Combat Knives in Honor of Memorial Day and our Veterans of Military Service
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. Welcome to the ninth junkie podcast. Your weekly dose of knife, news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your hosts, Jim person involved, the knife junkie DeMarco. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the knife junkie podcast. Episode number thirty one I'm Jim person, and I'm Bob the knife junkie DeMarco. Welcome to the show, a special show today bomb. We are releasing this on the Memorial Day weekend and kind of a attribute show. And thank you show to those that have served in the military, and those that are currently serving every time, I think of and we've spoken with a lot of veterans recently on the show, and it just keeps coming back me. I just wanna thank our men and women in uniform because they sacrificed, their lives of comfort at home with their family, so that we can have that our selves, and it just, you know, it makes me feel proud. Yeah. Absolutely. Well out of American flag seen flying around this weekend. A lot of patriotic decorations. I know our neighborhood had a big the Memorial Day neighborhood gathering firework show. So a lot of those patriotic things you think about, but it's. Something that we need to think about every day of the year. Thanks to our military service, folks, as well as the veterans and again on behalf of myself and my family just want to say thank you. Well to those who have served in our currently serving a little apology here. Bob, I as we began the show are snafu just not looking at the calendars properly. We had promoted last week that we're going to be talking to Fareham forge this week knowing that we were going to have a Memorial Day, kind of tribute show and kind of honor, and salute the military service, folks and the veterans. So our apologies will will have firm forge coming up, but we wanted to make sure that we had this, this special show this weekend. Yeah, it happens. It happens sometimes in work. And then it also happens in the important stuff like podcast, so, yeah, a lot of times it work. But let's not go there. So anyway, I do wanna remind folks that are podcast today is brought to you by a new sponsor, if you will, and this is kind of one near and dear to my heart because I'm not that much of a shopper, but I like saving money. So definitely you wanna hear this? If you like getting cash back for your purchases, which, I know I do you wanna use EBay Ebay's and because you're a loyal knife junkie listener, if you're not already a member of e Bates, you'll get ten dollars for joining if you go to the knife, junkie dot com slash cashback. It's easy. I said, I use e Bates chrome extension, so whenever I go to EBay or an online merchant Ebay's will pop up an asset. I want to use their Lincoln save money. And we'll of course I do. So, again, just go to the knife, junkie dot com slash cash back sign up after you spend twenty five dollars you'll get ten dollars. So then I've chunky dot com slash cash back easy way to earn money on stuff. You already going to be spending on. I know Amazon EBay, a lot of online merchants. I can go three Bates and save money for mother's day. When I ordered a watch for my wife, I got back ten twelve bucks. Something like that. So he's a nice, and, you know, ten bucks is some portion of knife as right? Every little bit helps that. All right. So we've got this special show. Bob military related veteran related. We're gonna talk about combat knives in the military kind of kind of set us up for this. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking of knives, that if someone came to me and said, I'm, I'm being deployed overseas. And I wanna take you know what knife should I bring I can I can young going to be issued either abandoned or, or a K bar, whatever the knife is? But I wanna bring something else what should I bring? So these are some knives. This is sort of a list of sample knives. I put together heaping in mind cost. Because oftentimes on deployment. I've heard get stolen things get damaged badly things. Get lost my brother-in-law James was in the invasion of Iraq, two thousand three and he is that got stolen. He's in the United States, Marine corps was at the time I should say and they were on some base with army guys. And so he army. But right, right. He had a cool m seven bayonet ended up giving me the sheath and bought a new m seven bayonet to put in it for my birthday. That was nice. Yeah. And I did want to kind of emphasized. We're not talking about art knives, here custom. I think you're going to kind of keep, like, what two hundred and below or something like that two hundred and blow, actually I don't even think we quite reach two hundred. Okay. All right. But I'm also thinking about size and weight, Jim because military folks have to carry a lot of gear around, especially you know, especially if they're in combat in out in the field. And so you wanna keep it capable.

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But light and sizable, but not too big. I would imagine, you know there's a lot of other things he'd carry around. There are a lot of great large oversized heavy knives. That would be a more than capable in the field. But do you wanna lug all that around when you have to learn other stuff route? Okay, so size weight. Okay, other criteria. Well, yeah, these knives also have to be dual purpose. They have to be fighting knives and utility knives, though, mostly they'll probably be used for utility tasks to entrenches cut. Wire owning crates and stuff like that, but it's still it's war. It's, it's combat your military person you should have a some sort of tactical capability in that night to multiple capabilities. And then, and then finally a ratio sort of, and this is intuitive, like a durability to cost ratio. The knife junkie scale. Exactly. And, and I have to say it's not fully thought through it's not a scientific ratio. It is just a intuitive one. So I'm gonna talk about all of these, but I want to set the stage with the K bar, the k bar knife, yetter true. Okay. So the cave are knife is the ubiquitous US military knife. It was first created invented if you will and came into service in nineteen forty two for the Marine Corps. They up until that point had been using a what was called the marine, raider stiletto, and it was apparently good for swift, and silent killing, but they found that they had a lot of other tasks that. To do with it. And, and it was kind of just a fragile blade. And so they put out a request to different companies to come up with a fighting utility knife. So the knife was originally called before it took on the K bar. Moniker was simply called knife fighting utility. That's a great name. Yeah. So I mean that tells you right there in the name that it's a dual purpose tool, and the first purpose, if I'm hearing this correctly is fighting. So so it's built on a platform that can be it's built on a combat fighting platform and in America, what better fighting platform for a knife. Is there the Boeing, I'll answer it for you to jumped in a little too fast? But yes, so they settled on the on the Bowie style blade. It's up seven inches long. It's got a sharpened clip on the back. It's not just a clip in shape. It's not just a scooped out piece of steel, but it is a sharp sharpened back edge. And that's a fighting thing the rest of the knife that had a thicker blade. It had a instead of heavy cast metal handle of its predecessor. They used stack leather washer handles, and it made it much lighter. More comfortable in the hand. Grippier copiers. Good yet grippier as good. If you're in the jungle, or now, then, again the problem they had with that in the jungle in wet environments. Is that at that stacked leather, does not hold up well in Hubei living, and especially near seawater, okay? But for the period of time here there and for what you're using it for, I think it was more than adequate blade seven inches. Ten ninety five we talked about ten ninety five a lot here, which is just a tough metal, you know, and it's easily reshape ind and that's what you want in the field to you want something that you can sharpen because using it a lot. And you know, if you out in the field with some sort of super steal something modern, like M three ninety it will take a lot longer to get dull. But once it does, it will take a lot more work to get sharp. You want something that's a little more easily. Serviceable cave was perfect for this. You mentioned you mentioned sharpening in the field and question popped in my mind. I mean how, how do you sharpen your knife in the field in that situation? When the Cape our first came. In nineteen forty two people were, I'm sure carrying around little stones with them live sharpening. But today you could carry any number of small sharpening implements from, you know, modern manufacturers, but, you know, few things beat a good stone. Yeah. I mean, I'm just envisioning with, you know, back in the day or out in the jungle, and you pick up a rock off the off the ground or something, you know, start traumas that. Well, Listrik Lear realistic. Sure sure you can use shale shell. You know, I don't wanna speak about something. I don't know. But I've seen I've seen videos of people putting sand wet sand on shale and then and then kind of doing strapping motion, which means seems like it, would it would it would give you quite a toothy edge. But it that way. But, you know, if you need to reshape in that thing your jungle meaning to hack through vines or whatever. All right. Sorry, sorry to take us off track known there is no off track. So yet, so the, the, the K bar was first given to marines who were doing reconnaissance. Or engineering units? But then also anyone who is armed with a with a nineteen eleven pistol, like commander or something like that.

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Or anyone who carried them when carbine or a bar b a are, you know, one of those big giant rifles, everyone else who just carried the m when grand they were issued abandoned, so they didn't get a K bar, at least right off the bat, so there was a need for a fighting knife. And this is something I wanna keep in mind because I mentioned this often, but in the in the knife community dialogue people look a little askew at the idea of the weapon as knife. But when we're talking about the possibility of combat, or the, the definite impending doom Ofcom at having something that is a, a weapon that can also open up crates is essential. So the cave are really excelled at that mile for talking combat knives. I mean, you know, to two words there in the first one is combat. So you need to be able to use it in that in that function. So exactly exactly. So number of different. American companies were licensed to make the pattern. They made several million of them are have made several million of them over the years. So funny thing Jim, the lore of how K-bar came into being the name cable. You know, the union cutlery company, which, which is the company that ended up taking on than the name K-bar had got a letter from fur-trapping, and it was not written very well, also in damaged condition, but he told in this letter about how he killed a bear that hit that he had wounded with a rifle that jammed American Adam, and he was able to kill it with his with his rifle with his with his knife was, was was that a bar. He, he killed a bar in the letters that they could see in this fragment of a letter K a space VR so far. So, at least that's the lower that lesser story in their sticking through exactly. So a bunch of different companies like Antero and camillus. And other companies made the K bar, but funny, thing case knives. Very, very big prominent American knife company also tried to get a contract, and they never were awarded a contract to make the case bars, but they, they many years later, in a commemorative move came out with a limited edition of the cave bar prototypes, that they created for competition in nineteen forty two and, and sold to the public, and they were manufactured by tarot, which I know fun. Yeah. All rent guns around as right, that's right. So anyway, everything I'm talking about is kind of keeping in mind, the lineage of the K bar of fighting utility knife, for military knives, that you might wanna take on deployment. Okay. All right. So where do we start where do we begin? So I'm going to start with the most K-bar like knife. That is not a K-bar out there. That is a very reasonable price and extremely capable. And it's the Teruo spec, plus and now that say line of knives, made by Antero knife company in New York and the spec, plus line are ten ninety five bladed knives in familiar military patterns patterns that we and the s p one is a perfect example. It's a seven inch K-bar like knife, that they produce and the blade looks essentially identical to a K bar blade except it lacks. Fuller, and in the side of the blade, and the handles are soft kind of Creighton, Griffey contoured, handles that, that have the have really good retention kind of, like, more comprehensive retention in the hand than the traditional K-bar. So the s p one would make an outstanding knife to take on deployment. If you're worried about the stacked leather handle under K-bar getting getting jacked up in virement, ballpark price range, on those, and I think you were going to try to do some price categorization on these as we go. Yeah. Yeah. So now, we are in the fifty dollar range, and these no are fifty dollar range. They have several others in this line. One is the marine raider. Bowie which is a big impressive Bowie was it's also five fifty bucks. Ten ninety five steel is just good to go in any sort of survival toughness situation, where blade steel toughness is needed. And you know, in these big knives, you're swinging and hacking and chop. And you never know when you're gonna hit a rock or something, you don't want the whole thing to shatter you just wanted to roll or to chip. And that's what you're gonna get more often with this kind of steel, and plus on -tario, the company that makes this has a rich history of contracting knife manufacturing for the United States armed forces. And so I'm sorry. So on Tariam the spec, plus the SP one plus the marine raider. Bowie ES yoga. And so that the marine raider. Bo is another knife in their spec. Plus line. So a here just a little a little testimony from me about the, the quality of on -tario things I have a on -tario machete.

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I may have told the story before in this podcast, but I have a on -tario machete made for the army the US army that I got an army surplus store in early eighties. It was when I saw Conan, the barbarian got my brother take me to the navy store, and I bought the closest thing to a sort, I could get that machete stuck around the house. Forever. It was always in the in the garage. It got used a lot in the woods and in, in the backyard, clearing brush and stuff, and one year, this was about ten years ago, I was a man of thirty five or so I'm giving myself a couple of years anyway. I was home, visiting my parents. There is a big oak tree that fell across a path, my dad, and I went back out there with an axe with two axes started shopping, and it was taken forever said, make the machete. I got this on -tario machete chop this tree in half will not in half, but I chopped through the tree to clear, the clear the path in no time and it was a it was about a fourteen inch thick tree. It was amazing. It's fast and light. The machete is just the best one out there, cool. Yeah. So sticking in the sort of fifty dollar range, another great option that is smaller, but, but very capable and. I think it's a handsome knife in it comes from a company that you don't hear me talk about often, but it's a soggy knife, the SOG seal series of knives, especially the seal pup, which is a four and a half inch clip point blade with that classic SOG profile that with the double humps on the back of the boat to beautiful looking knife. It comes off eight which, you know, we all know is not the greatest steel, but it is also easily reach and steel takes great edge, and you can get an edge back on it really quickly. And so that's good for the field, you can get them with rations with the Syrians. I'm not a big fan of often but for this purpose you're out. You're using your knife a lot. Maybe you don't have a chance to, to sharpen it, or you're not good at sharpening, it, it's nice to know that you have those teeth that remained sharp for much longer need to cut through court. You need to cut through seat belt or something. Good point. Yeah. So it's a trusted pattern. It's, it's a time tested pattern and their many sheath options. Well, I shouldn't say many there are two exceptional options. The one that comes with is actually quite nice the cheaper model. The forty dollar model comes in a, a very stout nylon sheath with a big pouch on the front. You can sit a, a leatherman multi tool or sharpening stone or something in there or you could get the kayak sheet for it. So yeah, you don't hear me talk about saga often in. That's for a reason they have some frankly, really Koufi looking models and even even in the seal pup line. They have some have one called the seal strike, which I don't know. It looks like thirteen year old boy, I don't know how else to put it and this is sorry to interrupt was going to say I had never I don't think I've ever heard SOG you talk about on podcast. So, yeah, it's interesting company. They're born out of the reproduction of a knife that was. As used by the special observations group. I think they're called in Vietnam, special reconnaissance group thug. And they had a special knife made for them. And then gentlemen, I don't remember his name in the eighties sort of resurrected that pattern from a historical sample and had a bunch made in Seki Japan, I believe which is a great place to have a knife. Made and started the company based on reproducing. That's that soggy knife. And now that's the name of the company in in. It's on all of their products all over all of their products. That's one of the complaints about them saw on the clip on the blade saw on the handle SOG in the pattern of the of the grip. Texture on the side of the soggy everywhere. Lot of Bill boarding. Exactly. But that say that, that, that seal pup and the pup elite, great knives over. So where do we where do we go from here? We still in the fifty dollar category. Now, now, we're going to bump it up a little bit. We're gonna we're gonna talk about cold steel, which is which is an obvious choice. For any sort of hard situation. That sounded like a like an add an obvious choice for any heard situation but cold steel SRK, which stands for survival rescue knife is a time tested. Well, loved knife. And this has been around in their product line, for some twenty years, I think, and hasn't really changed except except now you can buy it in a variety of steals, the one that I have is the lower end one, it's a forty two dollar knife.

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It's a s K five steel, and then it goes up to g ten Sanli for one thirty five in CPM three. Which is really great outdoors knife steel for one hundred forty five bucks. You know how love it when you talk those, those letters number comedy. Huts so awesome. But the, the cool thing about this knife is that it's a six inch too, so simple. It's a six inch clip point. Blade in. It's not a very dramatic point blade with a with a groupie Creton handle it's, it's no frills. It's not gonna win any beauty contest. But it is a extremely capable knife and neutral in a way. What I mean by that is the handle is neutral. It will accommodate any grip and the blade though. A clip point is a very neutral kind of blade to a lot of straightness to the blade and then just a little bit of belly towards the tip, and out tip. And you can do a lot of work with it as opposed to attend. Oh, which might require you to change up your your techniques or something like that. So just an all around universal knife. Now, speaking of tanto 's if that is your thing, and they are they are very field useful. They're not just for assassinations, the, the recon one, I'm sorry, the re content. Oh. Is the sort of tanto brother to the SRK, same handle just a slightly longer blade at seven inches, and an, an ferocious tanto got a nice belly got not standing tip. And that also has three of versions with three different steals, one starting at forty two dollars and then working your way up to about one hundred fifty five bucks. So it's, you know, if you have a little bit of extra money to spend, you know you can go there. But if not, you know, you can, you can get forty two dollar SRK or re content, oh and know that it's going to, you know, have your back and you can watch endless and infinite YouTube videos on these knives, because they've been around for so long they've been tested and tested and tested, not just by the folks cold steel but by YouTubers and bro. Scientists all over the world truly field tested, if you will. Yes, will you said it a, you know, might not win design awards or beauty awards. But it was. Build a design for its function, so very, very capable knife. It sounds like exactly exactly. And, and just, you know, the rest of the cold steel line has most people know is, is vast and a lot of it, most of it due to their, their owner and chairman Lin Thompsons, tastes and tastes are weapons. I'm faced faced days experience in, in knife, fighting all these different martial arts and stuff. So he designs weapons primarily background interest. Yeah. Kind of what is all about? Exactly. So if you're looking if you're looking for a weapon, or of you're looking for just outdoor tool kind of knife, and you have a limited budget. You can look you can find something from them. Okay. So are we still in this fiftyish category? We're going to step it up a little bitter. Yeah. Well, that was the we're making it up into Oakland. Okay. So we're going to stay right around there. And, and I wanna I want to. Just want to let people know if you wanna get traditional USMC K-bar with the leather sheath in the leather stacked handle, you can still get that for eighty five bucks. And though it doesn't sport the, the super materials. They're still extremely capable and I might add handsome knives. So you can still get a K bar K bar. Brandon such. Here's another brand. You never hear me talk about, and I did I did a video where I was talking kind of sideways about about one of their knives. And that's Gerber Gerber. Let me let me to say when I was a kid in the eighties. There used to be a, a knife store. Yes. Knife store, our mall. A legit knife store. Nor not just a Maldon engine. Knife star. It was Remington and they sold kitchen knives, outdoor knives, and cool folding, knives and such, and I used to go and lust after the gerbers of the LMS the B, M F, which I could only only imagine what that was named after these were big outdoor knives. And they all looked kind of like you know what, what was being carried in Rambo and commando in those movies and at the time, they were great knives. They were made in Oregon and somewhere along the way they lost their compass. They started doing everything overseas, and they lost the respect of the knife community. I'm not gonna say straight across the board, but, you know, in an era where people were really pushing the materials that they wanted to use an design and function, Kerber was kind of went through a real cheap phase, and they're working their way out of it now, especially with some of their recent releases twenty nine. But knife, I've heard consistently good things about even through all of that is the and the strong arm those they're, they're two knives, that look very similar, and they've gotten great reviews and, and endorsements by people who are actual users, and operators.

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Oddly enough, both knives, have four twenty eight c steel which is in a passable, but they must he treated in, in such a way that it's you know, I don't know the four twenty eight c makes me look a little askance but it's a it's a four point eight inch blade very stout. And very utilitarian shaped kind of drop point, and they are both meant for a hard use, the, the strong arm is kind of, I think, considered a little bit more of a outdoors knife, up survival knife, or as the LMS is specifically made for escape and. Evasion, but escape from like helicopters, and stuff like that stout. No. So it's heavy, but it's like a pry bar and so, yeah, it was built extra stout developed in the field for egress and survival. Okay. Before we move on or continue this conversation. Do want to remind our listeners that this is a special first word that came to mind was tribute show. And I guess that's as good as any just a special thank you show to the men and women who currently serve, but also the veterans of our US armed services and military forces around the world. Thanks for your service, and we're kinda using the Memorial Day holiday weekend to kinda show iris Bank to those that in the military and served in the military by taking a look at some of the knives, that have been and maybe we'll continue to be used in combat the combat knives. And Bob started off with a little history lesson on the K bar, and we're moving into some of the, the knives. Currently available. But if you have a knife that you have comments about or maybe you don't hear bomb talk about, and you want to suggest it, give us a call on our listener line at seven two, four four six six four four eight seven again, that's seven two four four six six four four eight seven Lisa message on there. We'd love to hear your thoughts and we love to play it back on an upcoming addition of the knife junkie podcast and share your wisdom, with the listeners of the knife junkie podcast. Bob, where we where we go from here. You're talking about the, the Gerber Elma and the Gerber strong arm. So where where, where do we go from here is there in about the eighty to ninety dollar range, there's somewhere right in there? Now we're moving up into the rarefied air of. At least of this list, because, like I said at the outset, I can't imagine taking anything too expensive out there that you might might lose Mike it. Then again, you know, these are outstanding is no object. Yeah, there's something for you. Or maybe you're in a situation where you, you have more control over your space, and, and can control what you hold onto. I, I don't. I don't know. It's, it's hard for me to say because I've never been in the military. I can only go on stories that friends and family told me. Right. All right. But now we're in the kind of one fifteen to one sixty range, I know that's not a, a coda fide range. But this is the range of the knives will be talking about here. These are the SEC knives. SE has a wide range of knives for adventure, outdoors. And I'm sorry, that's the letters s on the letter literacy, Ono SE s e O, K ESE, and it stands for. And I don't remember what it is. I should have written it down. But their their most popular line are the SE for there's an SE three four five six and I think a seven and then a big one called the, the hung lists can't remember without once called either. But the we're talking here about the SE four five and six, and they have sort of corresponding blade sizes, the four is four and a half inches. The five is five and a half. And I think the six is six inches. But these are all ten ninety five full Tang, bladed knives again, to ninety five for an outdoor knife. Excellent. You see a lot of makers using that, and it's coded. So that, you know, ten ninety five being a high carbon steel is is prone to corrosion. And so they coated with the black traction coating and the blade shapes. Are these just very again here? We're here comes this word neutral. They're all purpose, sort of drop-off. Point blades. They have Syria that option, you can get them series that if you want them Syria did, which, again, I think is a good idea. If if it's something, a tool, you're relying on daily, and you might not have a chance to stop or sharpen just to know that you have the capability of those sharp teeth, there in case you need to extract yourself something, it's, it's good to have, and these knives, all have g ten or my car, two handles, and you know, Masako for my Carta Jim I love to. Yeah, the look and feel is fantastic.

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But also in terms of utility, it seems to get grippier when wet, and so, you know, whether you're in the rain or you have blood on your hands, or oil on your hands, or whatever it is my card is gonna is gonna do good. And I was reading about the SE five, which to me is the most appealing. It is the stout. Est of the three. It also has a, a noggin cracker on the back or a, what do you want to call it, the glass, breaker on the back that I like. But. But, but the knife was designed as an air force sere up with the aid of air force, sere instructor sear stands for survival evasion resistance in escape, and it's a it's training you go through, especially as a pilot because you're a high value target flying over the enemy enemy lines. So if you go down, it's the training and this knife, ESI five was was created with that specific goal in mind, extracting yourself from the canopy of downed aircraft and then using that knife to survive. And if need be use it as a weapon, so the SE five okay? I did a quick Google search while you were chatting, and it looks like I was on SE the, the website, SE knives. And in there about section. It seems like the the two guys. Jeff rental might paren- Perenco Aaron working under contract with the Peruvian air forces, I can't even pronounce it. Their school of jungle survival essentially also known by the acronym. E S, S, E L. And so then I guess that's how the SE brand came came out of that, as they were working with the squatter day super Vinci's known in lust Selva school of jungle survivals anyway. Yeah. Thanks to go by Randall's adventure training, also, a rat in rat, and the rat bobble one. Yeah. Yeah. They're banner says, Randall's adventure, training and equipment group. Yeah. And then has ESI big bold in their logo there. So, yeah. So now interesting. Yeah, sorry for the digression they're not at all. But before they became SE and they're still going by Randall's adventure training. They had they're big knife, was the rat are, are tack to. And I have that here it, it hangs on the on the leg of my desk. As a matter of fact, it's a, it's a massive ten-inch outdoor blade in its man. I've always loved this thing. Zombies get down to the basement. You've gotta weapon more than more. Yeah. The don't wanna come down here. So, yeah, I, I really recommend those SE knives. And in my experience with them is limited to, to this, our tax, and then also in SE six that I handled as he was, that's the six inch version of it. Now, once you get on the beyond the six would say might be a little big and a little heavy given the rest of what you're probably going to be carried of those are really great stout. No nonsense survival knives noca- and again, in that an I can't think of the word I was going to try to save but that nontraditional range of hundred fifteen to sixty dollars. Yeah, yeah. I mean that on the more expensive knives. You're going to be talking about the exactly. Exactly. And that's loosely based on just going to play to Cuban ROY. So the last of the fixed blades that are expensive that I'm gonna talk about am by expensive. I mean hovering around one hundred but going up to you know, they have a couple of knives in the two hundreds, this, this brand reminds me of a of a of a slightly different kind of cold steel put it that way. And that is tops knives. Probably my favorite production, fixed blade knife company tops knives. And the reason I say, they're like cold steel is that they have a huge product line. I mean huge. And every model always seems available, which is weird to me, and they have a small shop in Idaho by small, I mean, you know, they're not gigantic factory that have have a manufacturing capability to put a lot of knives. But it seems somewhat humble. I gotta say it's not a giant operation, anyway. They make such amazing knives. Most of them are, they're all full Tang knives, except for their folders and they're mostly. Ten ninety five though they use a one fifty four Siham like on the rapid strike, which I did review on recently that stainless some of their some of their smaller actually say that just some of their blades, they choose to use one fifty four, but mostly, it's ten ninety five coated with traction coding and they're just solidly built and mostly. They use my car for the handles. And they're nice to look at. And I'm getting a little getting up in a ladder here. Getting. Yes. Yes. Okay. So the company was started by twelve different kind of law enforcement and military operators came together and created their very first knife was this giant massive tanto with, with a huge Sauber back called the, the steel eagle, they still make that knife in variety of sizes to huge knife.

35:19 - 40:03

And since their inception believe Leo Espinoza, who's a guy would love to talk to on this show. He is their president. I'm not sure if the other eleven guys are still involved or or or, or with the deal is with that. But men, they make some amazing amazing knives. And I'll just give a couple of examples, the cut for it's called C UT. It's a it's an outdoors. It's a it's a, a knife with dual purpose. It's an outdoors knife, that doubles as a tactical knife. It's a, it's a very nice drop point with pretty acute point of pretty stabby. But very utilitarian blade, but it's got a Karamjit ring at the back, which comes in handy for retention period. You know, whether you're using it as Karambi Dan, you know, getting in some sort of a seal dual, or if you're out there, and you're just carbon, would, you know, to great knife, the rapid strike, as I've, I did a review on recently is a is a wonderful, little covert shift, if you will, and it's you can get it double edged Scott glass, breaker, ground, the glass, break off a mind because I didn't like the way it felt them thumb in reverse grip. But outstanding they have they have a whole line of small a covert, self defense and tactical knives. You know, they're totally unapologetic about the fact that these are weapons and then they have a full line of larger tactical weapon like knives, and then they have a full line of outdoor things that out doors knives that that crossover like the silent hero of five point seven five inch drop point. Beautiful beautiful big broad blade. It reminds me of barong which is a Filipino short sword. But these knives. I mean, just go look at the top page on, on any website or just go to top themselves, and you'll be shocked at how many models they pump out. It's amazing. And some of them are crazy. Like there's, there's this giant looks like a sickle almost it's a huge like seven and a half inch Karamjit that it, it's comical. It looks like it's out of a horror movie. But for sure it's, it's built to work, you know, and and or you could just get the simplest most plain looking Bush craft knife from them so tops knives they below hundred but they hover pretty much around one hundred hundred ten and then go up from there. Okay. Well, you mentioned a couple of reviews of some of these knives, doing remind our listeners that you can find. Bob's a knife review videos as well as the podcast other special videos at the knife junkie. Dot com slash YouTube. If you aren't yet subscribed to the YouTube channel that way, you can get notifications and have the, the videos pop right up, go to the knife. Chunky dot com slash y t subscribe, that's, of course, for YouTube subscribes the knife, junkie dot com slash YouTube, or to subscribe than I'm junkie dot com slash y t subscribe. So where are we at Bob close on time, here, we have anymore knives, or I just wanna talk a little bit about folders? I don't I don't I have some examples but I wanna I wanna make some recommendations for folders that are going out into the field and seeing heavy use would avoid folders with ball, bearing pivots. They though in regular life, you know walking around and just having them in your pocket. They work beautifully in the action is, is admirable, and their pleasure to us and to fidget with, but ball bearings can be very fidgety. They can get finicky. I should say you get. Banned in their grit, or grime down in there in the, and then it's gonna it will not be pleasant. So I say avoid ball-bearing pivots. Stick with washers. I prefer the bronze, you know, phosphor bronze washers 'cause they can get super smooth, but they're just more stable. They keep the blade more stable, I would say stay away from super steels that are too difficult to sharpen out in the field. I would say bring a knife that has a good compromise of attention sharp edge, that you can actually get on that steel, and then price. So, you know, we looked down our nose at, at Osei or eight year, thirteen ammo v and, and would with fair reason. But if you need to reshape in those if you're using your knife, a lot, you need to sharpen it's going to be a pain in the butt. If you have 'em three ninety, of course, the argument is while you won't have to sharpen as much and I accept that, but. Again, a knife with m three ninety steel is gonna run you a lot of money, and you really wanna be banging around that expensive knife out there.

40:03 - 45:01

You wanna risk losing knife with him, three ninety steel I say stick, stick with your, your nice steals one hundred four Sam. Well, again, the, the purpose of this show is to kind of look at the less expensive knife options that are available. You can, of course, go anywhere that you've talked about and up. Yes. But again, the focus of this show is really look at the most economical, and functional for what you can get for the least amount of money. Yeah. So get something with robust handles, I would say, get something that has liners you don't want, I would say, not to get a liner. 'less. G R N handles, for instance, you know, and get something that get something that is somewhat neutral that you can use many different grips. And here's another one, I it's counterintuitive but automats knives folding knives are very resilient that spring in there is it's, it's harder to jam than you think. And especially if it's a good switchblade are good automatically protect and their videos out there. You can see with people, endorsing protect thinking one. Video in particular, where servicemen lost his knife in mud and found it later and without even cleaning it clicked out, just like it was brand new what testimony what testimonial and here's one other thought and that is maybe you bring if you can a couple of throwaways, maybe bring a bunch of cold steel working man or pro-life knives. Great knives using museum use them, and don't worry about losing them. And if you do you just replace it, that's a thought. I had I don't know. I don't know how practical that is to just be walking around with a bunch of not walking around, but to be shipping out with a with a, you know, a, a, a deep bench, pocket knives, prominent realistic. But if it is, you know, let us let us know if it is, or if it isn't if you're active duty, military person or a veteran and love to hear your thoughts about that again. I'll put a plug in for the listener line calling leave us a message. Leave your recall. Finding we'd love to hear from you. Seven two, four four six six four four eight seven again, seven two four four six four four eight seven and get some get some feedback on that thought Bob interesting question. So anything from cold steel is going to be great. The recon won the American lawman CR KT has the homefront series, which is their series of field strip -able knives. You can take him apart with too easy. Steps out in the field. Clean it up in the in the stream. And then put it back together. That's an interesting concept and I'd be interested to see if anyone's actually used that out in the field Ontario rat, number one, we were talking about that. But the two less tools, I wanna talk about our for the Cormon and the medics. There is the leatherman raptor, which is an amazing. I bought one four Kurt Zepeda, our, our guest, our recent guest, who's a who was in EMT, but it's a pair of medical scissors that has been given the leatherman treatments. So they fold and they open up and they have numerous other tools built into the handle of. But it's it's pretty robust and multipurpose tool, but it's based it's built on the medical scissors platform. You know, those kind of scissors that can slip under bandages and have that weird angle to them. So yet, I think for, for Corman medics the leatherman, raptor, be a great a great night to take also bench made I haven't mentioned bench made today in 'cause they tend to be expensive, but they have to knives that are really a a compelling. They have the triage, which is has a, a blade a regular blade on one side. You can also get blunted for the kind of operations, you might be doing where you don't want to accidentally poke someone with the tip of the blade because these are as the name elicits, triage. These are knives for for medics and for EMT's such and on the back it has a full. Out seatbelt cutter, which I think, is really cool. And then just this past year. They came out with the outlast. I really like this knife, I haven't held it yet. But I like the idea of it, it is a double bladed knife to, you know, it's, it's a bench made an axe. Lock bench. Mate will, it's an access lock liner. Lock bench made it's got to blades sitting side by side. One of them is a nice looking drop point. And the other one is a blended tip wavy shaped blade and on the waves their survey shins, and that he qu'ils doubles durations sounds. No. Yeah. So that's two blades side by side, which you never, see in modern tactical folders. And then on the back, you still have that third flip out tool the seat belt cutter. So the outlast man it looks it looks really compelling.

45:02 - 50:02

I'm not sure how pocket -able it is. Because it's thick. I haven't haven't really investigated that, but just think that would make a great year. Very sure having that in your pocket. Okay. Before we get you to do a wrap up of the kind of the Nys talked about here, the fixed blades, some folders, and the, the multi tools to remind folks to stay tuned because we're going to remind you about how you could win a knife from Bob, the knife junkie DeMarco. Now, there is a, a time limit on this. So hopefully you're listening to the podcast sooner than later. If you're listening in the archives or, or pass the may twenty nine date. Well, we're sorry, but we'll, we'll talk about a knife giveaway. So I wanted to get that tees in their Bob, but kinda kinda wrapping it up here on. Combat knives, fixed blade folders, multi tools key takeaways, final thoughts. Kinda kinda what do you wanna kinda end up on on our topic today? Well, I would say, I it it's, it's obvious but I would just say, don't take anything that's too precious to you. He might lose Grandpa's knife somewhere overseas and right and regret it. Keep it a Ford able to you in case you lose it or have to replace it. And maybe not too not too tempting to sticky fingers, but yeah, keep it utilitarian. But remember, it's also a fighting knife. It's a combat knife and just think about the K bar. What it was called before. It was called the K bar. It was called knife fighting utility. Prince much says it all right there. The perfect lesson marketing or advertising name it, what it is. You know. Right. Exactly cool. I interesting show, Bob. I, I learned a lot, especially about that. The cave the K-bar cab. Bar love that story. Don't like I said, no, it's true. But that's a great story that we're gonna stick until the real story gets here. Cool deal. So I, I kinda teased at a moment there by Bob, you are have a video up, again, preface this by this show comes out Memorial Day weekend. So we have a drawing on Wednesday may twenty ninth the knife junkie YouTube channel cross that thousand subscriber Mark kind of a historic Mark there in the in the life of YouTube channel. So you're giving away a knife and the drawing is going to be on Wednesday may twenty ninth, but you have to be a YouTube subscriber and leave a comment kinda give us all the details. A little bit more about I was I was really racking my brain about what I should give away. And it was almost I almost decided to give away a pink cold steel broken skull with the snuggle tooth on it. Which is a knife. I talk about and carry all the time. But then I realized, you know, just because I like pink knives doesn't necessarily. And I didn't want it to be like, oh, I won this blade. But it's kind of a buzzkill 'cause I can't stand it 'cause it's pink, but it's such a great knife. So I decided that the other knife that I've been carrying a lot and have just fallen in love with is an unusual one for me. It's a bench made I don't really fall in love with bench maids. But I did did fall in love with the bench made bug out, and I recently got these amazing my Carta replacement handles for it, which means I really love it because I'm spending more money on it than than it needs to be spent on. But so I got a the green handled gray. Bladed bench made bug out to give away. And all you have to do is be a subscriber or subscribe to the, the knife, chunky YouTube channel, and just leave a comment, simple as that it doesn't have to be a witty comment, just has to be something that so I can verify that you're a subscriber. And so that I could put your name in the hopper we're gonna do a random number draw. Okay. So you'll assign numbers. Two comments in the order, which came in and random named random number generator to, to pick the winner. That's exactly right. Okay. If you're not subscribed, yet to the knife, junkie YouTube channel again. The knife junkie dot com slash y t subscribe knife, junkie dot com slash white t subscribe subscribe leave a comment like Bob said, you don't have to praise Bob, you can criticize them, you can just say, hi picky. Critics whatever the comment is get that comment in there and have a chance to win the bench made bug out and tease another giveaway. We'll do later. But you've got some snack tooth stuff. We're going to do a video about and give away and another week or two. I do. Indeed. I'm ashamed to say it's out of my desk, longtime rob. Penna two-time guest on this show. Sent me the full Kaga ring slash snuggle, tooth, M F A, pocket deployer package. So it's two product package. He sent it to me two months ago now to give away and it my desk has a lot of nice stuff on it, and I miss shame to admit it got a little lost in the clutter. But yes, so we're going to be giving that away. And I in the video, I will demo it on a on a cold steel, tanto re content.

50:03 - 52:44

Okay. But it doesn't come with a knife. Gosh, the knife junkie dot com slash YouTube, checkout, all those videos and more. And again, to get in the, the drawing to win the bench made mug out a bug out go to the knife, chunky dot com slash YouTube. If you're already a subscriber find that video and make a comment, if you're not subscribed, the knife junkie dot com slash white t subscribe sa-, tribe, if you want click that little bell notification that way, you can get a notification everytime. Bob puts out a new video, and then don't forget that comment for your chance to win the bench made bug out and just a note. Jim twelve o'clock, noon, I mention it in the video, but twelve o'clock. Good point is when I stopped because I'll have to compile that list and I don't have a secretary and that's noon eastern time. Yes. Noon eastern standard time. So on the west coast, I know that's nine AM right back. So, yeah. So keep that in mind. Subscribe subscribe and comment early. Don't don't push, you know, that noontime clog because Bob. Noon might be your eleven fifty nine so noon on Wednesday may twenty ninth. Good, good point. They're going to wrap it up any final thought, what you wanna leave our special show with today. I just want to, again, thank not only the veterans who sacrificed everything, and who we're remembering this weekend. But also the men and women in uniform today, and who are serving right now so that we can be sitting here talking about knives. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, remind you that are special sponsor for this show has been e Bates, if you'd like to get ten dollars for just joining go to the knife, junkie dot com slash cash back that CAS H B C K than I'm junkie dot com slash cash. Back after you spend twenty five you'll get ten of that back. Thanks so much to them for sponsoring it, Bob. Thanks great show. A love again, the K bar story and good. Good roundup of knives, though, here, chunky podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the knife junkie podcast. If you were joined the show, please rate, review review the podcast dot com for show notes for today's episode additional resources, and to listen to past Soad's, visit our website, the night, junkie dot com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at the ninety dot com slash YouTube checkouts over great night photos on the knife, junkie dot com slash Instagram and join our Facebook group, but the knife, junkie dot com slash Facebook. And if you have a question or comment Email them to Bob at the knife junkie dot com or call our twenty four seven listener line at seven two, four four six six four four seven and you may hear your comment or question answered on upcoming episode of the knife junkie podcast.