and he
landed at Hogue, which was awesome because in my opinion,
Hogue makes a better crossbar lock.
They call it the Able Lock Ambidextrous bar lock
enhanced. That's what Able stands for. This
is the small and then here's a larger version of it. This
one is an automatic, but you can get it, you can get it in the
regular manual version.
This one has a magnacut blade. Such a great
knife. The ergonomics are awesome. Hogue extended
the handle ever so slightly as compared to the Benchmade
version of this. They added this
contoured radial pattern pattern
here milled into the handle. It just melts into the
hand. Feels great. Such a useful blade shape
and a very robust knife. This is a do everything
style folder from tactical to
practical and everywhere in between. A great backpacking
knife, a great camping knife. So I would highly
recommend that you get one of these Hog Ritter
RSK mark ones in your collection if you don't already
have one. Lot of people have them, by the way. This
automatic version does come with a lock here, so you don't want it going
off in your pants pants pocket, which it's not going to
unless you're doing something crazy. That's a good way to stop
it. All right, next up
is the off grid Knives Stinger. This is a
big knife that's a full 4 inch blade. And this is the
second incarnation of this knife with that
full flat ground drop point blade. The first version had
more of a bayonet grind, but this thing and
all off grid knives as far as I'm concerned are the best.
They're just such great slicers. They're
my favorite knives to cut cardboard with. And so I
feel you should have an off grid knife in your
collection. The Stinger. This model here
is the most
universally, it's, it's kind of the most regular.
So you've got Extreme Wharncliffe's, you got extreme Bowies and other stuff,
but this one in this drop point is the most useful, I gotta
say. Really great. Comes in a large and a small.
You decide which one fits you best.
14 or 154 cm on this blade.
I love 154 cm and it
sharpens up easily, takes a great edge. The
pocket clip is loop over deep carry inset in
the G10 and very widely
chamfered blades. Makes it feel concord, but
leaves you with enough flat surface on the G10 to not have
it twist in your hand in hard use. And I've used these, I
don't want to say hard, but like, I haven't used
them like cutting tires and stuff like that, but I've
used them to carve wood and feather sticks and
I've used them for just tons and tons and tons and tons of
cardboard. We get a lot of big double
wall corrugated boxes here.
And this is what, this is what I use to break them down. So
I love these knives, plus just luscious action. OEM
either in Taiwan at one of
one of the great manufacturers in Taiwan, or Best
Tech. He uses key meaning carry
orifice. The guy who designs and owns the company
has a Taiwan manufacturer make them and Best Tech
make them. Next up is
the Microtech SOCOM Elite. A lot of great
microtechs out there. You might, you might choose a different knife, but this is
the one of all my microtechs that would stay if I had to give them
all away. This is my
first microtech. I've had this one for over 10 years at this point.
And this was a first in a lot of ways. My first
S35VN knife. This was my first knife with bearings in the
pivot. First knife with carbon fiber. It's just a great
knife. You can get this in a Tanto. The Tanto
now looks a little different, has a different profile on the newer versions.
And it doesn't have the carbon fiber, it has more of a grip tape here.
But the point is. Oh, this is also my first knife with the
glass breaker. That's why this is my, my
official road trip knife. I have to have this in my pocket
on road trips. Kind of become a superstition at this point,
but just a great all around robust knife. I've never had
any issues with this knife and I've carried it
probably more than any of my fancy expensive knives. And
I consider this fancy and expensive. These come in around 300
bucks I believe at this point. Very, very good ergonomics.
It's the one knife, one of two Knives I'll give a pass or
tip down only. But if you get the SOCOM Bravo made
by Reich Knives you can have it with the clip.
Great knife, aluminum, nice and light,
extremely robust. There are a number of
destruction test videos of this knife online.
Made by by by D.
Ring who works with a gentleman who
works with Microtech and he's just put them through the ringer and they come out
swinging every time. Next up
is a protect and I love protect
knives and and you might decide that a different protac is what
you want. But to me the one that should be in your
collection, in every collection is the Protect
TR3. It's the perfect size and
design and ergonomics and blade design as far
as I'm concerned from them. This one is an automatic
and most of them throughout history are automatics. But now
they have a really great button lock version of
this TR3. This is the SWAT version. So it's all
black. They come with iridium. Some of them come with
iridium dials or buttons. You can get them in fish
scale milling which is really cool. But I like this
sort of plain Jane version of this where you have
these great grooves milled into the
handle and when you reach around like this holding it in the
right hand, it's just great grip. The
fingers sink into those little fullers there and it just
is comfortable and grippy and will just
be comfortable for lots of use. Reverse
grip is nice.3 and
3.4 inch blade. So just about right in terms
of size you've got the standard sort of Emerson style clip
here. Emerson benchmade protect style clip and
then a great firing action. I
have heard that the button lock versions are great too. I just haven't
experienced them. You should have a pro tech and if you get a protect
you should have a TR3. All right. Next up
is slightly more generic and that is slip joints. You should
have a slip joint whether it's high end or
more val high value. And I'll show you what I mean by that.
Here we have my two favorite slip joint companies.
Gec, Great Eastern Cutlery. This is my absolute favorite slip
joint. Besides the ones given to me my by my grandfather
in my collection. This is the the Great eastern cutlery number
15. It's just got such incredible
scales. I think the scales are so beautiful. A beautiful
1095 blade steel. This one is set up like a
trapper. So it's got a clip point blade and a
spade blade. That was known as the farmer's boys knife when that
came out or you can get the less expensive farm and
field gecs. So this is a
sod buster. I was talking about the Opinel before. This is the American version of
that kind of a knife, sort of an everyman's working
knife, farmer's knife. So you can get the sod buster or something
like this. They just came out with a new knife in their farm and field
line. And the other version
is of this high end or
high value is Jack Wolf knives. Here is a premium
Jack Wolf knives, Big bro
Barlow Jack here in that beautiful clip point
blade. Or then that sells for. This has
bone, a bone handle. This sells for about 300, 350,
something like that. Or you can go to the
Gateway series from Jack Wolf knives which is
$70. So you decide pretty much a
very similar in terms of design, this one just
has lesser materials and less packaging
and still it has that classic perfect fit and finish
that Jack Wolf knives has come to be known for.
So every, every collection should have a slip joint knife. And
I, I personally posit that you should have a high end and,
and low end. Not low end, high value or high
end, either way, you need something like this. You
just do. I thought about putting
Victorinox. Great walk and talk. Very satisfying.
I thought about putting Victorinox in this lineup here
as a slip joint, but it is and it is a slip
joint, but that's more of a multi tool. So I'm assuming you have a
Victorinox, but if you don't get a Victorinox too.
Okay, next up, zero tolerance. This,
this covers the zero tolerance base and it covers the
Ernest Emerson base. Because I love
zero tolerance and especially some of their
older knives and this, I feel like they really peaked with this one. I know
they're, they've come back and put out some pretty cool knives since this,
but to me this is probably my favorite zero tolerance. It's
the Ernest Emerson designed 0640.
Buttery, smooth, super robust.
I did swap out the split pea soup
carbon fiber scales for Micarta scales
and I put a deep cherry pocket clip on it.
But just a great, great do all knife. It's kind of
the sort of knife similar to a Sebenza. You can dress it up, you can
carry this, you know, with a, with a, to a nice
occasion or it's equally comfortable out
in the field. Great clip point blade. This is 20cv
blade steel. So it's good to go and
just awesome, awesome action. A great thing about this
is that it's, it's a frame lock, but it's covered with scales
so it's not. I wouldn't call this a liner lock, more of a frame lock.
But what I love about that is you can slow rope, slow roll it
easily without worrying about pushing the lock
bar and the detent ball into the blade.
That's the Ernest Emerson designed ZT Zero
Tolerance 0640. Next up,
every collection should have a cold steel and I
would say a cold steel recon one. This
comes in a micro, a mini, this regular full
size and then you can get the xl. Now
they have the XL back on the market in XHP steel.
This is just a super robust large 4 inch
bladed, pretty thin and light to carry.
Linerless G10 knife. It comes in clip point,
drop point and Tanto. I only have the clip
point used to have the tanto. Sadly I gave that away.
This one is an older 1 so AUS
8 blade steel. It had that super cheesy coating
that I, I just took it off and discovered a beautiful
stone wash finish underneath. I've
had this one for over 10 years I guess I'd say triad
lock. So it's going to be the strongest lock here, arguably
the strongest lock here and,
and very comfortable in hand with those double finger choils and that
long finger well in the back. Really, really
robust, really really beautiful
and very comfortable in all types
of tasks. Of course if you go up to the Recon 1 XL
with that 5 1/2 inch blade you will have a fully flat
ground blade at this point. Not the, not
the hollow grind. All right, last up,
last classic knife here that deserves to be in every
collection is a Demko knife
similar to the Recon one which is a Demko knife made by cold steel.
This is the 8020. Yes. This is an
expensive knife. This is a machine ground
8020 meaning the blade was,
was not beveled by hand. If you get one beveled by hand that's even more
expensive. But this is straight out of their Wampum PA Shop
Demko knives. And on the back Wampum ea.
This features the shark lock. The incredible strong
shark lock
actuated by this shark's fin tab
up here on top. Similar to the FG in terms
of, in terms of how it presents but a
different lock and in the guts. Now if
this is too rich for your blood, I, I bought this for
400 bucks and at the time I was so craving one
that I did it without blinking an eye. And this
was back when I had less money so
I really kind of went out on a limb to get this. And then
later the. The 80.8,
0.5 came out with thinner
handle, shorter blade, and lighter materials.
So way more in reach. So you can
get this in this version, which is harder to find
and more expensive, or you can get it in the now made in Taiwan
80, 20.5 iteration. They're both great.
I have them both and I highly recommend them. You should
have a Shark lock. You should have a Demto knives
knife in your collection. All right,
thank you so much. I hope you don't think that I'm being judgy or
being elitist by saying, you should have this. Of course,
it's all a matter of taste. I'm sure people are saying, what about the PM2?
What about the Griptilian? What about the Roosevelt? What about. You know, there's
so many knives that should be in every collection, but these to me, are the
ones that before you start going off in your own direction
and deciding, you know, that you have a, a thing for
any, any given knife, all of these kind
of hit, strike on. On hit all bases.
What am I trying to say? Fire on all cylinders. So do
check them out. Let me know what you think should be in every
collection. I'd be interested to know what you think I missed here.
And I'll, I'll talk about. We'll talk about that on Thursday
night. Knives. All right, Coming up On Sunday, episode 614,
Jacob, a suite of very good knife company. What a great
guy making this amazing or very good knives,
let's put it that way. Great interview. I really enjoyed that. So be sure
to check in with the interview
podcast. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob
DeMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an
answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you
enjoyed the show, please rate and
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