Coming up, the September 2025 gentleman junkie knife.
I get a Filipino sword I've always wanted, thanks to my
brother. And we're going to take a look at my cold steel
voyager 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 Demar.
Welcome back to the show. One of my favorite comments from this past week
of my interview with Reese of well Regulated, who designed the work
tough gear V44X was from Jorge Fernandez, who says,
first of all, this was a truly great interview. I've had the
pleasure of knowing Reese since right before the first V44X
drop, a friend of mine gave me a heads up on this sick new
Bowie coming out at Work Tough Gear. And man, when I saw it, Van
getting one became a mission. And one won't do. I've been very
fortunate to have three. And he LAUGHS OUT loud. And a
pock, a Blackwash and a K329. And
I do mean fortunate. Reese's knives sell out in around two
minutes. You'd be lucky to find one on ebay. And we
want more. The field utility, the edc. I'm not the only
one that's champing it the bit, sweating it out, waiting for their arrival.
Epic video, Bob. Hey, Rhys, if you'd carve those other two
models out of wood, I'd bet they'd sell out in two in two
minutes, too. And he's referring to the fact that
just to kind of get the feel for the knives, the
designs that Reese has made, he's
carved them out of wood and they look beautiful. He was showing them off on
the. Show, so a great way to sort of mock up a knife and see
if it feels comfortable in hand and. See if the sizes are right.
Thank you, Jorge. And thank you one and all for watching the show, watching the
videos, commenting, liking and subscribing. It's greatly
appreciated. And don't forget, if you are not subscribed, subscribe,
because when we get up to 50,000, we're gonna have
50,000 subscribers. Dirk Pinkerton is making a custom
knife for me to give away to any one of you. 50,000.
So be sure to subscribe. 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 front
right pocket. Today is a perfect summer Knife, Warm
weather knife. It's a, it's a great EDC period. But I've really
grown to love this knife. This is the Buck
Range Elite. They have a couple of
different models in this range line. It's
brand new from Buck. I'm fortunate enough to have received this
from Buck along with another, another knife which has become
my wife's favorite knife. She totally appropriated
this right off my desk. She loves how light it is and how
small it is with its 2.7-inch blade. It's, it's
featherweight with the FRN handle. So. So I can basically kiss this one
goodbye even though it's tasted my blood. And it is clearly,
clearly mine. Anyway, this, this Buck Range
Elite has a magnacut blade with that Paul Boss heat treat
that is so legendary. Paul Boss knows how to heat treat anything and make
it great. I mean look at all that. 420 buck has been selling
forever. This one has aluminum
handles, an ambidextrous bar lock with great, great
action and a deep carry pocket clip that's
mounted on the tail end there. I really, really like this knife
and it's, it is, it's becoming
nearer and dearer to me. I also love how thin it is and
relatively light as well. This is a good in the waistband carry
if that's something you like. I pretty much carry
fixed blade knives in the waistband these days, but for many years it was always
a slender. Folder in the waistband. I like this
Buck range a lot and you might too.
All right, next up, I had the second release of the Jack Wolf
knives. Laid back jack. That is Jack Wolf knives
swayback. And this one is awesome with this.
Beautiful, beautiful rosewood handle. I love the way the
rosewood looks next to that lasted titanium bolster. Of course,
with all premium top top tier Jack Wolf knives,
this has titanium bolsters, triple fluted with the
integral liners there.
Really, really nice build. I have not carried this in a long time
and I now, I mean I have such an epic sprawling collection
of these Jack Wolf knives thanks to Ben Belkin that I
have started going back through the catalog to figure out what to
carry on any given day. I love them all, I truly
do. But this is near and dear to my heart because I
love a swayback. Look at that gorgeous
S 90v Wharncliffe blade with the,
with the hand rub satin. Beautiful, beautiful blade. Of course
that always. All these Jack Wolf knives, especially the premium ones,
ride in their own leather slips because I don't want to ding. Them up and
get them all snail trailed up in my pocket. Next
up, it's fall. At least it feels like fall. Here in Northern Virginia,
I was carrying the Ruffian by Hogtooth
knives. This ruffian I had custom made
for my 51st birthday a couple years back. Now
I guess I can't say a couple. A few years back.
Beautiful blue liners with the, with the 10 G10
natural micarta here. I'm sorry, not G10 natural
micarta. That has really taken on a
really nice hue from my, from my hand
oils or whatever you want to call it. Personal filth signature. It's got
this nice red tint to it. When I first got it, it, it was much
more tan in color. Beautiful
154cm hollow ground blade here. I guess you could call
it a drop point. I think it's kind of a clip point and great
jimping and everything. And I was carrying this throughout the weekend
and it's bled over into the week. And this weekend
I showed this off at a party in the neighborhood
here and people loved this knife and I thought, I thought it odd
that I. Hadn'T shown it to them before, but. One of my all time
favorite EDC fixed blades and probably
on the, on the large end for what I
can comfortably carry. And like I said, I mentioned fall. This, this
is more of a heavy. This is like something I carry
when I have jeans on. I'm not going to wear this with light shorts,
but love that thing. Okay, so I've had the V44
on my mind and so today I had this with me. This was
my emotional support knife. Yeah, that.
Beautiful work, tough gear. V44X Bowie. This is the
K329 version. So I think
this is their most premium version of this knife.
Such a beauty. Reese of well Regulated is
really, really deep in the Marine Raider
Bowie thing. He's got an epic collection if you guys follow him, which you should
on Instagram. He recently posted an overhead picture with all
of his V44X bowies and I think it was like
32 of them or something. All of these different
versions of it from, well, from the World
War II era. They're just astoundingly beautiful. And then by the way,
he also collects a lot of other knives including K bars and he
posted a picture of his K bars. If you like those. I
definitely check it out. But yeah, great esk here
in, in the V44X Bowie, if you're feeling a little insecure
during your day, all you. Have to do is, is just put. This in your
hand. And you're good to go. So this is what I had on me today,
the V44X Bowie. I had the Hog Tooth knives
Ruffian full size. He does make a small pocket
pocket size. That's beautiful. I had
the laid back Jack from Jack Wolf knives. This from
their second run where they expanded the handle materials and then
the Buck Range Elite. Loving that knife. Let me know what you
were carrying. Drop it in the comments below. I always love to hear what you've
been carrying. Okay, let's see. Gentleman junkie
giveaway knife for September. Now I've been hinting at this,
showing it off, showing off my version. This is the version
you will be receiving. Here is the beautiful
riot from three Dog Knife. Three Dog Knife.
The in house custom knife brand from Northern Knives up
in Alaska. One of the few companies if, if the
only company, if not the only company I've ever seen making
these really beautiful recurve Tonto Bowies.
For all purposes, you might think that a tanto is just kind of
self defense. But up in Alaska, three Dog knife
is all about catering to hunters and outdoorsmen.
And this is for that. You see
that curve right up front? That would be great
for skinning small game. I am told by those who have
actually done that. And of course that recurve straight
portion here. Recurve straight. You know what I'm saying. That recurve portion
there would be great for carving and doing all sorts of camp
pass. This thing is stout and sturdy as can be at
3.8of an inch thick. And that is
K110 steel. K110
is analogous to
K2D2 blade steel. So you
can see that. And it comes with a cool little
dog tag, AKA birth card here. So here it
is. This will be yours. Could be yours I should say
if you are a gentleman junkie. K110. Did I
say K110 or K1.12? K110. This one could be yours.
Micarta handle scales. All you got to do is become a gentleman junkie. That
is the high tier of support on our Patreon
page. And every month you get a lot of different
stuff from becoming a patron. So please go check that out. You
will, you will love it. And you know, if you're a
Thursday night knives fan or you come to the show frequently, you know we
give away a lot of knives thanks to Dave of OG Blade
Reviews and also Mike of Northern Knives. We've had a lot of knives to
give away and it's not letting up. So we do Give away a lot of
knives. But that third Thursday of the month, the gentleman junkie knife
giveaway, there's always something a little, little extra, a little more
special to give away. And that's this month's giveaway, this month
being September of 2025. So check
that out. I'm going to come back to some interesting
stuff on Patreon, but before we do, I want to show something and announce a
date, a release date. Release date, you say? Yes.
The agent 001 my design with Tim
Kell knives is being re released on October 1st.
And here is one of the four production samples that Tim sent to me.
These are now being machined by the great Nick Chuprin up in
New Hampshire. NCC knives. You probably remember,
you probably know his incredible
custom folders. He has slowed down on his own
custom work because he's doing some incredible machining work for some of
our favorite knife makers, Tim Kell chief among them
here. Just look at that. Look at the terracing
that the beautiful mill lines on this. Look at the
chamfers on the jimping. There.
Removed one of the gyms. Spread out the remaining four gyms and
man alive, do they feel great in hand. They really, they're perfect
in that they grab your thumb, which you definitely want. You don't want to
slide up onto that wickedly sharp top edge,
but they don't hassle, they don't, you know, they're not too
sharp that they're going to make your thumb feel sore. But I'm really
impressed with all this machining especially. I keep locking in on the
chamfering on these. It's just so precise and so
perfect. And Nick Chuprin is a perfectionist and guess
what? So is Tim Kell. And so I, I am
very, very thrilled to announce that the Agent 001s
will finally be available again in their second
production run. This one is wearing their battle lock
handles. Now. Just looking at them online, I was kind of, you
know, I don't know if that's a, if that's my, my cup of tea. I
do love Micarta in G10, but it turns
out this is so nice. It feels great in hand. It's
sort of a mil spec type. What do
you call it? Frn. And with the stippling in there that
feels like skateboard tape. And his
signature grenade grip here, that's these little scoops and divots.
This thing locks in the hand like you wouldn't believe. I am so excited
that these are coming back out. I also Want to show that
you can now get a Badger Claw
leather Badger Claw outfitters leather sheath for your
double O1 and your other agent series knives.
Tim sent me one. I love this. I haven't even put a
clip on it yet. I just like dropping this in the pocket. The
curve of this follows the seam of your. The inside seam of
your pants and it just drops in. Then when you want to draw the knife,
you can make it so that this kind of just wedges
itself in under the seam of the pocket and the knife comes free.
And you might be concerned about this wickedly
sharp knife poking through the leather. It could under the right
circumstances, no doubt. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna
gloss over that. But this leather is so stout
and sturdy, and the fit of this is so perfect that
it would take a lot. It's got rivets, so it's not
gonna poke through, it's not gonna cut any seams, and there's no
welt in there, so it's not extra thick. So just
masterfully made sheath on a masterfully surrounding a
masterfully made knife designed by yours truly
and Tim Pell. So check it out. October 1st,
2025, you can get your. Agent of a low one.
Okay, now, before we head on to knifelife news,
I want to talk about a new feature that Jim has brought to
our Patreon page. It is so cool. It's
called Maker Monday. And this Monday, he has
Ernest Emerson. And you know how I feel about Ernest Emerson. He
is the man. I love his stuff so much.
And this is such a beautiful setup here.
Here's a nice pencil drawing of the man himself,
Ernest Emerson. And this is a pretty long one, I gotta say.
It's got a bio, it's got. Got his background, and then it talks
a lot about the knives he made and his. His innovative.
His innovations to the field of folding knives and packable knives.
And it. It's just a great feature. This.
We've got the Friday funnies all obviously
knife themed and. And we have knife
notes. So Jim is just going working overtime to
make our. Our Patreon worth your while and worth your filthy
lucre. Let's. Let's be honest. And not only that, but we
do interview extras. So if you like Reese of well regulated, you like
that V44X Bowie and you're a patron no matter what the tier,
you can see a little bit. Extra of the interviews we have.
So scan the QR code on your screen or go to the knife junkie.com
Patreon and check it out. When you buy a whole year at once,
you get 12% off. So that's definitely worth checking
out again. That's the knife junkie.com
Patreon Want to sell your custom knives online With Launch
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your online knife store today at the knife junkie.com launch
and turn your passion into a business. You're listening to the Knife
Junkie podcast. And now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife
Life News. All right, first up in Knife Life News, a really cool
one from Boker. I say that all the time because Boker puts out a lot
of cool knives. But this one is the Boker mini tracker
folder. That's right. You heard right ladies and gentlemen, they're making a tracker
folder. If you know Boker, they do their version of the Thom Browne tracker.
To me, I've always liked its contours or its
profile blade profile a lot because it's. Well, it's
like the Tom Brown tracker we all know and love but it's a little sharper,
it's a little more tactical looking. They have come out with
this which is so cool. Hopefully you're watching this so
you can see the knife itself. But this is a. This has a
3.12-inch 154cm
blade. It's a modified tracker with a flipper. Modified
because. Well, it's kind of a clip point. It's got a thumb swale
there. There are some differences here obviously when
compared to the fixed blade tracker, but it does have
those two very distinct cutting surfaces. That front
bellied surface and then a secondary point
followed up by a little kind of hook if you
will. All sharp and then a long straight,
more robust is the grind forward and then towards
the handle. That secondary or that straight edge there
is much thinner. I think that this is a really cool looking knife.
I've already seen said so I do wish the handle to blade ratio was a
little more blade heavy if you will. But
obviously they have, they have things considerations
that I don't know about when. Making a design like this. But
look at that beauty, that little hook where the straight edge
that comes out of the Ricasso
goes down to that secondary point. That little hook area I've seen used on
videos for all sorts of stuff to include feather sticking, which is
kind of alluded to in this picture. You've got a micarta
handle with a liner lock, heat carry, pocket clip,
3.77 ounces. So pretty light. Not
bad at all. And it is available now. MSRP
for this is a hundred and forty five dollars.
So check this one out. I had a chance to see this one at the
Boker booth and handle. It at the broken poker booth at. Late show
in June. And I like it a lot. It is a cool knife.
Maybe they'll come out with a plus. Size and maybe I'll be tempted. Okay, next
up. This one is from Benchmade. This is a knife that was announced
beginning of the year in January 2025. But only now are we
seeing it and only now is it available. It's the Benchmade
491 Loden. It's a
rare axis lock flipper. Rare from,
from Benchmade anyway. And I think it's got a stupendously
beautiful blade. I gotta say I will not be getting this knife because it's
not exactly my cup of tea. But I, I have to point out what is
beautiful when I see it. And that blade is absolutely beautiful. If you're just
listening, it's a 2.8-inch spear point with
a full swedge. Almost a dagger grind I
guess you could say though it's not sharp on the top obviously,
but it's got a swedge that mimics the
main bevel. So just a really beautiful blade.
M390 blade steel flipper. As you
can see, a low profile flipper with that
axis lock. The handle is aluminum.
Beautiful handle here, comes in red or blue. And it's got this
center line fuller in the handle that comes from
beneath the the clip and terminates right
below the axis lock. So you know, if you've ever held
a knife that has that kind of a setup, that fuller
running down the center of the handle is just going to grab your your
fingers. It's going to lock into your hand beautifully. We've got this little
bulbous end, deep carry pocket clip. And
this thing is 100% ambidextrous as our
many axis style axis lock style knives.
So on this one obviously the clip can go to the other side, no
problem. 2.99 ounces.
So nice and light. Pretty small and
available now. MSRP on this is for
the blue one, $320. For the red
one, $330. So Benchmade,
always impressing with design and price. That's
pretty pricey. But you know, they have their reasons. And
I am not a Benchmade fanatic. If I were, I probably would find
that to be reasonable. But what I find
weird is that the blue anodized version is $320
and the red anodized version is $330.
I. I speculate it has nothing to do with the color of the anodization,
but the processing of the hardware or. Whatever processes they
put the hardware through. So that's just my, that's my
speculation. But The Very Cool
Benchmade491 Loading. They made a large
version of that. I'd be in trouble also. So Boker and
Benchmade keep them small. So I can keep my, my wallet set.
Okay, next up, last up here is from terrain 365.
This is the new DTK
@Topo. This is the second generation of the
DTK EDC folder, which is a
dog tag format keychain knife kind of,
kind of locking folder. Look at that little cheat, little stubby
son of a gun. 1.19 inches of
it's. It's a 1.19 inch snub nose
drop point. That's what they're calling it of terravantium.
Terravantium is Terrain 365's proprietary
cobalt alloy so it won't rust. And seeing that
it's in a titanium handle with titanium hardware, you know,
you could wear this all year long in the, in the jungle and it'll
be just fine. As I mentioned, titanium frame lock. But this
one, as is evidenced by the name, has a topographic
pattern on
the show side. And this is a pattern that's featured on a
lot of 365 terrain 365 knives. I find
it to be very appealing. I do like that topographical
pattern. And this is thinner than the previous runs of the
DD DTK. At 0.1
inches thick, it's 1.6 ounces. And
available now. MSRP for this is
189. I'm going to start giving you MSRP when I
can, when I know what it is. And you know, I feel like that's. Information
you might want to know. All right, still to come, we're going to
check out the state of the collection. I got two really cool new things.
Two knives, swords, whatever you want to call them, edged things.
But before we get there, I just want to remind you, as I mentioned
before, Thursday night knives, every Thursday, 10pm Eastern
Standard Time is our live show. It is so great. You gotta join
us. It's so much fun. As a matter of fact, I think it's probably the
most popular thing around here lately. Besides.
Well, it's probably the most popular. People love it because they get to come on.
They're talking with their friends in the chat, they're talking with me, I'm reading
their questions, answering them. And we're having a two hour
conversation pretty much non stop. Every once in a while people will
drop in. We just recently had Shane of Edgy
Blade Works, Edgy American Blade Works in here. We've had Dirk
Pinkerton. We've had a lot of people come on the show, but it's,
it's just great. And the funny thing is is when we wrap at midnight Eastern
standard time, I always feel like I've been sitting in a room with friends talking
and I realize that I haven't heard anyone else's voice. I've
just been reading comments. But still, it's a fun time.
And we've been given away knives every week because Dave
Bogie Blade review sends me giant boxes to give away, as does
Mike of Northern knives. So come join us,
join the fun, join the conversation and you'll be glad you did.
That's Thursday Night Knives, 10pm Eastern Standard Time right here
on the Knife junkie channel on YouTube. All right, coming up, the state of the
collect adventure delivered your monthly subscription for hand
picked outdoor survival, EDC and other cool gear
from our expert team of outdoor professionals, the knife
junkie.com battlebox. So my brother
Veto gave me something cool as he has done many times. You can
see a lot of what he's given me behind me. He's given me a majority
of those things actually. Yep. Just looking at it. I'm a lucky man.
And when I just saw him in at our
ancestral home, we gathered there for a family occasion.
I knew he was going to be giving me my birthday present. And
he said, be sure to pack extra panties. You're going to love what I got
you. That's my brother's sense of humor. So I did it.
And when I showed up, I was trying to guess what
it was. He's like, you want to guess what it is? He's. And I said,
why didn't you just mail it to me? He said it wouldn't fit easily in
a tube. And I said, is it, is it a compilon? And he said,
what's a compilon? He looked it up and then gave me a look. And indeed
it was a compilon. This is the Filipino battle
sword. And it's a very unusual sword
for the Philippines because it's larger than their usual
30 inches, generally speaking sword.
And it is, it's just bigger than, than most of the swords. Now
this one, I believe is,
is not as big as they come, but
because I've seen larger ones. But this thing is definitely old
and definitely a, a real legit
compilon. Got the beautiful handle with the alligator maw
here, right here on the, on the pommel. Sometimes it
has hair with that or like horse hair or
other stuff coming off of here and various
kind of carvings and stuff. But beautiful
Penagong handle and nice long straight
blade. This is the edge side down here. And then it has these,
this funny little hook and all these jagged little things cut
out of the top meant for. There's. There are a lot of different
angles of attack in Filipino martial arts. And
sometimes you're hitting with the tip, sometimes you hit with the back of the tip.
And this is just meant to menace and, and destroy.
It's just such a, a beautifully
dastardly design. And I'm so happy to have this in my collection.
Now it's going to go up on the Wall of Fame behind me though. Here's
a little, a little foreshadowing. This room here is going to have to go
through some changes soon, so there might be a few podcasts
coming from it with a different background, but this will be on the Wall of
Fame and I cannot wait. Vic, thanks for this,
for this beautiful, beautiful sword. Now this is
speculated that this is the same sword that,
that killed Magellan. This not this exact one
obviously, but Magellan died on a beach in the
Philippines fighting. And it is speculated that this is
the kind of sword that brought him down by
Lapu. Lapu, a Filipino warrior
and hero. And on a very famous sculpture in. The Philippines,
this is what he's holding, the Campilan.
All right, I'm going to set this over here. No room for that on the
table. Next up. This is something I thought
I never wanted until I started wanting it and then I had to get
it. And that is the, the. The
Counterpoint xl. So this is the Cold Steel
Counterpoint xl. And it's kind of bringing my
XL Cold Steel collection into the station. They're only
if. Now all I need is a.
Well, I need one more. And now I can't remember exactly what it is. The,
the. The. The large ski and boo. But I can't remember what they call
it. All these different Cold Steel names they. Kind of jumbled together
in my mind. A beautiful 6 inch
bayonet ground sort of Boot knife style
folder. This one of course has the serrations I was
originally looking for. The straight edge. I actually could not find it
anywhere, but I'm sure that that will be remedied
shortly. But then I started looking at my other serrated cold
steels and I'm a sucker for their serration
so I just. Went, I went for it here. A really nice grivory
handle, nearly 7 inches in length.
This one, unlike the older ones, has a very heavy
stippling on the sides so it locks in the hand.
It feels kind of like skateboard tape and really
stays put. Got ambidextrous
clip. Everything about this is ambidextrous as as it is
on most lockback knives. It's got the triad
lock, very stiff triad lock on this, on this one.
Austin A. And a proud, proud member. Now
the reason I thought I didn't want this is because I had the 4 inch
counterpoint and I just, just did not do it for me. Maybe it would
do it for me now, but this was years ago. It was one of the
few cold steels I sent back and got something else.
But very happy to have this one in the collection and looking
forward to having this thing broken in more. Oddly enough, it's easier for
me to open this with my left hand than my right if we're talking slow
rolling. So very, very cool, cool knife.
Super excited to have this. And I'm super excited to talk to you about
some other XL cold steel folders. But first
I just want to show off this new design that Jim came up with for
our merch. Coffee in one hand, blade in the other,
and man alive. Is that a, is that a
maxim I live by? For sure. All you have to do is go to the
knife junkie.com shop and check out all the super cool
designs and funny logos that that Jim has come up
with. We put them on hats, we put them on aprons. You know, it's
still grilling season. T shirts, hoodies,
cups, mugs, all that kind of stuff. Anything you want, we
got it with these super cool designs. So my hat is off
to Jim for coming up with these every week and adding them to our
store. Artists, working man and podcasting,
to be honest. So go check that out at the knife
junkie.com/shop.
All right, I want to talk to you tonight, today, this day,
about the Cold Steel Voyager series.
I've pretty much, I've pretty much completed my
Cold Steel Voyager collection. I know I say that, but I probably
haven't. There's probably Something that I will circle back and get
another one of. They all have different versions and I'm
excited by what I already have. So anyway, let's get into
it. First one is a vintage 4 inch
Kanto. Now this was from before you had a
metal clip. It was also before you have a thumb stud on both
sides. This is from 1998.
I remember I was working on a movie called Judy Berlin up in New
York when I bought this at. Where did I get
this? Doesn't matter where I got it. It's one of the few places in New
York where you could get knives. I think this was Paragons
Sporting Goods, but I just looked it up today. This is AUS 8
blade steel. I. I wanted to find out what. What
was the steel they were using on Voyagers in 1998.
And indeed it was AUS 8A. How did I know? I looked up and,
and found the catalog online from
1998. Cold steel. You have to do that if you like cold steel.
If you've watched this long, you obviously like cold steel.
Go check out all the old catalogs. I don't have many more in paper. I
used to have them all, but now you can check them out online and see
how relatively small their, their offerings were
back then. Not. Not the offerings themselves, but how few
relative to now with all the swords and spears and everything else they have.
But in any case, I remember
carrying this one a lot. Very, very sharp. It came so
sharp back then. This is before knives just shipped. Razor
sharp and cold steel always, always sent them that way. This one you can see
has taken a lot of abuse and use and
sharpenings. I. I even practice sharpening on this with a,
with a consistent edge or
consistent angle sharpener. And it is wickedly
sharp. If even though I kind of messed up profile a touch
super light. It's got this asymmetrical
cross section. When you look at it from the top, which
I've never quite figured out. I think that this right up here near
the pivot is extra thick to accommodate the size of
this kind of thick clip. And this is the only
voyager here that or no, this is not. But this is the only
small voyager. I have where I have where I where I used a
paracord lanyard on. This because I always thought this
kind of lacked finger protection. And if you were thrusting you
could definitely slide up onto that and
put a little bit of. Without the lanyard that is put a little bit of
skateboard tape on here in lieu of jimping and
always love this thing. Never going to get rid of this one.
Next up is, is the modern version of the same knife.
This is the Tanto, the large Tanto, the
very, very current setup. This has the
AUS 10A blade but the same thing with
that super hollow ground, super thin hollow ground
blade there meeting the flat ground,
chiseled chisel like tip. But
when they came out with these, I believe it was 2006
if I'm not mistaken, where they, where they changed the handle design.
And look at it. Demko got involved. They
put on the triad lock and look at how much more
finger protection you have with this knife. You've got two
choils. You've got this nice swale here for, for the three
fingers to, to rest in there. And then you've got this D deep
finger finger groove here and a big
guard, a guard that also works well as a
sort of finger choil. So you can come up close to the
edge there for doing your quote unquote fine work,
but beautiful. Actually I'll put these all out at once since.
Since they're all of a type. And then this one is the
XL version, so. So you've got a five and a half inch blade
of AUS10A. I opted for the fully
serrated version on this one again being a kind of
a nut for their serrations. And just the past two or three
years I've really come back to the. Serrations in general on
many of my folders. This one has
a very similar handle with the same philosophy, except since it's
a larger blade that curves to accommodate that
blade shape. You have different, different
areas. You can, you can grip and get. Super reach
with this. This one here with the 5
1/2 inch blade and the near and the 6 1/3
inch handle has a lot of grip options. You can be right
here, close up on the
sort of guard there, like a choil. You can be back here with which
is sort of standard. You can come further back or you can even come
to here, which I've seen, I've seen Lynn
Thompson do. And when you do that, the curve of the handle
nestles right in the. In the palm and you can get. Some
serious thrusting power because it butts right up into
your palm and that puts force
all the way down your forearm and makes it super rigid. He does something like
this where he. Puts his finger out there. I don't know if I would do
that unless I was just, just on a
lark. But I love all the grip options. On the
XL Voyagers. This one is wearing an aluminum
Snaggletooth. Tactical MF pocket opener. That
which does two great things. A, it opens, it
opens the blade. As you draw it from your pocket, you just snag it on
the edge and you can also use it as a thumb wrap
to, to sort of bolster the, the guard.
You've got a finger guard and now you've got a thumb guard. So
a great, great pair or set. I should
say of knives. Now Voyagers have come in smaller
versions but they don't anymore. Now it's just the large
and the xl. So if you want to check out
ebay for a smaller version, you can find them from
time to time. You will pay dearly for them. But they,
they are there and I have considered it. All right, next
up, let's look at the clip point voyagers in my collection. First one,
also a vintage one, also a single
sided thumb stud with a
integral nylon pocket
clip. This is the 5 inch Voyager clip point.
It has an extremely sharp. This has always been one of my
sharpest knives but you know, now that I have a million knives it,
it's, it's sort of, you know, par for the course. But
when I got this I could not believe how sharp it was. Much like the
Tanto Voyager, but a deeply hollow ground blade,
gorgeous clip point profile. You've got a bit of a
belly there, a descending straight portion of the
edge and a very, very acute point. Again,
I've added a little bit of skate tape to this one up here
in lieu of jimping and then on the sides for
gription. I always thought, you know, it needed a little more a bit
of a finger guard and also it was a little bit hard to draw so
I, I put that grip tape there on the end just to
pull it out. Of the pocket and make it easier to do so.
That was from 1999. Some of you weren't
even alive then. Next is the
current cold steel. Well, not so current because this is AUS
8A but this is the current design, the
4 inch Voyager. Large clip point blade. Again you've got
that same exact handle that you saw on the Tanto but just with the clip
point blade. Again a descending straight, a nice
belly center line point and all of it extremely
sharp. This is one that I kept for a
long time in my bugout bag, but
now I've replaced that with a rat one and have
kept this in the collection. I kind of feel like it needs to be with
its brethren, especially its biggest big brother right here.
This is the current version of the XL. This one is
in 10Aus 10A steel. And
again you got that same handle. All of these have the
same handles across, across blade profiles.
And I think that that's cool. That's a great way to do a business, especially
if you're a company like cold steel and you're putting out so many
different unique blades. To have a similar platform
or, or the same platform with different blades is just the way
to go. It makes sense. I am a huge fan of
this clip point profile here.
This in particular, I must say I, I like it even a little bit better
than the profile on the, on the
Recon 1 XL. This has a full
flat ground blade. Different. Flat. Differently different from
the old school where they had the saber ground
hollow laid right there. So you might be
sacrificing a touch of thinness behind the edge, but you
have incredible shearing power with that triangular
cross section that you get on a, on a full
flat ground blade. And let's just be straight, a little bit
more strength to the blade itself. You could
see how a very thin hollow ground blade could end up
under, under duress, chipping or, or
breaking a little bit easier. So let's put this down for a family portrait.
These are the clip point voyagers I have and I'll
take this opportunity to say that the
Tanto comes in the fully serrated but the clip point
no, as does the Vaquero, which we'll see in a minute. But the clip
point version does not anymore and I'm not sure why, but
thankfully they don't because I would have to buy that. So they saved me
80 bucks or whatever it costs. So these are the clip points.
All right, next up, this next one is a, a one off
so far in the voyager world. One off for them
anyway. And that is the Chris. So they have a
Chris in the Pilite series, but this is
the Voyager Chris. And man, what a beautiful
blade that is. Look at that undulating profile
there. You've got. It's a re. Re. Re. Recurve. It's got
the recurve here, the recurve here and the recurve here at the tip
with that downward sort of hawkbill facing tip. That's how I think
Chris's should be. Chris's should not terminate in an
upswept tip. They should terminate in a down word kind
of nasty hawkbill tip. This one is
AUS 10A and they do not make a large version.
They do not make a 4 inch version of this. Why? I don't know, but
it's utter madness. This one also has the
Snaggletooth MF on it, which in my opinion
really completes this design. It looks beautiful. And if you know what a
Indonesian or Malaysian or Filipino Chris looks like,
you know that they have very ornate hilts with
angles and jagged bits. And this is
just adds a little bit more to the design and makes. It look a
little bit more or. Makes it evocative of those,
the, of the inspirational knives from which this was
drawn. Same sort of handle again with the different
grips, but a really wicked and
nasty blade shape. This one should also come in
a serrated version. If it were up to me, it would.
The Tilite Chris comes in the serrated version. Why not Voyager
Chris? And if you're, if you have any doubt, you're
looking at that just thinking it's a mall ninja type knife or it's
a, it's crazy. And they're just making it just to be different or to
prove that they can. It's not true. This is a,
a battle tested design and not just in the,
in Southeast Asia or not just in the Philippines and Malaysia. And
you know, think of the flambear sword and, and the other, those big
German broadswords with the wavy blades. It's like a giant bread
knife, you know that you're dragging across someone
and as you thrust with something like this, it opens up
a wound channel that is just gassing. So
as is the word, the term wound channel, just utterly
ghastly. Something I didn't point out before is that the
grip on all of these modern, you know, current
day voyagers is exceptional with that iron
cross style
pattern there. It really is grippy, it feels great. Which
leads to these things, thread pockets. So
usually when I get them, I will loosen up
the clip a little bit, leave a little bit of space there. Now if you
ever watch nothing Fancy, you know that he, he like sands it down
and he puts JB Weld on it, does this whole thing where he modifies
it. I just, I just make it a little less tight. And with these
xls it works out fine because they're so large and long,
they're not going to just come out. Of your pocket easily.
So this is the Voyager Chris xl and
they need to come out with a Voyager Chris L if you ask me.
All right, next up, this one they have come out with a large version of
and I totally forgot that. So now I need to get a large version of
this just to truly, truly complete the collection.
This is the drop point Voyager and if you
ask me again, I, I will Tell you they should call this the Barong
because it's got that beautiful long leaf shaped blade
and it's evocative of the Barong sword from the Philippines.
And I'm sure that was in Lynn Thompson's mind when
this came out. But this one is a
saber ground, so you, you're not getting that full flat grind. It's a little bit
beefier of a blade back here and, but still
wickedly, you know, acute and sharp. You've got
a center line point on this one, on this drop, and then
you have jimping. Yeah, that's right, Jimping on this
knife. This is the one voyager model with
jimping. This and the large version of this. And
it's curious, I wonder why it's the only one. Maybe
when they've sold all of the other voyagers that
have been manufactured already, who knows, maybe on the next,
next time they have to make some, they'll, they'll put that awesome jimping, but
generous run of jimping that feels great on the thumb
and maybe they put that there because this could be seen as the
most pedestrian blade design, the least combative,
so maybe the most likely to be used by campers and that kind of thing,
those, those kind of activities. In which case you really will be coming
up here, maybe you're making feather sticks or something and that
jimping really will come in handy. But I don't know, I'd love jimping
on everything. Why not again, triad lock. And
all the, all the things that you've come to love about
the Voyager XL is in
this knife with that beautiful Barong shape or drop point
leaf shape. And if you look at this one, it's got a continuous
belly. From the sharpening choil to the
tip, you have a continuous belly. So very cool knife.
All right, next up. This is a family. This is a family
coming up here. And I'm going to start with
these two knives because these are not technically
voyagers, but they have been brought into the
voyager fold. This is from
both from 1999. These are vintage cold steels.
This is the El Hombre and this is
the Vaquero Grande. Six
inches on the Vaquero Grande, four inches blade length
on the Elombre. These were my EDCs. Well, this one
especially for a long time I carried this one for,
I don't know, at least two years straight. I love the jimping on the back
of this handle. It's sort of traditional file work there.
This one even fell onto a subway track. I had to retrieve,
retrieve it and fully Serrated here,
fully serrated on the Vaccaro Grande. This one
was a, A, an E. I didn't
carry it all the time, but living in New York City, when I went would
go out at night, I would put this in the waistband appendix.
And now I can't believe I did that. I say that every time I talk
about this knife. I would have ended up in Rikers island if they caught
me with this. You know how New York City is. But
this is pre. This is before this,
before the Voyager series had the Vacuro blade and
before the Triad lock. And I gotta say, these were
still incredibly strong lockback knives.
Triad has just sort of sent it into the stratosphere with how strong
it is, but really, really strong
lockbacks on these. So I wanted to show these as sort of an
introduction to the Vaquero blade style.
The blade has changed a little bit, but they still
are featured in the Voyage. Now they are featured in the Voyager shoes. You
can see that it is now a little bit more upswept on this
Voyager up here and it's a little
more uniform in its curvature here. The one
on the bottom, I think it's pretty
cool. I love the way they both look. I gotta say, sometimes I
think I like the old style a little bit better because of the how the
tip is, but I think I'm just. But that's
just on this 4 inch version here. This one I
sold for a while to my friend Ian and then I bought it back from
him. It came back as dull as a spoon. I
put a new edge on it and have never looked back. That was
when I decided, why are you selling cold steels? That's it. No more selling
cold steels. So I'm going to get these, the El
Hombre and the Vaquero Grande out
of the way. They were made in Japan. And then here, now
I'm going to show you my xls here. I have three of them to
bring them over here. The first XL to show you is the
plain version and this is in AUS
8a. Now the length of this blade
as compared to the 4 inch makes the
Vaquero XL a more appealing
blade to both look at and use, in my opinion.
But designed and inspired by the
Yatagan from Turkey and I also think from
some Mexican style blades. But really,
if you ask Lynn Thompson, he'll tell you the Yatagan was the
main influence in this blade design.
A great knife, super wickedly sharp with that deep
recurve and that fat belly and the centerline point.
It's, it is a fighting blade all day long and it is the
knife that Lynn Thompson carries two
of on him all the time. You know, Lynn Thompson,
he carries many, many knives at once. Like a lot of knives at
once and a lot of big knives. But he always has
two Voyager XLs on him and usually
they are the serrated version. So I had to get the serrated version and
I also had to put a snaggle teeth MF on it for. Waving
out of the pocket. It also, as I mentioned earlier, gives
a great thumb ramp or thumb stop to, to,
to accentuate the stopping power of this guard here, this
forward knot. AUS10 a
beautiful knife you've got. Again you've got the one hand. I
didn't mention this before, these Triad lock knives, all of
them, pretty much all of them including the counterpoint and
the knives far from the Voyager collection. They're
all one hand closable. So there's always a
bit of ricasso there that will stop the blade
from cutting you. If you put your finger forward in that choil
and deploy the lock and let it drop, you can see that non
sharp part stops on your finger. And then you can just
close it or let it drop. Letting it drop of course
is always risky seeing as they could really, really give you,
give you some pain there. The third of my XL
Voyager vaqueros is
the Lynn Thompson signature edition. Again
I've got a snaggletooth MF on it. This one is one of their nylon,
you know, plastic ones. They have pretty much moved
to aluminum for the snaggle fuse
altogether. But a very handsome knife is this with
the green handle. I love the look of that green handle.
And then the black CTS xhp. Always hard
for me to say CTS XHP blade made in
Taiwan. It is really beautiful and I'm glad I
snagged this when I did. They're numbered. I'm not sure how many they made,
but this is number
126-0126.
And then of course it's one of the numerous
signature editions of cold steel knives that are out there now. There's a,
it's a growing list. I, I can think of four right now.
The Coban, the Tilite, the,
the, the Leatherneck XL Bowie and then this
one. And I think it's charming that Lynn Thompson's signature
is on it, especially because he's got the beautiful cursive
of a first grade teacher. So it's, it's kind of an,
it's got that sort of innocent looking
signature on it, but it's on just an astoundingly
wicked blade with those serrations. And before we wrap, let me just show
you decelerations up close. You've got big
sharpened scoops and then five little peaks
and then, you know. And then you go back to the little scoop. So it's
a. Or the big scoop. It's a pretty nasty setup
here. And those little teeth, though, hard to sharpen when. When you end up
mangling them, they really go the distance. They go
a long time. And they keep these knives sharp for a
long time. Much longer than if you were to dull the
plain edge version of this knife. You could just keep going.
So now I realize I have to get the 4 inch drop point to really
make it complete. And then I'll start doing my ebay searches for the little
3 inch versions and all that means I will have more knives in the
collection. And that means I'm going to have to get rid of some. And I've
been saying this for years. Not easy for me to do,
but I think it is something I do need to do. It's true.
Jim's back there saying, oh, Bob, stop it, stop it. You're not
selling any knives. Not yet, but
it's. It's in my plans. All right, that's it. Thank you so much for
indulging me and letting me show you my voyager collection.
I'll give you updates as I get others. But really, this. This is
pretty much. This is pretty much all I need. And I think it's
pretty much all there is except for that 4 inch. Drop point, which now I'm
going to start obsessing until I get it.
That's it for the Knife Junkie podcast. Be sure to, like, comment,
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