Coming up, the Okapi knife. The October
drop date of the agent 001 by TKL knives and
we see a very small selection of Topps knives in my
collection. My name is 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 My favorite comments from this past week was on the Rolando
episode Strings says. Love hearing from
Rolando. He is a wealth of Marshall blade concepts. Thanks brother
for the awesome content. You're my favorite knife tube
channel by a long shot and you know that makes me feel great.
Thanks for the kind words, Strings. I appreciate you and you're
one of my favorite trading partners. Next was from Tactical
Tavern, Tomas Allah simply says awesome episode.
I was trying to get the two of them on during that episode
but but he was traveling. Tomas was traveling and
couldn't make it. So we'll have the both of them on some episode coming up,
you know, this winter or this fall. Those two guys
are great, really nice guys, of course, but also
both a wealth of knowledge when it comes to
all different kinds of martial knife applications. So we'll have
them on here and we'll just lab about knife fighting.
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. One I haven't
carried for a while. This is the Off Grid Knives
Mamba V3. An absolute beauty. This
is one of the places, one of the many places where Off Grid knives
shines. It's in this sort of modified wharncliffe, modified
sheepsfoot sort of realm. They've got a bunch of
different models that have a similar blade to this and I just
love it because you have a great point placement, which
is actually if you hold the spine straight, it's just
below center, but you also have a gradual
belly and so makes this excellent for
all sorts of utility cuts and that kind of thing. But let's face it, I
like to carry knives for their potential Marshall application and this
would be great both for slashing and for thrusting.
This one is beautiful in that it is a titanium frame
lock, nice and slender. This one has a Magnacut blade.
I've got a few Magnacut play blades in my collection at this
point, but it's always nice to me to
have see something in Magnacut Because I hear it's a
fantastic steel. Do I know the difference between this and
8cr13 mov? Pretty much only when I'm sharpening it.
That's to be totally honest with you.
I love the golf ball texturing, the gold anno and,
and the gray coating on the steel. Really nice
knife. Big. That's a four inch blade. Very capable,
but carries very nice and light. Next up on
my pocket, in my pocket next to this off
grid knife, I had the Ohio River Jack by
C. Reisner cutlery in the duties daggers
sheath. That beautiful green sheath. I think it goes so well.
Talk about autumnal. That's like a beautiful autumn color
combo, that green and the natural canvas micarta.
I love this knife. Haven't carried it in a little while. You know, I have
so many jack wolf knives and they're always tempting me away from other
things. But this is one thing never to forget. It's such
a great knife. M390 blade steel. Got
titanium handles and and liners here.
Great canvas micarta. Beautiful build, really nice walk and
talk and action.
So just a great wharncliffe blade. Now that is a wharncliffe.
I called this right here a modified wharncliffe. This is a true
wharncliffe. It's got that sort of continuous arc
from, from the spine of the blade down to the tip
which is about knuckle level with a straight edge.
So I mean that's what a wharncliffe really looks like. That's why we're always
flummoxed when we see this. And we don't want to call it a reverse
tanto. So we call it a modified wharncliffe or a modified
sheepsfoot because reverse tanto is unacceptable. All
right, next up in my waistband today is the brock
blades Magni XL. This was a,
a proud purchase from Blade Show 2025.
Bought it right from Ken Brock. Great guy. Makes
amazing fixed blade knives. This one is a very thin
3V blade with a swedge that's just begging to be
sharpened. It's not sharp in this case. This is a
Joe Watson design. So I knock out two birds with one
stone with this knife because as I mentioned, frequently one of my
collecting goals is to have a knife from every person
I've interviewed that is probably never going to happen.
But I can dream. And this one takes care
of Joe Watson and Ken Brock. I'd love to get more knives from both
of them, but this one will do until, until I do that
beautiful recurve. This one I've used. I didn't this
time but I've used this one as a steak knife or
dinner knife when at fancy restaurants. And I gotta say I love
that. Especially when, when the waiter makes
a comment like when I was visiting my parents in Ohio for
their 60th anniversary. I remember what the knife
was. Oh, I had my, my
mangana steel Aurelia. I used that as my steak knife. We went to a
fancy restaurant for this beautiful occasion and the, the waiter
was, oh, I see you brought your own steak knife. And I was like, that's
right, get that thing away. Lastly, for
emotional support, it's been hard to pry myself away from this.
My hog tooth Fighting Bowie. This of course is
a, an homage to Bill Bagwell style Bowies like the
hell's bells etc. Except this one
has a bit of a broader blade made by Matt Chase W2
Blade Steel. You can see that gorgeous hamon and the
sharpened back edge. And then of course the devil horns guard
which is probably the most
Bagwellian thing about this knife though it's got
different, different geometry and such. It is a.
Those are very effective guards, I would imagine. I don't know, haven't been in a
fight with it yet. Ring the gidgee wood handle
from Australia and just a beautiful build. Of course
I, I got the. I don't say of course like it's on every blade but
I have that Luke 8:8 17 on
there and you know, I like to have that. It's
for nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed and nothing concealed that will
not be known or brought out into the open. So it's a. It's all about
truth and you cannot run from truth no
matter how much you want it to be different. And so I don't know,
it's a theme I really like. Plus 817 is my birthday
and every time I look at the clock it seems like it's 817. So
it just had to happen that way. All right. This was my carry today.
As I look at it, quite a nice bit of knives here.
The off grid Mamba V3. The V2 and the
V1 are interesting but the V3 is the best. The Ohio
River Jack from Sea Reisner cutlery with this beautiful
green slip from Duties Daggers now I think they're called.
Now he's got an official company and I can't remember what he calls it but
go check out Kevin Duties
sheets there pocket slips. I think you can get them at traditional pocket knives
dot com. I had the magni XL from a design
from Joe Watson made by Ken Bra. And then of course
my, my beautiful, my spirit animal here, this
fighting Bowie from Hogtooth Knives for
my Edk, my Esk. All right, next up,
I want to tell you about YouTube memberships. They are live
right down here where it says join. You can click on that and you get
the benefits of a gentleman junkie from
Patreon. And we all know what those things entail,
especially if you like to get a, a knife every third
Thursday of the month. You're in the running for that. So definitely
check that out. Plus all the other stuff. And speaking of Patreon,
Jim's been hard at work coming up with the Friday
funnies, coming up with coming up with Knife
Notes and Maker Mondays. The the most recent maker Monday
was cool and but this most recent
knife notes is of the sandbar duel.
And since we're talking about Jim Bowie, I should put a Bowie knife there. Uh,
a really cool day in history. I don't know if I should say a cool
day. That, that doesn't make it sense, but it was September
19th when the famed sandbar
Sandbar duel where Jim Bowie, though, like
nearly shot to death and run through by a sword
cane, was able to disembowel one of his.
I'm not laughing at that. Was able to disembowel someone
the second in the duel that he was seconding. And
so it's a very, very famous proving ground of the Bowie knife as a
fighting knife. It did not look like this
apparently looked more just like a straight up butcher knife, but
there's been some controversy around that. So
anyway, go to Patreon, check it out. A lot of cool stuff we have to
offer there. You can go to the knife junkie.com
Patreon or you can scan the QR code on your screen to do so.
Uh, when you sign up for a full year, you save 12%. So you might
consider that we've had a few people take advantage of that here recently
and greatly appreciate it. The knife junkie.com patreon
again the knife. Junkie.Com patreon want
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You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. And now here's the
knife junkie with the knife life news. So we have knife
life news articles from four of the biggie big big
biggest out there. First from crkt, we have a limited
edition iridescent series where
there, there's one new product and then they're
putting this iridescent titanium nitrite coating
on a bunch of knives designed by heavy hitters.
First one I want to talk about is the. Well this one right
on screen actually we'll go to that one first. That's called the facet.
That's a Ken Onion design and if I do say so myself,
it looks more like a benchmade 940
than a Ken Onion design because I always know Ken Onion as
recurves and swoops and grooves and choils and such.
But this was a departure. You should not
typecast yourself as a designer. And so always
moving around. Ken Onion created this a few years back. The
facet in their fancier line. You can get this in
steel but mostly it's you want this for the
titanium frame lock. So here this one is the dime
damascus version with the tyne coated titanium
frame lock handle. That's 3.38 inches in blade
length. And, and I gotta say it's, it's a pretty
cool knife. And I especially like it, like I said, because it doesn't
necessarily look like a Kenyan Ken Onion.
Next is one called the Hang Pry. The Hang Pry
right there that we see on screen is a Richard Rogers design.
Accompanying one that is a
kiridashi version of this. But this is a titanium
pry bar with that tie nye finish.
You can pry, scrape score with this. It's got a bit of a
tip, but it's not just sharp, it does not have an edge that's
3.6 inches overall. Next up is
one called the snap lock. This is
a tie knife version of the snap lock which is an Ed
Van Hoy design that came out 21 years
ago in 2004. Which is crazy quirky
design with something called a cam lock. And we've probably
all seen this knife, maybe we've even been tempted by it when
we've been in our museum building phase. But this one
has the has that kineye
rainbow treatment to it as well. A pretty neat looking
knife, especially with that weird looking pocket clip that descends and
gives your palm something to rest upon.
If you scroll down, you'll see that that anc cry was
a an accompaniment of this. The hang tie. A Titanium
bladed kiridashi. Pretty neat looking thing here.
None of these are quite up my alley,
but they're all available now, right for you. I do
like what CRKT has been doing in the last five years. Kind of upping their
game a with their collaborations but also most
importantly with their builds. Having the Italians build something,
some things, having Hogue and other American companies
build stuff. So I like what CRKT is doing here.
Next UP is the third 2025 product release
by Kershaw Kershaw. The Pack Mule is
the first one. And this is one that came up on Thursday night Knives
this past week and I hadn't heard of it and someone said,
are you gonna get the Pack Mule? Looks like your kind of knife. And it
really does look like my kind of a knife. There's one part about
it that is definitely not me and I'll tell you about that in a second
second. But I love the profile of this clip point blade.
I'm looking right at that choil there. That triangular
sharpening notch between the handle and the ricasso of the blade is
beautiful. Also will give you much, much Life on
this 3.9-inch N690
blade. You'll be able to sharpen up because of how they did that plunge grind.
You'll get a lot of life out of that blade. E10
handle scales made in the USA. Here's the part that isn't
quite me. This is a $232 knife,
MSRP. And to me that's pricey for a
Kershaw period. It's also pricey for a fixed
blade. Less engineering goes into a fixed blade and
you know, I don't know. Plus, there's nothing about it that
doesn't look. It kind of looks like a big box store Kershaw in
its sort of muted tones and generics
kind of G10. All of that said, I do like the look of this knife.
I'd love to have it just at a lower price. All right, next up is
the Bel Air xl. People love the Bel Air. I
love it from a distance. It's not quite in my wheelhouse in terms of
size, but it's a beautiful knife. This XL
is a 3.4 inch, so nearly my size.
Magnacut Wharncliffe. A modified Wharncliffe. We'll call
it G10 handle skills. You've got that ambidextrous bar
lock, also USA made, which is great. I love that they're
bringing a good a bit of their production Back to
the USA. This one's $175.
So coming a little closer to my
threshold, but I'm sorry if I'm spending
that money on a Kai knife. I'm. I'm going for a zt. But
hey, I'm an old man and I'm thinking old school. So
Kershaw's back. They're back in the States. We need to support that. I
hear the Bel Air is a magnificent knife. So if you like the
XL 3.4 version with magnacut,
you know, 175 is probably worth it.
Next up is the Atreides A A
an American Tanto. Americanized Tanto. Named
after one of the great houses of Dune. I
just, I just got the download for my wife. I've seen all the Dune
movies and I've very much enjoyed them, but she's read all the books and
really likes Dune. She's a. My wife is a beautiful nerd.
That's what I like to say. She's very into the sci fi and the
fantasy. So she explained the whole story about the House of
Tradies. Let's just say they're the good guys. From what I gleaned from
that conversation, what I do know is that this is an Americanized
Tanto and does not look much like the Kriss
that they fight with in. In
Dune. The Kris is not a wavy blade. It's just a. An
appropriated name used for the knives that are in the
Dune series. 5.7 inches of
65mn, which is a
10xx series carbon steel.
Steel I've never heard of, from a series I've never heard of. But I love
carbon steel and I'm glad that this one has that blackout finish. Now this
is a reasonable $60. So
we're getting more into my ballpark in terms of Kershaw pricing.
Next up, I'm just going to mention the Launch 22. There's
also a Launch 23 that looks great too. But this Launch
23 floats my boat with that beautiful spear point bayonet
ground blade of that is magnacut. The
23 is 154 cm, but this one has that
green anodized aluminum finish. Really nice looking,
especially with that canvas Micarta inlay.
We know these Launch series knives pick like
mules. So I don't know, this is. This is kind
of a tempting one, I gotta say. Also, USA made
$180. All of these Kershaws
are available now. All right, next up, this
one is from Boker Boker, a company really famous
for their collaborations. I mean, constant collaborations.
And I'm not complaining. They have allowed me to have a knife
by Charles Marlow who you know occasionally
makes custom or makes custom knives on a very
non production friendly schedule and at prices I couldn't,
you know, begin to afford. But Poker was able to make
two knives by him bring them to market. But this is
a Charles DeBuyere
collaboration. He's opus Knives, a company I've been following on
Instagram for a long time. Opus Knives they have that
signature hole opening there. It's sort of swoosh
shape. Anyway they've got this new one which is another
trailing point as as as mentioned on
knife news 2025 has been kind of the
resurrection of the trailing point blade. We've been seeing a number of
them. This one is just such a thing.
2.7 inches of that's D2
blade steel. Very nicely contoured and
sort of tactical handle with the with the graceful
arch, the forward finger choil and
thumb area which kind of gives it a pinch point.
Great for thrusting. Kydex sheath this one
is $70 and is available now. If you've always
wanted a Charles debyer or Opus Blades knife or
Opus Knives blade, this is a good way to get in on the
ground floor. Check out the Tavros from Boker. Okay, last
up is a Buck of the month. We always talk about the buck of the
month when that comes up. This one is from the the
Pack Light series, not one that is
that you would expect to see the buck of the month treatment of. They usually
do their signature signature
designs. This is from a more budget line as the
631. Pack Light is a heavily skeletonized
knife both in the blade and in the handle. Has a very small handle
scale on both sides. But this one got the buck of the month treatment.
That's a 4 inch blade of hollow ground CPM
Magna cut and you can see
a small what do you carbon fiber handle scale on both
sides just between the two
voids there. Kydex sheath 3.1 ounces so
pretty light for a 4 inch blade. Also USA made
and 165 $5. So if this
floats your boat if you're a buck collector which I'm not a buck
collector but I have a small collection of bucks let's say and I really love
them. Check out the Buck of the month. I need to start doing that when
they come out with models I really love like the 112 and the
110 and the 119,
120, 119117
hunting fixed blade arena all right. Still to
come on the knife junkie podcast, we're going to get to
the first tool knife themed shirts, hoodies, mugs,
water bottles and more. Thenifejunkie.com shop.
You're listening to the knife Junkie podcast. Here's some cool knife
history with the knife junkies. The first tool so today we're
talking about the okapi knife. This is not exactly
an okapi. This is a kudu, a slip joint version from
cold steel. I had an okapi from cold steel and I busted it.
So I do intend to get another one. But it's a fascinating story.
If you've ever handled an okapi knife, you know it's not flashy,
it's not polished steel or bone handled elegance.
It's simple stamped metal, wooden scales, and a distinctive
ring pull lock. But despite its plain looks, the
okapi earned a reputation that made it one of the most famous knives in
southern African history. The story begins in
1902 in Solingen, Germany. German manufacturers
were producing inexpensive folding knives meant for export. And
one design destined for Africa, took root. It was
named the okapi, sometimes called the forest giraffe,
named after an animal, a shy striped animal discovered
around the same time in the rainforests of the Congo. It's endemic
to the Congo. Just as the animal was exotic and
mysterious, the knife carried a sense of novelty when it first
appeared. But it was in South Africa that the okapi found
its true home. It was cheap, durable and easy to
sharpen. It became the working man's knife, carried by laborers,
farmers and miners. You could find one in the pocket of a fisherman
or in the hand of a sugar cane cutter. It was in many ways
the Swiss army knife of southern Africa. But
stripped down to pure utility, of course, the
okapi also picked up a darker reputation. Its
affordability and locking mechanism made it popular with street gangs and
criminals, earning it the nickname the flick knife of Africa.
In some townships, just the sight of that ring pull handle
was enough to command respect and feat. It became
woven into the local folklore, even appearing in music and
and stories as a symbol of toughness.
Yet beyond the notoriety, the okapi endures as a cultural
icon today. It's still made now in South Africa,
still recognizable by its crescent shaped wooden handle and simple
construction. Collectors often call it the knife of the people,
A blade that wasn't born in a royal court or carried by generals,
but one that found its place in the hands of everyday workers.
So the next time you see an okapi Knife. Don't just see a cheap
folder. See the history it carries. A German export that
became African through and through. A knife that
worked its way into culture, labor and legend.
Because sometimes the simplest knife can tell
the deepest story. Do you carry multiple knives?
Then overthink which one to use. When an actual cutting chore pops up,
you're a knife junkie of the first order. First up
in, first up and only up in the
agent in the state of the Collection is the agent
001. This is released on
October 1, 2025. Coming out
real soon. As if you're watching this as it drops and
I've been showing this off quite a bit, I just had Tim Kell on the
show to talk about some of the updates. This now
machined by Nick Chuprin of NCC Knives, an
absolute perfectionist. And he has gone all the way with these
beautiful knives. He also has been machining other
Tekal knives and they're just coming out beautifully. Look
at that step milling on the bevel. Look at
those chamfers on the jimping. And then of
course, you've got 30 different handle materials to
choose from. Not different handle materials, but different varieties of
G10 and Micarta. Now you can get it
in this. A glass reinforced nylon battle
lock handle. Oh my gosh. It grit has such
incredible grip to it. These things are awesome.
I was telling Tim in person I had my doubts about
glass reinforced nylon on my TKL knives because
I love the different handle materials they've been offering so far. But
once I got this in hand and also saw it with the naked eye, the
beautiful color saturation in both this
and the. And the olive drab version he
sent me and then knowing there are thousands, literally
thousands of color options that can be had with these knives
and these handles, it really, really got me going on these
battle locks. This is made, it's a proprietary,
not proprietary to Tim Kell, but it's something he was able to
license from some of the manufacturers who make
Sig and or no, I'm sorry, I think Glocks
and FN USA handles
also you can get it in the Kydex sheath. In this
case, carrying the awesome. My. My new favorite clip,
especially for horizontal carry. This is an Ulti clip
and it's got this incredible,
easily spaced between holes, a wire clip.
So definitely check this out. Or you can get it in
the leather sheath by
Badger Claw. Let. Let me get it right. Badger Claw
Outfitters. And these are super stout,
incredible sheaths. I've been carrying it just like this, dropping it in the
pocket. I love it. I love it just like that. Some, sometime I
might attach it with a clip, but I just like the low profile of
dropping this in. You can still remove the blade and re sheathe
it quite easily without it being clipped in there. But
these I would highly recommend. So I highly recommend
this whole package. Check out the agent double
O1 series. This is the second production run.
This is my design collaboration with Tim Kell which
launched the whole Agent series, which they're
up to seven, missing six. But they're going to double back and make it
an agent double oh six. So do go check those
out@tcalknives.com
all right. Before we get to Topps Knives. And I called
it a small selection because Tops Knives makes a million
different knives. I mean they make so many different models and
they have many of them in constant
production. It's, it's not like they just cancel them,
mothball them and move on. They keep a lot of the
knives still going. So I'm going to show you some of those.
But first check out this merch that Jim's been working on.
Stay spooky, stay sharp or get
spooked. And of course we're moving right into
Halloween season and we are going
Halloween themed. So go to the knife junkie.com shop and
check out this design on T shirts, aprons, cups,
mugs, all sorts of things. Also coming up here,
I'm gonna have a very limited, like five
Zippos with the Knife Junkie logo on them. So, uh, we're going to be selling
those. Just want to see if anyone's interested. I got it for myself because
I've been smoking a lot of cigars recently and I like to use my Zippo
with a, with a torch insert to light it. And I figured why not?
That'd be kind of cool. See if anyone else wants one. So if not, if
no one else wants one, I've got five Zippos with my own logo on it.
Not the worst thing. All right. Topps Knives,
a great American company built out west in
Idaho and started by four law enforcement
officers and ex military guys. And,
and now it is owned and, and run by one of
those four original members, Leo Espinoza, a
by all accounts a great guy. I tried to have him on the show, but
I think he's kind of, he's not into doing that kind of thing. Though he
did send his, his
chief of staff Craig and chief of designs Craig, who
came on a great dude. But I want to show you these knives.
They're, they're, they've always captured my imagination since long
before I could afford them. They first came out with the Iron
Eagle, a big Tanto and, and they were just
big full tang combat style
knives. And since they first came out, they've, they've
widened out their scope into everyday carry, into self
defense, into bushcraft and outdoors. But they started
as a combat blade knife company and that lineage has
always stuck with me. First in this list
probably. Well, I'm not going to say my favorite. I
have at least four favorites on this table, but this is
the Praetor War Bowie in a sheath of my own
construction, which, if I do say so myself, one of the better
Kydex sheets I've created. But this is a beautiful
blend of three different kind of bowie knives in my, in
my estimation, the Mexican style bowie knife
with the super long clip, the American bowie
knife with that sort of coffin style handle. And then it
resembles also especially in this area right here
where the handle meets the Ricasso, a French fighting knife.
Not so much a bowie knife, more of what a butcher knife looks like,
but it makes the wit of
the blade, the handle guard. This one
was out of production for a while and people lost their mind
because like me, everyone was saving up for one or everyone wanted one
and so they brought it back into production a little while ago. And
I love this one. This is one that could stand a secondary
edge sharpening. This is one that could stand a small
version. This is. This one is
one of my favorite bowie knives, let alone one of my favorite Ops
knives. 1095 blade steel. That's a common theme. As a matter of fact,
out of all of these, and I believe I have 11 in my list,
there is only one that is not 1095 blade steel. But I will mention
it each time. They've got that black traction coating
on here. Beautiful Jimping. There's an interesting
video of Jeff Prather, the guy who designed this, showing
all the different ways that he carries this and
draws it. I've heard there's some
controversy, controversy around Jeff
Prather, but I've always been a guy who's able
to separate the art from the artist if, especially if they have
kooky ideas or have done bad things. Many artists throughout
history, like Caravaggio for instance, was a bit of a murderer, I think.
Well, I. Let's just say he killed someone in a bar brawl, but he painted
his way back into the church's good graces and none of that
matters today. What Matters is are his beautiful paintings.
I, I find it the same way with, with knives.
I know that Mick Strider has had some
from what I've heard unwarranted criticisms. But I don't care.
I love his knives. Same thing with Jack Prather. I don't know what he apparently
did, but one thing he did well and right was
design this really awesome knife. So this is the Prather
War Bowie by Tops knives and they're all by Tops
knives so I'll stop saying that. But this thing is incredible. Seven and a
half inch blade, so about the size of a KA bar
but a lot beefier. Next up is one that
I got from my good buddy Dave of OG Blade reviews.
This is a Colin Despens design. He's a
self defense specialist who trained a lot in Russian martial arts
to include Systema. And this is a
knife, crazy looking knife specialized for
their style of blade fighting. To me it looks like a very
exotic, high maintenance and
exotic picol style knife. It is to be held like
this. So you've got the, you've got
this nasty reverse edge blade here for
thrusting and pulling and then up front you have this
sharpened scooped area here for punching
and forward slashing. So a very specialized
tool. This is not one you're going to make feather sticks with at the campsite.
This is probably not one you're going to EDC unless you,
you know, are carrying it strictly for self defense.
Not that you couldn't open up a box with this, but it is
just strange enough and beefy enough that it's,
it's a specialized area. This is also
1095 blade steel and when you look at it on this side you
can see a, that black fracture coating. You can see how that scoop though
very oblique in edge geometry is
sharpened on both sides. You would do some nasty damage with both of these
edges, steep as they are. And then you can see there it
says designed by Ste Desbins. It's the
X1251. And I love the Topps logo by the
way. One of the few companies along with Emerson and Microtech
whose labels are like their, their
makers marks are kind of militaristic enough
that I like the way it looks on the blade so I don't mind the
billboarding. It's also set up to hold in this
sort of forward grip a strange knife and
definitely one for the museum. Also comes in
a great sheath which is another theme with the, with Topps knives.
And this was something they did for a long time. They still do on some
of their models but it's a 360 degree
rotatable spring clip. Interesting and
cool. Definitely came out before all of the
modular belt clips that are popular now and
so always was kind of an interesting thing. The one thing I don't care about
it too much is is the distance from the belt that this will,
this will put the the the knife but still an
excellent carry system. Okay, next up. This is the
one, the one that does not have one
1095 blade steel. This one is called the
Rapid Strike. This is a Leo
Espinosa designed fighter. I love this little knife.
Asymmetrical fighters are my thing as you know. And this
is a great everyday carry asymmetrical fighter.
This one is a little bit modified
by myself. It had a longer and pointy sort
of glass breaker style pommel here which
through the made it more difficult to carry because it
made this knife longer and it kind of stabbed into my side
and then also did not make it easy to to cap the pommel with
the thumb for downward thrusting
or reverse grip thrusting. So I just ground
it off and I also put grooves in the handle to make it grippier
and easier to draw. It's got this cool jimping going
all the way around the handle which if you
grip it tightly it doesn't stand proud of the scales but if you grip it
tightly you can engage that that jimping with
the fat of your thumb and hand that that just kind of melt into
there. Nice and slender. Also a good length. That's
about four inches or four and a quarter inches. So a good,
good long self defense knife but also nice and
slender. They've got a number of knives like this
that are long, slender, thin, close to the
body style. Self defense knives. They 1 it's an
area they excel in. One kind of interesting thing I've never seen on any other
knife that I can remember is that it's got this bolt going
in on one side and that's for positive
engagement in this Kydex sheath.
That bolt kind of notches right into that dome and
keeps it nice and secure in there. And a knife like this,
a self defense knife, you want it to be secure in the sheath.
All right. That is the rapid strike. My 154cm selection.
You would, you would think, one might think that that would be more common,
a more common blade choice for the tops knives like
say this next one that ride close to the body. But this is definitely
1095 as well. This is the Lacy Zabo design
Felony stop this was one of
the knives that really made me fall in love with tops
after, after they started adopting different
designs other than the giant combat blades. This one
just really did it for me. It's a dagger.
We'll call it a dagger just for our purposes here. Even though it's
bayonet ground and isn't symmetrical all the
way, it's a pistol grip dagger that easily stashes
on your body. This was one of the first knives that carried EDC on a,
on a, on a pretty full, full time basis.
You've got this great thumb swale here that also
doubles as a trapping swale. So
if you're, if you're use holding this knife using this in reverse grip.
This scoop here with the jimping is great for
trapping your opponent's arm or wrist if
you come in contact with them in, in this sort of manner.
And that is not a way to, that is
not a way to apprehend someone. That is a way to.
It's a halfbeat in, in a sequence of
moves in a knife fight at that sort of trapping thing would be a
momentary way to trap
someone's arm before you move on to something else. It's not, not. It's not a
way to permanently trap them or, or to hold them in place. It's just
a sort of halfbeat measure but a really great consideration
on a knife like this. Double edged and
intended for self defense and fighting.
Very, very sharp 1095 and gray
traction coating. If you buy this today, it'll be black traction coated
which to be honest I like a little bit better. This one you can see
which side was touching my skin more often and it was this
one. As you can see from that gray G10, that's.
I mean that gray micarta which is started to patina.
Really, really nice knife. I've carried it a long time. I haven't carried it
in a while but, but I was carrying it in the waistband in
this manner. So this would come over my belt would come through
here and it would just ride up above my waistband.
That's the felony stop. And all of the billboarding of this knife is on the
handle, which is kind of a cool way to do it. Next
up, also very self defense. This one's
designed by DC Blades and they're really pushing
this one as a very useful edc and I could, I could see
that. But of course I really look at this through the lens of
self defense. This is the Afyra and
a wicked, wicked design from the very prolific design team
that is DC blades. This one
fully gripped in hand just melts in
the hand and gets pretty much buried in there. And then the only
thing sticking out is this wicked sharp finger. It's like an extra
finger or a tusk. Looks like a rhino to me
and is awesome in reverse grip. They've considered
the pommel in a way that I love. You can either kind of rest
your thumb there or the way I prefer is to hook over and
grab onto that jimping and it gives you really, really excellent
purchase. Also with that curve of the spine of the blade,
another good trapping sort of style knife
again, just for a half beat, you're going to yank the guy's arm here before
you come over here. So a great shape.
Also this jimping here is excellent for both the thumb
and then also for grabbing 1095 blade steel with that black
traction, high traction coating. I love the
maroon liners here. They're not going for that bright red this
time, they're going for a deep maroon which is very
subtle and quite beautiful. On this really unique and
beautiful knife.
You say how could this be a practical edc actually when
it was described to me it could be used
to chop vegetables. It could be used for
campsite stuff, feather sticks and that kind of
thing I guess. But to me
this is EDC self defense all day long. Great fold
over taco sheath. And they have this clip on it
which I also got from a different knife and put on my
rapid strike. But I, I really like this top split.
Really keeps the thing on the belt easy and,
and stoutly. Okay, next up. This one was featured
recently in a pocket carry fixed blade episode we did here. This is the
FDX 66. There are
a couple of knives in this FDX model. This is the most bearded
paired down version with no handle scales. Though I've thought about
putting handle scales in. It would actually affect how it rides in this
awesome stout pocket leather sheet. I say pocket leather, but you could
also carry it on the belt either horizontally or
vertically. There was a period of time where I was
carrying this quite a bit and I ended up wrapping that with
electrical tape just to give it a little bit more grip.
Not only in terms of width, which I gave it a little width there,
but also just in terms of surface grip.
More than half circle there acts as the finger groove
and swedge. The, the depth of that really aids
in the grip of this. Because this is a two and a half finger
knife. I've vacillated back
and forth about keeping a fob on There I'll probably next
time I start carrying this, next time I go through an FDX
66 phase I'll probably put a fob on there to, to try it
out for extra grip length here. But I
love the shape of this Americanized tanto. It's
got instead of a secondary point it's got like a belly, like
a very subtle belly there. And I think that this one would make
a great fixed blade, a longer fixed blade knife, a
more combative fixed blade because I love that
downward angle of the straight edge here.
I think that that really aids in cutting and would make it an
excellent slashing knife if it were a little bit larger. I mean as it is
it's a little self defensey kind of EDC knife. So it could,
it could make a good slasher as well. But with only two and a
half fingers on there. You know, you'd have to be
careful using this in any sort of dynamic
scenario. The FDX 66 also
1095 and seracoted with that
tan, tan color. Okay. The second one from
Lacy Zabo in this list is the Zabo Express.
This was a must have when it came out. I, I, I ran,
I didn't walk to my nearest top stealer which was I believe
knifecenter and snap this up. Now I was thinking this
one before I just looked it up was 154. It's unmarked but
it indeed is also 1095 blade steel. This one has
a black coating but it's not that traction coating. It's a
smoother, smoother coating. I opted for
mine to be double edged as you can see here. No choils,
no sharpening choils which aid in a
smooth retraction from any sort of, sort of material you might be
stabbing this thing into. And you're not going to get hung up on the
choils there. An asymmetrical fighter
design. You can especially see it when you turn it upside down that it
is asymmetrical. And then of course you've got this
arched grip. Very comfortable guard here is really
protective. Nicely jimped on that thumb ramp
there. Really stops you from moving forward.
Move that thumb moving forward onto that nasty top
edge. Also a nice bottom edge. I'm going to put this out with the other
Zabo design just so you can see if you don't know
Lacy Szabo, he's a former marine and law enforcement
officer martial artist who has designed some of the
most unique and crazy looking tactical knives
in his day. This Express is probably one of the
Most Tang designs I've seen from him, really, really cool.
If you just do an image search of Lacy Zabo designs, you're going
to be wowed by his very combative style
knives. Here you see the, the black micarta,
this time with that bright red liner. Looks so
nice. I love this Zabo Express.
This one I have carried in the waistband at the 3
o', clock, but as soon as I have to sit down for
any length of time, I would remove it. So this is not so much
an edc. I tried to push it with this one, but it's
great under the belt, just, you know, walking around
and not in the waistband, but just under the belt. That's the Zabo Express.
My top's not as. All right,
next up. This one is on loan from Dave of
OG Blade Reviews. Not on loan, but this is a going to be a giveaway
knife. I used to own this knife and foolishly sold it.
This is the, this is the very cool Swanagan
designed cut four. This is
a really, really useful and
useful, practical and wicked knife. Of course, you look at it,
it almost looks like an SE or something. You've got a pretty
tame drop point, albeit a very acute
pointed drop point. Nice and thick. This is a
3,8 of an inch thick blade. 1095 blade steel,
again with the high traction coating. But it's a,
like an outdoors knife that doubles as a tactical knife. That
ring there is perfectly placed and very, very stout.
Perfectly placed, meaning you can make a natural wrist, natural fist
with this in your hand. But also a really thick ring
that can be used not only for adjusting
attitudes but also breaking into things like coconuts.
I've seen people do that with this ring or any, any
manner of hard,
hard, hard walled. What am I trying to say?
Nuts. You could, you go and you could smash open nuts with this.
Coconuts. You could pound in ten steaks with it. It's nice and thick.
It's just, it just has a lot of purposes. It's not just a
Karambati type knife
in standard grip. I don't use the ring and it makes for
an excellent pommel. So this is an all around great
knife. It's got a fold over Pakko style sheath which as
far as I'm concerned for self defense. These are the best kind of
sheaths because they're slender and they mount, they
mount easily without having too much real
estate there. This is a tan micarta. You can see
as you go from side to side, this side is darker. It's contacted the
Skin more, I think. And I love how it turns kind of
red as it gets more and more oil in
it. This is the Swanigan design cut for
combat utility.
Combat utility, whatever the T stands for. Not
sure, you could call it the cuck combat
utility knife, but that would be untoward.
By the way, when I was carrying mine, I definitely carried it most
often in the waistband at the 3 o'. Clock. If I were to carry
this nowadays, I would carry it using the soft loops on
the, on the front in scout style.
Next up, another ringed knife. This was designed by
Craig Powell. I mentioned him earlier. He's there. I
don't know, I don't know what his. He's like their chief of staff and their
chief designer and maybe not their chief designer, but their head
of Prada. He's the, the forward facing guy that you see from
tops. Really nice dude. He was on the show years ago and
this is his design and it's a really cool one.
Another case where the ring is actually quite useful
and you can use it, you can hold it in a natural
style fist. If you're going to use it combatively like this,
you've got that straight edge which we all know is great for slashing and such.
But this is more of a
utility knife and I could see this almost as a bird and trout
knife. It is the poker. Now
all you actual hunters and fishermen are like, yeah, but that's got a straight edge,
Bob. So the, the, the part of it that really
strikes me as a bird and trout is the ring. It's a utility with a
ring, a utility knife with a ring. So you're using it, say however you're going
to use it. Maybe you're cutting open boxes and then you need to do something
else. So you let it hang on the ring, you do that something else, you
bring it back, you do your cutting and then you let it hang on the
ring. So rings are not always for caramb flipping
and, and, and that kind of flashy tactical
movement. Oftentimes they're used just for retention
and for deployment. So it makes it easy to take out of the sheath
and then makes it easy to hold onto when you have to do other stuff
with it. This one has a beautiful two layer
micro micarta handle. You've got black and
then black micarta liners and then
the tan handle, canvas handle. Really, really nice
knife. Made in the USA as all of these are in
Idaho. Just a beautiful, beautiful knife.
All right, second to last is my, or
penultimate is my most used tops
Knives knife by far, maybe not the most carried because
I've, I carried the felony stop and the rapid strike a lot
just edc ing it. But this one has gotten the most use. This was
my, my outdoor knife for a long time.
This is the tex Creek a
1095 blade. This has been reprofiled because I've,
I've chipped this blade before. Even though 1095 is super tough,
sometimes it doesn't like it when you're swinging and you hit it
hit metal pipes. And so I took a big chip out of this at one
point. You can still see the ghost of it right there.
But filed it out, sharpened it out and
here it is good to go again. So 1095 with the acid
stonewall or acid rain finish. So it's kind
of a clear coat that protects that
high carbon steel. And you can also see the
hardening, you can see the, the hamone a little bit. If you look,
you look closely you can see a darker steel down towards the
bottom. USA made. Again, great
handle. Very, very comfortable with the red. I got this initially
to edc I thought this was going to be like a cool
self defense kind of combat knife. But I found the handle to be too
long. I made a great Kydex sheath for it, but I found
the handle to be too long. And if I were to
cut it down, I found that the
lanyard hole was kind of in the wrong spot for making it shorter. So
I just left it as is and discovered that this is actually the perfect
sheath for this. Because this isn't a combat knife. This is not a,
an EDC self defense knife. This is a do everything kind
of outdoor chore knife or camp knife. And so this kind
of a leather drop pouch sheath is
perfect for walking around doing your cutting. Then just drop it back
in and no fuss, no muss. You don't have to worry about
sliding it into a tight sheath and then snapping a
retention strap or any of that. It's just easy access
and good to go. I have this set up for this
style lanyard here so
that I, I saw this once I described talk about this a
lot at first on this show. I like a lanyard
to go around the back of the hand so that if it drops
it swings side to side. If you have it around your
wrist and it drops it more tends to swing towards you.
So a interesting way to
have a lanyard that I learned somewhere. Now I can't remember where
but makes it swing side to side. If you have to drop it, let it
Go or it slips out of your hands. This is the tops
Tex Creek now the last
in my collection. But not the last forever certainly. This
was a gift from my wife with a little bit of
direction from her husband. And this is the Wild Pig
Hunter. This is based on a Russian combat
knife. It has a very stiff blade. You can see it's
got, it's got this swedge, this hard cut swedge
really meant to shore up the blade. You have full thickness of
this blade, which is about a quarter inch, I think
going all the way to the, the tip. Let's see, is this a
quarter inch? Yeah, it's a quarter inch and you have full
thickness nearly to the tip and a very, very, let's get this
to focus. Very, very stout tip there.
So perfect for rusting into a wild pig.
This is also got that same
1095 blade steel with the acid rain finish,
which is kind of a clear coat. Allows you to see the hardening line of
the hamon there. You can see it's harder down below
on the edge where you want it to be, but softer in
other places so that it can flex when it's
in a struggling mammal. Really
nice handle in terms of a. The, the gorgeous
red G10 liners and tan
canvas micarta. But also that profile is
really comfortable in hand. I mean, very comfortable in
hand. And we look at this and we see the guards and we see the
blade and then the name. And we know that this is primarily a
thrusting knife. But if you do have to slash, swing
or chop with this, the shape of the
blade how or the shape of the handle, the way it swells out towards the
pommel makes it perfect for retention in
a, in a swing, chop or slash.
Beautiful logo there again and again. Like I said, one of the
few knife companies whose billboarding actually charms me
rather than turns me off. This is the V 1914
model and this is the gorgeous leather sheet it comes
with. Now if you decide to get the all black super tactical version
of this knife, it will ship with a black
Kydex sheet. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Tops
Knives, one of my favorite companies out there. American made and
coming from a place of combativeness,
self defense, outdoor definitely fix blades
primarily. They make a couple of folders which I've never actually experienced
but I wouldn't mind checking out. You should check out some tops
knives too. You can, you can find them everywhere you buy
your favorite knives. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the
switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, thank you and
don't take dull for an answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie
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