John Burridge

Reate T4000 Review

Whenever there’s the thinnest excuse to use a pocket knife, I do so. Over the last month of carrying the Reate T4000 nearly every day, I’ve noticed that when I open it up in public to do any of the small innocuous things I use a knife for, I’ve seen people’s eyes light up with…not terror, but a distinct “What the hell is that?” look mixed with a tingle of atavistic fear.

Buy the Reate T4000 at BladeHQ or GPKnives

It looks like a large double edged dagger- which, to the subconscious mind of most people, looks like what the ruling classes have been using to kill people with for the last four thousand years, and/or what everybody gets stabbed with in Game Of Thrones. I have two friends who are into knives on almost the same nerdy level that I am, and even their first responses were “Whoa!”

The instant I saw the T4000, I knew I wanted it simply for the fear/thrill reaction it gave me. But when writing a knife review, I always try to determine the knife’s intended purpose. In this case, it’s easy: when Reate Knives began teasing the T4000 in July 2018, BladeReviews.com’s own Ben Schwartz wrote an article about it for KnifeNews.com. Here’s what the designer of the knife, Tashi Bharucha, had to say about it:

[It] does not pretend to be anything other than a stabbing pocket sword.

It’s intended purpose is to be a stabbing pocket sword? Sign me the fuck up!

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Reate Knives T4000 is part of a four-knife series, all designed by French knife auteur Tashi Bharucha. At the time of writing, only the smallest of the four, the T2500 and the T4000 have been released. The naming convention reflects the length of the blades in inches- the T2500 is 2.5” long, the T4000 is 4”, etc. The T3000 and T3500 have yet to be released.

I find it curious that a French designer and a Chinese knife manufacturer are using the antiquated Imperial measurement system for the names of these knives- I’m going to assume their target market is ‘Merica. I don’t know if the pricing scheme is also related to the blade length, but the T4000 cost me $400 USD. I suppose that’s a bargain compared to Tashi Bharucha’s custom, handmade knives, which cost at least $1,000. Even though I’m a big fan of his work, I’m not going to spend over a thousand bucks on something I can’t drive, ride, or shoot.

It comes with a bunch of nice, unnecessary stuff like a Reate Knives Zipper pouch, a cleaning cloth, a microfiber knife bag, a velcro embroidered “Reate” patch, and extra handle screws, which are actually a really nice touch.

There are three handle choices: Titanium with inlaid carbon fiber, inlaid brown canvas Micarta, or inlaid green canvas Micarta, which is what I bought. It’s an unusually large and heavy folder, even bigger in every respect than my collection’s previous champion of unnecessary size and weight, the Microtech Sigil MK6.

The T4000 weighs 5.3 oz (150 g), is 8.86” (225 mm) long when open, 4.92” long (125 mm) closed, and 1.75” (44 mm) tall when open or closed. Some knives disappear into your pocket- this definitely doesn’t. It’s not particularly thick though, at .68” (17.2 mm) at it’s widest point, pocket clip included.

The blade steel is Bohler M390, which is considered a “super steel” due to it’s extreme hardness and corrosion resistance. I’ve been reading up on blade steel, and want to give a shout out to knifesteelnerds.com for a lot of in-depth articles that a non-scientist like myself can understand. What I’ve learned about M390 is that it’s high hardness resists edge deformation, which keeps it sharp. The trade-off for high hardness is a reduction in toughness, which is basically resistance to chipping. A lot of these hardness/toughness qualities seem to be imparted into the blade during the manufacturing process known as heat treating. My limited understanding of heat treating boils down to this: you heat up the unfinished steel blade to get the individual molecules to bond together in a very specific way, then remove the blade from the heat to lock in the molecular structure.

Most knife manufacturers guard their heat treating methods as proprietary secrets, but Reate Knives has made this little nugget known: after the heat treating is complete, they use a technique called “freeze edging skill.” This process cools the blade while the cutting edge is being ground, so that the friction-induced heat of grinding doesn’t undo the specific molecular structure from it’s heat treating. It may just be marketing hype, but it makes sense to me.

I was recently talking to a guy who is several orders of magnitude higher than me on the Blade Steel Nerdiness spectrum, and he gave me an earful about how modern super steels like M390 are too brittle, and he prefers softer, “tougher” steel like VG10 or 154CM which are easier to sharpen. I totally get it because he’s way into sharpness- he sharpens his daily carry Sebenza with a leather strop every day whether he’s used it or not. Personally, I have a bunch of nice pocket knives that I carry and use, and I wait until they’re good and dull before I sharpen them. I would rather have a knife with a crazy hard edge that I can use longer between sharpenings. In a month of light duty cutting, I’ve barely dulled the edge of my T4000, so Reate’s M390 is working great for me.

The blade is surprisingly slim for such a big knife. It has a thin hollow grind with a decorative fuller, which briefly flares the blade’s maximum width to 3.8 mm in the center. I looked up a ton of information about blade fullers for this review, but it’s far too boring to include here.

Suffice it to say that fullers are basically for structural reinforcement on long blades and are not “blood grooves.” The T4000’s standout feature is it’s aggressive symmetrical dagger shape, but the top of the blade, which is exposed when the knife is closed, has a 1.1 mm thick unsharpened edge.

This knife has excelled at my usual mundane tasks of box and bag opening and loose thread cutting, but I like trying new things, and I’ve never used a dagger for food prep before. I stabbed and slashed and hacked my way through tomatoes, onions, artichokes, sausages, etc. My experience using the T4000 in the kitchen was pretty much like with every other pocket knife I’ve used in this capacity- I couldn’t dice anything like with a chef’s knife because my knuckles would hit the cutting board before the blade would. It’s thin blade slices well, and the fuller seemed to keep food from sticking to the side of the blade. The false edge on the top of the blade is wide enough to push down on for some extra leverage.

Other uses for the T4000’s false edge are:

Opening mail- the false edge opens envelopes perfectly without dulling the sharpened side.
Removing staples- slip the tip of the blade under the staple and twist towards the unsharpened side.
Pretending to slash my wrist- I’ve absolutely horrified several people.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

On the T4000, designer Tashi Bharucha used a variation of his signature handle shape. From an aesthetic standpoint I love it, but I find it’s ergonomics often make the knife difficult to use. The problem, in my opinion, is how far back my hand is from the blade’s tip. There’s no place on the handle to choke up and gain the mechanical advantage of having my hand closer to the tip of the blade.

That being said, I don’t really care, because I don’t buy his knives for the ergonomics. I would never classify myself as a “fanboy” because first of all I’m not a boy, I’m a goddamn man, but Tashi’s design style really speaks to me, and I now own five of his production knives.

The handle ergonomics on three of the others are similar to the T4000, with the exception being the Massdrop-produced Prism (far left in photo), which cleverly exchanges some sharpened blade length for the ability to choke up on the handle. The Tashi B./Reate Knives Baby Machine (not pictured) knife has a similar ergonomically friendly shape.

The T4000’s handle is made of two pieces of titanium and one piece of green canvas Micarta. This is my first knife utilizing Micarta, and I was dismayed that after a month of sweat and cooking oil and dirty hands, the Micarta’s color has permanently changed from light green to a darker olive drab. It’s somewhat grippy texture is unchanged. The mating of the Micarta into the handle is so precise I can see where the inlaid Micarta meets the titanium, but I can’t feel the seam.

Reate’s fit and finish on this knife are superb. Every angle machined into the handle looks sharp but feels smooth. The T4000’s shape is just so weirdly aggressive that I can’t stop looking at it- it’s the knife equivalent of an Italian sports car. Specifically, the Lamborghini Urus: a 641 horsepower all wheel drive SUV that, to my eye, shares many design cues with the T4000. Please forgive my crude Photoshop skills:

Both the car and the knife are fascinating combinations of severe lines and curves, and both come off as being large, lumpy and aggressive. I periodically see one of these big stealth tank-looking SUV’s rolling by, and my response is always “Whoa!” By the way, for an excellent review of the Lamborghini Urus, I suggest checking out the Amazon Prime TV show “The Grand Tour” season 3, episode 5 “An Itchy Urus.” Anyway, back to the knife…

The forward tip of the pocket clip is very sharp. Not cut yourself sharp, but certainly scratch the paint off your car door sharp.

Nonetheless, the clip looks great, and I think it’s pointy design is entirely appropriate for a stabbing pocket sword. The T4000’s titanium clip is milled into Bharucha’s signature stylish shape, and the clip’s shape and position mirror the titanium inlay inside the Micarta inlay on the show side. The amount of flex is great, it’s amount of offset from the body of the knife is great for thick denim jeans pockets, and it’s shape melts into the fold of my hand when I’m using it.

When carrying the T4000 while wearing reasonably tight pants (as I often do), the knife, though heavy, stays put due to it’s robust clip. But when wearing loose shorts, I feel that big hunk of titanium and steel rhythmically slapping my thigh as I walk.

Deployment and Lockup

The blade is heavy and the flipper detent is strong, so it takes a bit of finger muscle to open it. It swings smoothly on ceramic bearings, and has a nice strong magnet-like feel that snaps the blade closed when it’s open less than 6 mm. It’s a framelock, and locks up securely with about half of it’s 3 mm steel lock face in contact with the blade. It’s not a hard use knife like my DPX HEST F1, which has a 75% lockup on it’s 4 mm wide lockbar, but the T4000’s lock doesn’t seem to be likely to fail under reasonable use.

There is one weird thing about it though- it’s sound. When flipping it open, instead of the normal, satisfying “click” that I’ve come to expect from titanium knives, there’s a two-part sound like a metal soap bubble popping, followed by an unusually high-pitched snap. One of the nice things about having a lot pocket knives is that I have them on hand to compare and contrast with each other. At the moment, I have 16 reasonably good folding knives, and I sat down in a quiet room and flicked or thumbed open every single one. Through this highly scientific investigation I have determined that the sound the Reate T4000 makes when opening is utterly unique. The sound has nothing to do with it’s functionality at all, but it’s odd enough that I feel compelled to mention it.

Two last things: first, the T4000 has a party trick- it can stand on it’s head. Second, I was driving on US Interstate 5 on the East side of Los Angeles and noticed a 125 foot (38 meter) tall Tashi Bharucha pocket clip rising above the LA River. It’s the central spire of the North Atwater Bridge which is due to be completed in 2020. Say what you will about the evils of social media, but thanks to Facebook I was able to send the picture below to T4000 designer Tashi Bharucha. He responded that he hadn’t seen it before and, no, he did not design the bridge.

Reate T4000 Review – Final Thoughts

The T4000 is definitely a niche item. It’s not for everyone, it’s not perfect, and it’s relatively expensive at $400. But I dig the Reate T4000 stabbing pocket sword on a deep, visceral level – I don’t know if it’s an ancient, hardwired feeling of security or a Roman-Legionnaire-in-a-past-life kind of thing, but I sure do like it.

Reate T2500 – From $419.95
From: BladeHQ

I recommend purchasing the Reate T4000 at BladeHQ or GPKnives. Please consider that buying anything through any of the links on this website (including Amazon) helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. Thank you very much.

Bestech Fanga Review

by John Burridge Leave a Comment

I love me a big knife. I particularly love a big, well designed knife. I recently acquired two similar big folding knives, and I’m going to do a full review of one and complain about the other one.

Buy the Bestech Fanga at BladeHQ

The Bestech Knives Fanga is the newest design from Polish knife designer Grzegorz Grabarski (AKA Kombou on Instagram), who’s on a real hot streak lately. In the last couple of years, a total of seven of his designs have been produced by BRR Knives in Poland, Custom Knife Factory in Russia, and five models from Bestech in China. Bestech’s website describes their company as “a professional manufacturer and exporter of medium and high quality knives in China for OEM in the past 10 years.”

I had never heard of Bestech until about a year ago, but apparently they’ve been making knives for other brands for a decade. Everything I’ve seen of theirs has been very well made, particularly the Bestech Malware, which I previously reviewed. The Fanga is also his least expensive folder to date, with the G10 handled version retailing for $80 and the carbon fiber/G10 version (the subject of this review) for $102 at BladeHQ.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Fanga is indeed a big knife at 9.375 inches (238 mm) open, weighs 4.75 ounces (135 grams), and has a 4 inch (102 mm) clip point blade that brings to mind a scimitar or Bowie knife. Research into scimitars and Bowie knives led me down a very deep internet rabbit hole, and when I climbed out I had two salient pieces of information:

1) curved blades are designed to aid in draw cuts, where the blade is being pulled across what it’s cutting. The outward curve of the blade not only provides a longer surface area to cut with than a straight edged blade of the same overall length, but the curved shape is also ergonomically designed to cut deeper than a straight blade when using a slashing motion. And

2) searching for information on Bowie knives led me to YouTube videos of the Mountain Dew drinking maniac Tom O’Dell on the QVC Cutlery Corner cable TV show from the late 90’s / early 2000’s. He would say “bowie” a hundred times an hour with amazing enthusiasm: “We have a set of 14 B o o o o o – ee knives with genuine jigged stag bone handles and top quality mirror polished stainless steel for only $39.99!” I have fond memories of watching that show at 2am in the 90’s- and now, even without the bong, it’s still captivating viewing.

The blade has 3.875 inches (98 mm) of sharpened edge, and it’s made of D2 tool steel. D2 was patented in 1927, and was primarily used for industrial cutting tools until the mid 1960’s when it started showing up in high-end knives of the time. D2 is a good middle of the road steel. It’s not quite rust-proof stainless steel (not enough chromium), it’s not as fine-grained as modern powdered steel (not easy to sharpen to a fine edge), but on the upside it’s a pretty “hard” steel, meaning it can take a lot of abuse without deforming. That quality of hardness gives D2 good edge retention, but is notoriously hard to sharpen to a very fine edge. I’ve been able to get a good sharp edge on mine using my Wicked Edge sharpener, but I had to resort to using a very coarse 400 grit stone to smooth out some slightly rolled sections of the edge. I usually only need much finer grit stones like 800 and 1000 grit for touch-ups on knives with premium modern steels.

The last decade has seen an explosion of new varieties of blade steel, and I think I know why. I started getting into pocketknives in the late 90’s when my father got me the Spyderco Civilian I’d been wanting for my birthday- thanks again Dad! I told him to go into Chicago Cutlery and ask for the scariest looking knife in the store- which, in 1997, was unquestionably the Civilian. The blade was stamped “GIN-1 STAINLESS”. This was towards the end of the pre-internet dark ages, so investigating the blade steel meant a trip to the library and checking out a book on metallurgy. So I lazily assumed whatever steel knifemakers used was the most appropriate steel.

I didn’t think much about it until 2012, when I bought a DPX Gear HEST/F with a D2 tool steel blade, which sounded really cool. I decided to look up the comparative properties of D2 online, and was shocked to learn that D2 wasn’t the greatest blade steel ever invented. Between 1997 and 2012, the internet had matured into a snarky criticism/pornography e-commerce platform that highly values new products. I learned about S30V and many other new blade steels that were becoming popular thanks in no small part to the internet’s hunger for new, improved things.

So, to keep up in modern business, new powder metallurgy “super steels” like M390, S110V and Vanax 37 have become the steels of choice for high-end knives. Now, D2 blades are generally relegated to lower-priced knives. In fact, the last D2 steel knife I bought was the OKC Carter Prime, which was disappointing in so many ways. But the Carter Prime is not the knife I’m going to complain about…

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

The G10/carbon fiber handle is long, fat, and heavy, and fits my medium-large hands very well. As my daily EDC over the last month and a half, I’ve done a lot with it. I prepared an entire BBQ meal with the Fanga. It’s blade shape and the fact that the blade edge is higher than the bottom of the handle preclude it from being good at dicing onions, but it hacked open the packaging on the sausages and sliced the rolls just fine.

I needed to chop down a recently deceased banana tree in my yard, and why use a saw or machete when I have this bigass knife in my pocket? It was like cutting through seven inches of tough, soggy celery, and I gained a practical appreciation of the handle size and shape. The index finger cutout, along with the wide, flat thumb rest above the pivot, gave me surfaces to push and pull against as I sawed the banana trunk into sections that would fit into my yard waste bin. Afterwards, the knife and I were covered in bitter banana sap, so I cleaned us both with a garden hose. I was hoping that the Fanga’s machined G10/carbon fiber handle and G10 backspacer would be less slippery when wet than an all-titanium handled knife, but it was about as slippery as my titanium Sebenza.

Most of the time G10 appears on folding knife handles, it’s a flat slab with a square grid pattern molded or machined into the surface. It feels great and provides excellent traction, but looks boring. Notable examples of this are a lot of Spyderco knives, the Rick Hinderer XM series of knives, and pretty much every Emerson knife. But on the Fanga, this material is sculpted in a creative, organic way you that you feel more than you see.

Kombou, the designer of this knife, has added his signature design cue of several little scalloped cuts on the top of the handle behind the pivot. I’ve noticed this design in four of his other knives (the Ornetta, Volta, Kamoza, Bragga, and Buwaya) and I now notice a signature naming convention as well- all of his knife names end with an “a”. I really like his design aesthetic. It’s not quite as distinctive as knife designer Elijah Isham’s style but I find Kombou’s knives to be more practical. Like Isham, Kombou does 3D computer design, not physical knife making, and a close examination of the Fanga reveals many well-executed small details, like the deep blade fuller that can be used to open the knife like you would open a traditional slipjoint.

The pivot collar and the pocket clip are made of the same blue anodized titanium, and both have style. The pivot collar is subtly cone shaped, and the angle at which it rises above the handle matches the angle of the pivot screw, resulting in a volcano shaped pivot. The clip has a unique organic shape that compliments the shape of the handle. It also has a sufficient height above the handle to easily slide onto both my thickest denim jeans and my Triple Aught Design Force 10 AC pants which are extremely thin, but indestructible. The amount of flex in the clip has held on tight to everything I’ve worn in the six weeks I’ve been carrying the Fanga.

I scratched the anodizing on the clip somehow, and the blue anodizing is showing some fading on the edges. My Fox Knives Phoenix has similar blue anodizing and even more pronounced wear, but that’s also not the knife I’m going to complain about…

Deployment and Lockup

The Fanga stays open by utilizing a steel liner lock, which contributes to it’s weight. As D2 steel has gone out of fashion in high-end knives, so have liner locks been replaced by frame locks. I personally love a well done liner lock because it allows the handle design to be symmetrical in shape and materials. A frame lock knife, like the Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza, by definition must have a steel or titanium handle on one side that functions as it’s locking mechanism.

The design of the “lock side” of a typical frame lock knife is dominated by the lock. If a knifemaker wants to use a material other than steel or titanium for the non-locking side of the handle (the “show” side) they can use G10 or micarta or solid gold, but there’s no way to have symmetry of materials on both sides of the handle unless you use steel or titanium. Thanks to it’s liner lock, the standard Bestech Fanga has symmetrical G10 (or G10/carbon fiber) handles on both sides.

The lockup is solid with no blade wiggle, and the combination of the wide, heavy handle and thick blade stock prompted me to test the overall strength of the knife. My banana-watering garden hose burst at one end so I seized the opportunity to cut it with the Fanga. It took all my strength to cut through the extra-thick hose, so for the sake of science I sharpened it and cut a couple more slices much more easily.

The Flipper detent is a little stronger than I’m used to, meaning that it takes a bit of effort to get the flipping motion started. Once past that initial resistance it flips open smoothly on it’s ball bearing pivot system. It’s a big heavy blade and the detent feels appropriate to get that much mass moving and locked into place. I have never failed to completely flip it open using a normal index finger technique or by my wrapping my thumb over the top like a front flipper knife.

Every surface on the Fanga that’s able to be touched is chamfered or rounded a little bit, with the exception of a sharp two inch portion the back side of the liner lock, which is a) only exposed when the knife is locked open, and b) not sharp enough to cut you anyway. I would call that a design flaw, but that’s nothing compared to the design flaw of the knife I’m going to be complaining about, the Spyderco Tropen.

On paper, the Tropen is practically the same as the Fanga with the exception of the Tropen having better blade steel. Their weight, handle size and shape, blade size and shape, and full flat grind are very similar to each other. It’s in the differences between them where the Tropen falls short. The flipper tab’s pointy top jabs into your finger, the polished G10 handle scales are slippery even when dry, and the liner lock that keeps the knife open is only 1mm, while the Fanga’s liner lock is almost double the thickness at 1.8mm. In the picture it looks like the liner locks are the same size, but I bought digital calipers specifically so I could bitch about this and I assure you the measurements are accurate.

I also replaced the pocket clip with a $26 MXG Gear deep carry clip, but that was an aesthetic decision on my part. In my opinion, Spyderco knives are like Glock pistols: they’re usually OK right out of the box, but if you really want to get the most out of them, you have to install some aftermarket accessories and tinker with them a little. My Tropen had two serious problems when it was in the closed position that definitely required some tinkering.

First, the detent keeping the Tropen closed was so weak that it opened in my pocket several times. To remedy that, I turned to YouTube and learned how to increase the detent by taking the knife apart and using a dremel tool to enlarge the hole that the detent ball rests in. The second problem has perplexed me and the knife nerd community in general- when the knife is closed, there’s a half inch of sharp blade exposed next to the lock mechanism. The only fix is to dull the back end of the blade with a file. I haven’t cut myself on it yet, and I’m leaving the end the butt end of the blade sharp just to see if it actually does cut me while I’m holding it in my pocket. I’m willing to trade the pain for the knowledge.

Finally, the Tropen costs about $100 more than the Fanga. The only reason I bring up the Tropen at all is to make my final point about price versus value.

Bestech Fanga Review – Final Thoughts

Warren Buffett said this about price versus value:“Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.” When I first held the Fanga in my hands, I was surprised that this knife only cost $102, and the regular G10 version $80. The fit and finish, at least to my untrained eye, are excellent. That’s a lot of value at a low price. There are many quality knives out there that cost approximately the same amount, but I haven’t seen one that has this much style and meticulous detail plus a milled pocket clip at this price.

I bought the very similar Spyderco Tropen (which is also made in China by the way) for approximately double the price, and it ended up costing me even more in parts and labor. Despite it’s higher price, I feel like it’s value is significantly lower than that of the Fanga. The Bestech Fanga is, in my opinion, a great all-around knife and a tremendous value for the money. I recommend it.

Lastly, while fact-checking this review with the designer, Kombou, he told me that he has recently quit his regular 9 to 5 job to become a full time Product Designer for Bestech. My congratulations to him and to anyone who gets paid to do what they love. Keep making cool knives (with good value) and I’ll keep buying them.

Bestech Knives Fanga – From $102.00
From: BladeHQ

Editor: I recommend purchasing the Bestech Knives Fanga at BladeHQ and Amazon. Thank you very much.

About the Author: This guest review was written by John Burridge. John Burridge is a Los Angeles-based lover of knives and other dangerous toys. He spends his days trying to make the world a better place by slipping subversive humor into reality TV shows. And playing with cats. He can be found on Instagram as @bunrudge.

Bestech Knives Malware Review

by John Burridge 3 Comments

Over the years, I’ve noticed that in polite society when I whip out a folding knife to open a box or cut a loose thread, most people’s reactions are some variation of “Oh God, why do you have/need/carry that?” My usual reply is that a knife is the most useful tool in the world, but I’ve found that no matter how “non-threatening” looking the knife is, I still get that same reaction. Therefore, why not carry whatever I want?

Buy the Bestech Malware at BladeHQ

So, a month ago I put down my already scary-looking Microtech Ultratech OTF switchblade and picked up the seriously murder-ey looking Bestech Malware.

The Malware was designed for Bestech Knives by Todd Knife and Tool. TKT was started in 2016 by prolific knife reviewer Teryl Todd (Zelrick42 on YouTube) and his brother Seth Todd. They went from being fans to designers, and have a thoroughly modern company. Teryl lives in Ozark, Missouri, and Seth lives in Houston, Texas. They jointly design their knives by sharing 3D CAD files online, then Seth makes physical prototypes that they both test. TKT have developed a distinct visual style also apparent in their We Knife Co. made Roxi folder, and in the many prototype images shared on the toddknifeandtool Instagram account.

General Dimensions & Blade Details

The Malware’s blade is 3.875” (9.8 cm) long, the blade stock thickness is 0.15” (3.9mm), and it’s full open length is 8.75” (22 cm). The long stabby blade folds into a titanium handle, the blade pivots on ball bearings, and it’s framelock has a steel lockbar insert. The steel lockbar insert is a theoretically replaceable part that protects the titanium framelock from rubbing against the lock face of the steel blade. My experience has been that often a titanium framelock rubbing against a steel blade tends to “stick” in place, but steel on steel doesn’t have the same problem.

Here is a size comparison with a large Sebenza Insingo:

It weighs 3.68 oz. which is technically a little more than a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 or a Chris Reeve Knives large Sebenza, but it feels lighter than either of them in the hand. I attribute this feeling to the weight balance of this knife. If I’m holding the Malware in a normal thumb-on-top grip, and I slowly open my hand, the knife will not fall to the floor, but will stay balanced on my index finger. This nearly perfect weight distribution helps the Malware feel very agile in my hand.

The titanium pocket clip is configured as a right side, tip up only, but there are dedicated left handed versions as well. I have the “Ti Black” version. The titanium backspacer and pocket clip are anodized a brassy gold color, and contrast nicely against the black stonewashed finish of the rest of the knife. The stonewashed treatment gives the edges and corners a worn-in look similar to Kershaw Knives’ “blackwash” finish.

It’s blade steel is S35VN, which was developed specifically for high-end knife blades by steelmaker Crucible Industries and Chris Reeve Knives. It’s a powdered metal steel, which has the advantage of more uniform blending of it’s elements (iron, niobium, chromium, vanadium, etc.) than conventional steel. The end-user benefits of this manufacturing process and the S35VN formula are excellent blade toughness (it can take a hit without breaking or bending), corrosion resistance, and edge retention.

So it’s a modern production knife made in China with premium materials and it’s priced accordingly at $196 on BladeHQ. What makes it different than every other new Kizer, Reate, We, and Rike knife? Style and details.

What I love about good pocketknives is that they’re pieces of functional art you can hold in your hand. The Malware is full of interesting details and I keep noticing more. The design is a strange futuristic combination of curves, straight lines, and, as on the cutting edge of the blade, straight lines that almost imperceptibly turn into curves. The blade has a finger choil which, although it’s a little too small for my index finger, is the full 3.9mm width of the blade stock, which is yet another design detail that I appreciate.

Handle, Ergonomics, & Pocket Clip

In pictures, the handle looks very thin, and in the days between ordering the Malware and receiving it, I wondered if it would be too small to properly wrap my medium-large-ish hands around. When it arrived, I found that it fills my hand very well, and the long, flat clip doesn’t create much of a hotspot any way I hold it.

Some edges are pretty squared off, like the machining on the backspacer, but almost every part of the handle that comes in contact with my hand is chamfered, making it quite comfortable to hold. And the more I have it in my hands, the more I keep discovering new functional design details that I had, at first glance, written off as being cosmetic- like the three holes in the show side near the flipper tab. Those holes are exactly where my right thumb needs traction when flipping the knife open.

On the lock side of virtually all framelock knives, there’s a machined indentation in the frame that allows the locking part of the frame to flex inward and lock the blade open. A lot of knives cover this indentation with their pocket clips, but as yet another example of how well thought out this design is, the pocket clip on the Malware sits right above, but not covering, the indentation. So when gripping the knife to flip it open, my ring finger is naturally pushed into that square indentation, which gives me a secure grip when flipping it open.

I don’t ordinarily use my pocketknives for food prep, but in the spirit of thoroughness I sliced up some veggies with it. The blade has a full flat grind and gets very thin at the bottom, which made slicing easy. The ergonomics for general food prep were fine as long as I didn’t try to spread anything- the thin blade definitely doesn’t work as a butter knife. The flipper tab extends below the cutting edge, so it can’t really be used for dicing either, but kitchen work is clearly not this knife’s intended use.

The pocket clip is rather long and thin and has more flex to it than any other milled clip I’ve handled. The good news is that it doesn’t chew up my (already chewed up) pants pockets, but the bad news is that it seems like it could easily get bent.

I carried this knife during a T.C.C.C. medic class, and when we were learning how to improvise tourniquets, I used the Malware as a windlass (the stiff piece that you twist to tighten the tourniquet.) Despite really cranking this thing down tight on my training partner’s arm, I had no fear of the knife breaking or bending until the instructor decided to show the class how to tie off the end of the improvised tourniquet using the pocket clip. He was bending the clip way out and jamming fabric under it, and I desperately wanted to ask him to stop so he didn’t break it. I resisted this urge because I didn’t want to seem like a weenie to our super-badass Los Angeles SWAT Medic instructor. So he manhandled the clip, and when he was done, it just sprung back to it’s normal state. It may be thin and flexible, but it’s not fragile.

Overall, the Malware isn’t an “overbuilt” knife like a Hinderer Knives XM or a Strider SMF, but it’s definitely tougher than it looks.

Deployment & Lockup

A gripe I have with every single framelock flipper is if I grip it in such a way that I’m putting a lot of pressure with my middle finger on the front of the lock near the pivot, then the knife becomes very difficult to flip open. The worst offender on this front that I have is a Brad Zinker midtech version of the Boker Urban Trapper. The only knife I have that is immune to this problem is my GiantMouse GM1, which is an awesome knife overall, but perhaps solves this problem by having a weak detent which makes it difficult to flip open. However, the ergonomics of the Malware naturally place my fingers where they don’t get in the way of the mechanism at all.

The Malware’s flipper tab is relatively small but has comfortably rounded jimping that provides good traction for flipping. The amount of detent tension that has to be overcome to flip the knife open is tough for me to objectively define- but subjectively, I think it flips perfectly. The Malware’s framelock engages at about 40%, which you can jam over to about 60% if you’re worried about it slipping (not that that’s ever happened to me or anyone I know.)

I don’t carry a knife specifically for self defense, but I must say that I certainly never felt under-prepared while carrying the Malware on the weird streets of Los Angeles. It’s never accidentally opened while in my pocket or while drawing it out of my pocket. It’s flipped and locked open securely every single time I’ve flipped it. I don’t think an especially scary-looking knife like this is going to make a bad man run away in terror, but it’s a long, mean looking blade with a big handle I can get a very firm grip on. So I’ll add self defense to the Malware’s growing list of positive attributes.

Bestech Malware Review – Final Thoughts

I carried the Malware every day for a month and primarily used it for un-challenging tasks like opening packages, slashing open bags of cat food, and as an improvised medical device. At the end of the month, the finish on blade, handle, and clip are unblemished. The S35VN blade was still very sharp in most places, but after a quick, ham-fisted touch up on a Wicked Edge sharpener, it’s back to 100%. There’s no sharpening choil, but I don’t really care if the last few millimeters of my blade are super sharp.

What is the Bestech Malware made to do? I don’t want to sound like a knife snob a-hole, but I tend to compare everything to my Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza 21. The word “Sebenza” is literally the Zulu word for “work”, and the Sebenza feels like an indestructible precision tool. The Bestech knife doesn’t feel like a tool, it feels like a blatantly offensive weapon that can also open boxes from Amazon. Malware is the perfect name for this knife because it’s so badass. Not flaming skull badass, but sci-fi villain badass. It brings to mind futuristic heavy metal music by the band Voivod, it’s like the knife version of the Space Marines’ rifle from the movie Aliens, it should be a weapon in the DOOM video games, and I obviously really like it.

The deciding factor for anyone considering buying the Malware is definitely it’s looks- if you immediately like it’s vibe, I say get it. Nothing is perfect (except kittens), but the Malware excelled at everything I wanted it to do, and looked super-murder-ey doing it. Recommended!

Bestech Knives Malware – From $196.00
From: BladeHQ

Editor: I recommend purchasing the Bestech Knives Malware at BladeHQ and Amazon. Thank you very much.

About the Author: This guest review was written by John Burridge. John lives in Los Angeles and has a deep passion for knives. I plan on adding to this section to include more info about John and where to find him. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this in depth review.