EDC Knives

Cold Steel Broken Skull Review

I try not to read too much into the name of a knife. After all, the name has no impact on the performance. But sometimes good knives can have bad names. Even after learning that this knife was designed by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and named after his Broken Skull Ranch, I still thought the Broken Skull was a pretty dumb name for a pocket knife. Hopefully I don’t receive a “Stone Cold Stunner” for writing this.

But much in the same way that I am a sucker for Emerson knives, I’m a sucker for these Cold Steel offerings. That is because despite all the theatrics, lawsuits, and marketing bullshit they make some good stuff.

The American Lawman is a perennial EDC favorite of mine, while pieces like the Mini Tuff Lite and Ultimate ~~Warrior~~ Hunter. continue to satisfy in niche situations when I want a small or overbuilt folder. The Broken Skull, even with it’s unfortunate name, struck me as an another imminently useful pocket knife from CS, if on the larger side.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Cold Steel Broken Skull has an overall length of 9.25″, a 4.00″ blade, and weighs 3.10 ounces. This knife is made in Taiwan. The Broken Skull reminds me of an Spyderco Endura. My buddy in law school enjoyed his Endura because it was an easy knife to pocket but packed a lot of blade. I think he would enjoy the Broken Skull. It is also thin, light, and packs a big blade, yet this feels like a much stronger knife than the Endura.

While a 4″ blade is probably too big of a knife for most people to EDC, if you enjoy carrying a small and big pocket knife at the same time I could see the Broken Skull being your big knife. Of course if you are a fan of “tactical” folders then the Broken Skull could also be up your alley.

The Broken Skull has a long thin exaggerated clip point blade. This blade provides you with plenty of cutting edge, a little bit of belly, and a fine tip. This blade has a full flat grind, and gets thin behind the edge. A black DLC coating rounds things out.

Like all the new higher end Cold Steel folders, this knife comes in CTS-XHP stainless steel. I like CTS-XHP because it holds a good edge and is easy to sharpen. Its a nice step up from the AUS-8 Cold Steel used to run in all their knives, although it does raise the price.

I have used this Broken Skull as an EDC knife, and in that capacity I have opened and broken down many boxes, performed some light food prep, and and have worked with it a fair bit in my back yard. I have found the Broken Skull to be a good slicer. Both the grind and profile are thin and the knife zips through boxes, slices fruit easily, and bites deeply into green wood. The DLC coating has held up excellently with little in the way of visible wear.

This is a useful blade shape with good geometry for slicing, and Cold Steel’s recent switch to CTS-XHP steel with a DLC coating is a significant upgrade over their AUS-8 and teflon coated blades of yore. While the long profile lends the knife to penetrating cuts, you can still get plenty of chores done with the Broken Skull.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

Much like the American Lawman, the Broken Skull has a linerless G-10 handle with a black aluminum backspacer. What sets the Broken Skull apart is how thin the G10 is. It makes for a slim knife, but the handle is still strong with zero flex in it.

Handle construction is of high quality with counter sunk button screws, chamferred G-10, and all black hardware. Cold Steel offers this model in a variety of handle colors – a nice bonus. The blue version happened to catch my eye but they have everything from standard black to pink.

The long simple handle of the the Broken Skull provides you with plenty of ergonomic options. You can choke up on the knife and make use of the simple jimping on the spine of the G10, or you can pull back on the handle and avail yourself of almost 8″ of reach. Either way the knife feels comfortable and secure. The texture of the G10 is relatively mild compared to knives like the American Lawman and Emerson’s offerings. Still, there is plenty of grip here and I don’t think anyone will mistake this for a slippery knife.

Cold Steel provides you with 2 pocket clips – one for left hand carry and one for right hand carry. The clip is short and strong, and is oriented for deep carry. The combination of the G10 and strong clip make this knife something of a chore to extract and remove from your pocket. It will also shred your pants pockets if you aren’t careful. I’m not wild about the clip for this reason. Too tight, and difficult to use.

On the flip side, the clip is discrete and it is highly unlikely that the Broken Skull will ever work its way out of the pocket. Because this knife is thin and light it carries well despite being over 5.25″ long when closed.

Deployment and Lockup

Like most of Cold Steel’s folding knife offerings, the Broken Skull comes with their asymmetrical slotted thumb studs. They work to manipulate the blade open, but this is not a knife you will be able to flick open easily thanks to the strong backspring. It’s best to roll the blade open with your thumb. The action is smooth thanks in part to phosphor bronze washers, and once you get past the halfway point, the knife snaps open.

For lockup we have the Tri-Ad lock. The Tri-Ad lock has become a staple for Cold Steel, and for good reason. It’s simple, strong, and secure. There is no blade play on my knife, despite it lacking any sort of metal liners, and the G10 being relatively thin. This is even when I try to wiggle the blade from the very tip – quite a feat considering the long blade. Construction is solid and the Tri-Ad lock is robust.

Blade centering is almost perfect on my knife.

Cold Steel Broken Skull Review – Final Thoughts

Nice pocket knife. Dumb name. That is how I feel about the Broken Skull. For normal EDC use the Broken Skull is going to be excessively long, and that is probably my biggest hangup with the knife. But I think people who enjoy carrying a long and slim folding knife will find a lot to like here for around $75. The materials are premium. Construction is simple yet functional. I even like how you have a choice of color for the handles. The Broken Skull is an efficient tool and even with a silly name I can’t help but like it for what it is.

If I could make changes, I find the clip to be too small and stiff, and I’d like to see them offer this knife in a smaller size, but I think the Broken Skull compliments Cold Steel’s catalog. They have plenty of 3-3.5″ folders. This model is a little different and that is not a bad thing.

I recommend the Broken Skull to those seeking a long slim folding knife or fans of the design.

Cold Steel Broken Skull IV 4" Drop Point Folder Knife, Blue

List Price: $76.74

Current Price: $28.40

Price Disclaimer

I recommend buying the Broken Skull at Amazon or BladeHQ. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Zero Tolerance ZT 0450 Review

by Benjamin Schwartz 3 Comments

Despite positioning itself as a maker of hard use tools for hardcore individuals, Zero Tolerance has always had more universal appeal than its marketing would suggest – and I don’t think the company’s appeal has ever been wider than it is today.

Unlike sister brand Kershaw, there isn’t any internal division between ZT products: there aren’t ‘cheap’ and ‘expensive’ ZTs in the sense that there are cheap and expensive Kershaws; everything they make falls within the same general bracket of impressive machining and high-end materials; the price differences just indicate which high materials you’re getting and how much impressive machining you see.

And while ZTs may have been considered pretty pricey back in the day, as the market has shifted upwards their prices have remained relatively consistent, so that they seem more reasonable now than they did five years ago. So as the knife world has shifted into its current strata of price brackets, Zero Tolerance has found itself in a sweet spot between accessibility and quality.

All of this combines to put ZT pretty much at the center of current knife enthusiast culture. I’m sure there are soldiers, cops, and first responders who carry and use Zero Tolerence knives, but I would bet there are a lot more ZTs in the pockets of enthusiasts and on the shelves of collectors. That being said there has never been a ZT knife that really spoke to me.

I couldn’t find one that was ‘just right;’ this knife had a great design but is assisted, that one was the right size but inordinately heavy. It is this way for me with every knife ZT releases. Eventually, waiting for the Perfect Zero Tolerance became a kind of mania. Perfect design, perfect size, perfect price: I figured if I waited long enough such a ZT would come out.

But it never did, and eventually I got tired of waiting and picked up the knife that came closest to that ephemeral, unrealized Perfect ZT I have in my mind: the Dmitry Sinkevich-designed ZT 0450. It can’t possibly be perfect, but is it any good? Let’s take a look.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The 0450 has a blade length of 3 3/16”, a handle length of 4 1/8”, and an overall length of 7 3/8”. It weighs 3.04 oz. and is made in the USA. I want to mention here that this is a damn good looking knife. It comes up later and I don’t want to keep repeating myself in the interim, so just keep in mind that almost every inch of this knife is nice to look at.

The ZT 0450’s racy drop point is a good EDC cutter. It has much more straight edge than belly, which I don’t necessarily mind, and a very sharp tip. A chunky grind means two things: 1) both the tip and cutting edge are hardy enough to beat on, however 2) it isn’t as good of a slicer as you would hope for. Given the fast, futuristic, aggressive styling I was hoping for equally aggressive cutting performance but that isn’t what you get here.

However, trading some sliciness for durability isn’t exactly Faustian as long as cutting performance is still the favored attribute to some degree, and the 0450 meets this criterion. It’s best-suited for medium-duty tasks like cutting through cardboard or plastic, but you aren’t going to hate slicing food with it either. It works.

When Zero Tolerance began using Elmax a few years ago accusations of improper heat treating and burnt edges were leveled at them from the enthusiast quarter. The 0450 is made from S35VN, not Elmax, but there is a small portion near the tip of my 0450’s blade that looks burned:

From what I understand, this occurs during the edge grinding portion of manufacturing, and is localized to the burned area – in other words, if it is burned, it shouldn’t affect the performance of the edge in general – and my experience bears this out.

S35VN is great. I would almost say it’s boring, because it doesn’t have the epic abilities and tragic flaws of a steel like M4, but for the average user (and most enthusiasts are average users AT BEST) that is a good thing. I’m convinced that you could sharpen S35VN with even a rudimentary setup and some patience. The S35VN here performed just as well as I expected it to, and if there were any problems in the burned portion I didn’t notice.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

One of my biggest ergonomic pet peeves is when a knife has a beak or a scoop at the butt end of its handle that either doesn’t accommodate all four fingers ahead of it, or that makes my fingers feel crammed because it ushers them too close together. I really want this issue to become the Too Many Finger Grooves of 2017, because it nearly ruined the Para 3 for me and designers need to stop doing it.

By all accounts it looked like the 0450 would have this problem, and even now I’m not sure that it doesn’t. I can get all my fingers between the finger groove and the beginning of the beak, but not easily, comfortably, or without premeditation; my fingers would never fall across the handle this way naturally.

But the way I think you’re supposed to hold the knife is how I ended up holding the Para 3: with my index finger in the groove, my middle and ring in the “valley,” and my pinky landing on the far side of the beak. This feels natural, but, again, it isn’t the natural way my hand wants to hold the knife.

If I just grab the knife without thinking, my pinky lands right on the tip of the beak. This doesn’t sound like it would be comfortable, but thanks to the big chamfer around the scales, the tip of the beak isn’t too pointy and it works. And even during hard cuts this wasn’t that uncomfortable because most of the pressure is focused on the portion of the knife between your thumb and forefinger.

So I don’t know where I come down on this. The way it appears the knife is designed to be held isn’t natural, and the way it seems natural to hold it doesn’t feel right, even if it isn’t intolerable. At the end of the day I guess I’m okay with this handle, because it allows for a very slim and stylish profile, and going into it you know the 0450 isn’t going to be an ergonomic masterpiece.

The 0450 itself is so very narrow that it would be a pretty decent carry regardless of what kind of clip it had. This is one of very few flipper knives whose flipper tab doesn’t annoy me in the pocket, and I think that’s a function of the knife’s extreme narrowness. The 0450 would be a great carry even with a bad pocket clip, but hey: the clip here is anguish free. The same clip seen on the Kershaw Dividend, and in that review I expressed a little anxiety about its stability over time, but I’ve had no issues here.

Deployment and Lockup

I’m going to grouse a lot in this section so I’ll say this up front: The ZT 0450’s action is fast, sure, very snappy, addicting, and fun. The flipper tab is well designed. It is a great example of why flippers are so hot right now. Okay, grousing starts now.

I was prepared for the lock bar issue, and it is definitely present: if your fingers are on anywhere on the lock bar, the detent is such that the knife will not open – it feels almost like you have a secondary safety feature engaged. When I first got the knife I had a couple attempted deployments where the blade refused to budge.

However, if you align your fingers with the clip it keeps them off the bar; now that’s where my fingers naturally goes when I flip open this knife. Still, not cool, and from what I’ve seen it’s present on newer models as well. I’d like to see ZT put this issue to bed.

I think ball bearing pivots are bad. I hope the recent issues with the Advocate will precipate a move back to traditional washers, which are more durable, have no moving parts, are easier to maintain, and don’t cause as much unnecessary wear. Ball bearings against naked titanium (as we have on the 0450) is probably asking for trouble in the long term – albeit in the long, long term that most of us won’t see, as we trade and swap knives and carry different ones on different days. But still.

I also think that the ZT 0450’s fall shut action is dangerous and not to be desired. I’ve cut myself more times on the ZT 0450 than any other knife I’ve owned, either because it rolled shut so fast I didn’t have time to get my knuckles out of the way, or I pushed it a little bit and it gained enough momentum to keep rolling when I didn’t want or expect it to. Not necessary.

Lockup via titanium frame lock with a steel insert, is good however. If you look at the knife from the side, it doesn’t seem that a lot of the blade tang actually makes contact with the lock face, and disengagement has no feedback or friction whatsoever, but there is no blade play and the lock has never been other than stable and reliable. The double over-travel stop provided by the insert and by the clip is a nice touch as well.

Zero Tolerance 0450 Review – Final Thoughts

There is no meaningful area in which the Zero Tolerance 0450 excels other than carry. It isn’t a great cutter. Ergonomically, it’s kind of a mess. The deployment is problematic. But I still like it.

As much as I hate to say it it comes down to the look. Sinkevich has one of the strongest aesthetics around and the 0450 benefits greatly from that. It isn’t my style necessarily, but we don’t see a lot of knives that are this visually confident, and I think I responded to that. If you showed me a less interesting design that had all of these quirks and problems, I would never even think of buying it.

Not exactly the resounding praise, but praise nonetheless. I can’t not like this knife, even if there are so many things about it that I don’t like. It stops just short of brilliance but looks stunning doing it.

Zero Tolerance Sinkevich Titanium Folding Knife, Small

List Price: $160.00

Current Price: $160.00

Price Disclaimer

I recommend purchasing the Zero Tolerance 0450 at Amazon and BladeHQ. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Kizer Alter Ego Review

by Grayson Parker 1 Comment

Kizer’s 2017 catalog wasn’t released to the same fanfare as Spyderco’s or KAI’s. That may be partially due to the fact that it’s massive. Most of their old designs are still on there, so don’t worry, there’s no need for panic purchases a la Spyderco’s discontinued list. At the same time, Kizer has collaborated with a host of new makers so up and coming your plaid-bedecked neighbor who won’t shut up about vinyl records hasn’t even heard of them.

In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that this review sample was provided by Kizer. While that won’t have an impact on my impartiality, there is the risk that the product I was sent was double or triple checked for quality, and that my sample is the best of the brood. That risk is counterweighted by Kizer’s deserved reputation for high manufacturing tolerances. In other words, I don’t think you need to worry about it.

The Alter Ego falls into their “Bladesmith” line, which is seemingly reserved for collaborations with custom makers. I was surprised to learn this, as the Alter Ego seems aesthetically similar to many of Kizer’s in-house designs. Searching for “Kim Ning” and “Kim Ning Knives” yielded no results outside of Kizer products. It may be that he is better known internationally, or that he doesn’t have an English website, but I suspect that (much like Jim McNair of KAI) he’s a full time designer for Kizer.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Kizer Alter Ego has a 3.55” blade housed in a 4.625” handle. Overall, it’s 8.125” long and weighs 4.91 oz, with a blade thickness of .1375”. For some this isn’t terribly large, but it’s definitely more knife than I’m accustomed to. To their credit Kizer kept the weight pretty low. As a point of comparison, it weighs only .6 ounces more than the Zero Tolerance 0900, but has a .85” longer blade. Those numbers might not look impressive on paper, but trust me when I say that the difference is significant in person.

The blade itself is made of S35VN, a powder metallurgy steel developed by Crucible as the successor to S30V. Prior to the revolution of high-end Chinese manufacturers, a steel like this would have been unheard of on a Chinese knife. Times have changed, and now it’s sound business sense for companies like Kizer to import high performance steels. S35VN is a particular favorite of mine. It retains S30V’s wear and rust resistance, but doesn’t chip as frequently. I’ve used the Alter Ego frequently (if not rigorously) over the past month, and the experience matched my expectations.

As nice as the S35VN is, I wish it had been paired with a plainer utilitarian blade. The Alter Ego sports a drop point blade with a profile that echoes the Viper Dan 2 or the ZT0770 (both blade shapes that I love), but which is drawn up into a recurve closer to the base of the blade. While by no means a dramatic recurve, it exaggerates the belly enough to make certain tasks – press cutting in food preparation, for example – less predictable than a continuous curve or a straight edge. If I found myself cutting rope on a regular basis the recurve would have more appeal, but my needs are fairly pedestrian.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Carry

Much like the blade, the handle is comprised of organic, muscular lines. In some respects it’s comparable to the Hinderer design aesthetic, but where Hinderer relies on hard angles and a very industrial appearance, Kizer turns to curves that are almost anatomical. In keeping with this, ornamentation is kept to a minimum. I’m not normally a fan of decorative pivots, but Kizer’s rendition is eye-catching, subtle, and most importantly is torx compatible.

The ergonomics on the Alter Ego are good, if narrow in application. It’s difficult to tell from the photos and product literature, but the handle coerces your fingers into something akin to a pistol grip. That’s not necessarily a downside, especially if you’re in the market for a tactical folder. This knife won’t leave your hand unless you want it to. However, it’s less than ideal for everyday tasks, such as preparing a picnic lunch or opening a clamshell package.

While the design is ergonomically sound, if not to my taste, there is one flaw in the execution: the pocket clip. It’s not offensively bad (like this little guy), but it does generate enough of a hot spot to cause some discomfort. Gloves and careful finger placement mitigate this problem. The clip aside, Kizer put a lot of work into making this knife comfortable. All the edges are buffed and all the corners are softened. Kizer clearly knows how to make a knife comfortable,

The Alter Ego is pretty quiet in the pocket. No one could call it svelte – it is fairly wide, and nearly an inch of the handle sticks out past the edge of the pocket – but for a knife this size, it’s better than I expected. The aforementioned contouring keeps it from feeling like a brick in your pants, and though the clip detracts from the blade’s ergonomics, it also ensures that an errant seat belt can’t make off with your rather expensive pocketknife.

Deployment and Lock-Up

As with most of Kizer knives, the Alter Ego’s blade is deployed via flipper tab. Sadly, Kizer committed something of a cardinal sin in the design stages of the Alter Ego: they put aggressive jimping right under the flipper tab. For the first two or three days I carried it, my index finger would slam right into the aforementioned jimping every time I flipped it open, leaving my finger raw and smarting. Eventually my technique improved and the problem went away, but it was a literal pain to deal with. It’s a shame that such a flaw wasn’t caught earlier, because otherwise deployment on the Alter Ego is perfect. The detent is crisp and firm, and there’s not a hint of grit in the bearing pivot. It’s not as snappy as the action on my ZT0900 – there’s more of a hydraulic feel to it – but that’s a matter of taste, not quality. Deployment on both knives is as smooth as glass.

Commensurate with Kizer’s reputation, the frame lock on the Alter Ego is perfectly executed. There is zero wiggle in the lock while deployed, and because of the steel insert there’s no break in period or risk of the lock face galling inappropriately over time. Since arrival, the lock has consistently engaged the blade tang at about 50%, though it should be noted that 100% of the steel insert engages the tang. Said insert also functions as an overtravel stop. To round things out, Kizer also milled a slight cut out in the handle to make the lock more accessible.

Kizer Alter Ego Final Thoughts

At a price point that hovers between 160USD and 180USD, the Alter Ego is competing with the premier lines of most brands; within the genre – titanium framelock flippers – it’s directly competing with most of Zero Tolerance’s catalog. While I’m not going to wade into the waters of which brand I prefer (the gaming industry has console wars covered), I can say that the Alter Ego is as well made as any normal run ZT. That’s pretty high praise, all things considered.

End of the day, this knife isn’t for me. It’s too big for my purposes and definitely has a different end user in mind. That said, everything else about the knife – the manufacturing tolerances, materials, attention to detail – is fantastic, and clues me into just how much I’ve been missing out on by not trying a Kizer sooner. If the design of this knife appeals to you, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. If the quality of the Alter Ego is representative of their entire catalog (and the community’s response indicates that such is true) then I wouldn’t hesitate to buy any Kizer knife if the design appealed to me.

I recommend purchasing the Kizer Alter Ego at BladeHQ. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Emerson Sheepdog Review

by Dan 9 Comments

Having reviewed many Emerson knives over the years, and reaching largely the same conclusions, you would think I am a glutton for punishment in selecting the Emerson Sheepdog for review. However, the Sheepdog brings something new to the table. This is the first Emerson flipper I have reviewed, and it features their new ball bearing system. Plus the handle has been drilled and tapped for ambidextrous carry. This is big news from a company that is very much set in their ways.

This isn’t the only flipper Emerson has done. They also released the CQC-7 flipper. The CQC-7 flipper seems interesting on paper, as flippers have been in vogue for years now and the CQC-7 is the knife that put Emerson on the map, but the design is uninspred and the end result is literally a CQC-7 with a gigantic shark fin flipper pasted onto it. I can understand the appeal to some, but personally I wasn’t interested.

Emerson Sheepdog

In contrast the Sheepdog isn’t a model where the flipper was an afterthought. The knife was designed to be a flipper, per the specifications of Lt. Col. David Grossman, the man who approached Ernest Emerson about collaborating on a knife and designing something for David’s company Sheepdog Knife and Gun.

David Grossman is the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, a seminal text on the psychology of the act of killing, how most men are reluctant to kill, and how law enforcement and military have trained people to overcome this reluctance. I’m sure On Killing makes for stimulating beach reading, but I didn’t pick up the Sheepdog to write a book report.

Before I proceed, let me disclose that this knife was provided for me to review free of charge by the fine folks over at BladeFlick.com. In no way will it impact my review.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Sheepdog has an overall length of 8.4″, a 3.5″ blade, and it weighs 5.54 ounces. This knife is made in the USA. This is a purpose built utility and self defense knife geared towards law enforcement (hence the name). Grossman wanted something functional for a Police officer’s daily work, yet relatively non-threatening. The handle is generous, while the blade is big enough to get work done without being over the top. As usual this won’t be practical for your average urban or suburban EDC, but no Emerson is. I have carried my knife primarily on evenings and weekends.

The Sheepdog comes with your choice of a clip point or spear point blade. Personally, I like the look of the spear point a little more. I think that visually the spear point blade it balances out the handle a little better. It’s also a little less aggressive looking than the clip point. Both designs provide good all round utility and come with partial flat grinds. Both blade shapes are cut from 1/8″ thick blade stock.

Emerson Sheepdog

As usual the blade on this Emerson is immaculate. Crisp lines, beautiful satin grinds, a generous sharpening choil, and sparkling stonewashed flats. The tip on my clip point is needle fine, while the spear point version appears to have a little more meat behind it. The primary grind is “V” ground, while the edge is only applied to the show side.

Like all the other Emerson’s I have reviewed, the Sheepdog comes in 154CM. At this point the 154CM stainless steel is a known quality. It comes sharp and stays sharp for a good while. Maintenance is easy. You sharpen the bevel side as you normally would, and that quickly raises a prominent burr. I then knock the burr off with a single swipe on a ceramic rod, and the blade is good to go. I have a suspicion that Emerson heat treats their 154CM on the softer side. It makes it an easy knife to sharpen, but you lose a little edge retention and the blade shows wear without much effort.

The Sheepdog takes a nice toothy edge, and has no problem with boxes, and I broke down plenty in the wake of assembling furniture and appliances for my rental house. I also used the knife on wood and for some mild food prep. The clip point is a practical blade shape, although it’s a little aggressive for use in public. It slices well, but also offers excellent penetration ability. Corrosion resistance is pretty good, but 154CM will stain if you aren’t careful with it.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

The handle is classic Emerson: coarse peel-ply black G10 scales over a stainless steel non-locking liner, a titanium locking liner, black stand offs, Phillips head body screws, and a slotted pivot. Fit and finish is good on my knife. Emerson got a bad rap for their knives a few years ago for off-centered blades, tooling marks on the liners, late lockups, etc. These days those issues have largely disappeared. All the parts line up, the body screws are counter sunk, the edges are chamferred, and the pocket clip screws don’t stick out past the liners. If I had to nit-pick, I’d say that one of my liners is about .1 mm proud on one spot of the handle, but beyond that I can’t complain. This is a solid knife and it isn’t horrible to look at either.

Emerson Sheepdog

The ergonomics of the Sheepdog may be inspired by Grossman, but they are pure Emerson. Like most of his designs the handle has an almost orthotic quality to it. The simple shape comes with decades of experience and the end result works great. Your index finger sinks into a deep finger groove while the flared pommel catches your pinky perfectly and the gently sloping spine supports your palm. This handle design would keep your hand in place work without excessive handle texturing, but of course Emerson offers the knife with sandpaper like G-10, and a broad thumb ramp with mild jimping. The end result is an undeniably comfortable and functional handle, but the G-10 will shred your pockets if you aren’t careful.

Emerson Sheepdog

I know not everyone will share in my excitement, but I think the craziest feature on this knife is the fact that the handle has been drilled and tapped to accept a pocket clip on either side of the handle. Holy shit, what a concept. Some people may be less enthusiastic about this great advance in technology, after all these days you can get a $5 gas station knife that is drilled and tapped for ambidextrous carry, but for Emerson this is a big freaking deal. I’m glad Grossman got more than his company logo on this knife. Congratulations on getting this thing to come ready for ambidextrous placement of the pocket clip.

Emerson Sheepdog

The clip is the same black parkerized stainless steel spring clip that you will find on every other standard Emerson. It’s a nice functional clip. Here it has been placed on the high on the handle for relatively deep carry. It’s not super deep carry, but you can easily retrieve the knife. The Sheepdog carries pretty well. It’s a relatively big knife, and it is thick, but it’s not going anywhere with this pants-shredding G-10. It carries as you would expect it to.

Deployment and Lockup

While the three extra holes in the handle are a big step forward, the flipper is what truly sells the Sheepdog. Since this is one of Emerson’s first flipper I wasn’t sure how successful of a flipper this would be. I was pleasantly surprised with what arrived. The Sheepdog flips well thanks in part to a large flipper tab, relatively heavy blade, and GTC bearing system. The detent doesn’t feel an stronger than your typical Emerson, and you can use the thumb disk or wave if you want, but it still provides enough resistance for the blade to flip open every time. The blade doesn’t pop like a Zero Tolerance flipper, but it isn’t a wet noodle either. I’d say it’s a solid 6 on a 1-10 scale, with a 5 being a Spyderco Domino, and a 10 being a ZT 454.

Emerson Sheepdog

The GTC bearing system is worth another paragraph. Regular readers know I am not a fan of the teflon washers found in the regular Emersons. These bearings are like night and day in comparison. While the teflon washers are slow and gritty, these bearings are fast, smooth, and a pleasure to operate. This is is a caged bearing system designed by Brazilian custom knifemaker Gustavo Cecchini of GTC Knives. Gus knows what he is doing, and Emerson has done a great job implementing this bearing system into their knives.

Emerson Sheepdog

For lockup we have your typical titanium liner lock. As usual I found my lock was sticky out of the box. I applied a little Sharpie marker to the tang of the knife, and it helped tremendously in alleviating the lock stick. I have to re-apply the Sharpie every couple weeks but it makes the knife much more pleasurable to operate.

Blade centering is perfect on my knife.

Emerson Sheepdog – Final Thoughts

I think this is the Emerson knife a lot of people have been waiting for. While the company has made minor incremental improvements to their products over the years, the knives have remained largely unchanged. This Sheepdog is still very much a traditional Emerson, but the inclusion of bearings and an ambidextrous pocket clip are big steps. The flipper is successful as well. This isn’t the sleekest flipper design, and the action won’t rival a ZT, but the flipper is functional and less clumsy looking than the CQC-7 flipper. I think they did a good job with it.

I find little to complain about here. I am ecstatic about the switch to bearings. I wish they did this for all their knives. The extra pocket clip holes are nice too. The liner lock still sticks but there is a workaround if you are willing to periodically apply Sharpie marker to the tang of the knife.

I suppose the biggest hangup for me is the bulkiness of this knife. That shouldn’t come as a surprise as Emerson knives are always big and thick. You notice them in the pocket and people will notice you if you use the knife in a public setting. If you already realize that going into the purchase, then I think you will find a lot to like with the Sheepdog. It features significant improvements over past Emerson knives.

I easily recommend the Sheepdog for Emerson fans. But I also recommend it for someone seeking a large folding “tactical” knife. This is my favorite Emerson to date, and is a successful collaboration with Lt. Col. Grossman. I hope it inspires the company to try more new things.

I recommend purchasing the Emerson Sheepdog at BladeFlick, Amazon, and BladeHQ. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Kershaw Dividend Review

by Benjamin Schwartz 12 Comments

Kershaw’s slew of new releases is always some of the biggest news out of SHOT Show. Each year the company unveils more than a dozen designs, including high-profile collaborations as well as compelling offerings from the talented in-house crew. Everything they make is accessible, with even the most lavish releases rarely going over $100. There’s bound to be something that appeals to your taste and budget in Kershaw’s yearly SHOT barrage.

For me, that something this year was the Dividend. In fact, it stuck in my mind as one of the most exciting knives of SHOT, full stop. Ostensibly a shorter and slimmer version of the Link, to me the Dividend seemed much more closely related to the Leek: a slim, small, lightweight, US-made SpeedSafe EDC knife with an accessible price point. Before I even had one of my own I was sure I loved it.

But then I got my own Dividend in hand and – well, I didn’t hate it, but it did, strangely, seem like a different knife than the one I handled earlier this year. Not a terrible knife, just a much less inspiring one.

The news isn’t bad so much as complicated. There’s a lot to think about with the Dividend if you’re considering picking one up, so let’s take a look.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Dividend has a cutting edge of 3” and a blade length of 3-3/16”-ish depending on where you measure from. It has a handle length of 4 3/16”, an overall length of 7 ¼”, and weighs 2.94 oz. It is made in the USA.

We say a blade shape is “modified” when it deviates so much from one of the standards that we’re not really sure what to call it. So the Dividend’s hollow-ground blade is a modified wharncliffe or drop point, depending on how you look at it. It’s a good blade, basically one continuous, gently curved edge. I generally like a mix of straight edge and belly, but the curve here is so gradual in places that, functionally, it’s straight. Cutting threads, breaking down boxes, slicing up an apple – these are the kind of things you’re going to want to use the Dividend for, and in these tasks it will do just fine.

Blade steel is 420HC – bad stuff. This isn’t an entry-level steel, it’s an outdated one. The blade geometry makes for an effective cutter, but after working through just a little cardboard the edge was drastically reduced. Not impressive. It doesn’t even have the good grace to maintain a clean edge; after that initial cut test it became really toothy. The more I use knives the more I like accessible, easy sharpen steels. 420HC is definitely easy to sharpen, but there’s a baseline for edge retention that it failed to clear as implemented on the Dividend.

The obvious response to this criticism is the price: the Dividend is designed as an affordable knife, and costs needs to be kept down with affordable steel. But the Dividend isn’t that cheap. I paid north of $40 for mine. Everyone’s value scale is calibrated differently, but a $40 purchase is not one I personally make lightly. At the consumer’s end of the equation, it’s hard to say for sure why a certain decision was made on a knife. But whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate that Kershaw chose to go with 420HC steel on the Divdend.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

There’s this one handle shape that KAI’s in-house designers return to over and over again. We’ve seen it on the Link, the Rove, the ZT 0095BW, 0770, and of course the Tilt and 0777. It’s a good shape: simple, slightly hump-backed, grip neutral. It’s back again on the Dividend, available in two different material choices: a GRN configuration that is slightly cheaper but makes the knife more rotund, or the slim, sleek, Leek-like aluminum that I opted for. There is a decorative GRN backspacer as well – not really a pro or a con, I guess, unless the idea of lint getting caught in there really gets to you.

I’ve already posited that the Dividend is a secret sequel to the Leek (a Leekquel, if you will) and that really comes through in the aluminum model. The Leek managed to be very thin without feeling overly narrow, and Kershaw pulled off the same trick with the Dividend. It is a rare flipper knife that doesn’t butt your knuckle right up against the tab, too, so that’s all to the good.

Remember when Kershaw had some of the worst clips in the biz? Go look at the nightmare clown clip on the Zing or the Tyrade. Those days seem to be behind us. The clips they’ve been using in recent years are so much better. On the Dividend we see that same standard, almost nondescript clip that has appeared on the Link and some ZTs. I like it. My one worry is that the vertical screw orientation will be prone to wiggle over time. That being said I’ve had no problems with it so far with the Dividend. It has remained secure, doesn’t interfere with any grip, and is adequately deep.

Deployment and Lockup

Ah, SpeedSafe: the 8Cr13MoV of deployment methods: on so many knives, what is there left to say about it? The Dividend debuted alongside a few manual knives and I would have liked that setup here as well, but there is no denying the SpeedSafe deployment works great. Also, there’s a definite synergy between flippers and SpeedSafe, because they eliminate the possibility of misfires. The Dividend will deploy safely and surely every single time (unless the spring breaks or wears out, at least).

Worth noting is that, compared to the Link as well as other SpeedSafe knives I’ve owned, the Dividend seems less snappy. There’s a kind of softness to its deployment. It might be imperceptibly slower than other SpeedSafe knives but it also circumvents that problem of too much kick: you won’t have any problem holding on to the Dividend when you open it.

The liner lock on the Dividend is so squared away and familiar I have qualms about wasting more than a sentence or two discussing it. Rock solid, and exceedingly strong for all reasonable use of this EDC knife. Kershaw left just enough of it exposed to make sure you get good purchase on it for disengagement. Good stuff.

Dividend or Link (or Leek?)

The Dividend is positioned by Kershaw as the smaller follow-up to the Link. The relationship is certainly valid: the knives have material, mechanics, and that KAI handle shape in common. But they feel very different in use: the Link is much thicker, it fills the hand and feels like it’s meant to be used hard. The Dividend, while undeniably durable, is slender and elegant, keyed into a more EDC centric philosophy.

I bounced off the Link. I wasn’t interested in it when it was announced and have never been tempted to pick one up since. Dan sent me his to compare in this review, and some hands-on time confirmed what I already suspected: I prefer the Dividend in every way. The Dividend is much slimmer, with a better blade shape, and weighs nearly two ounces less. The size difference isn’t so pronounced that there are tasks the Link can do that the Dividend can’t. It is just a better knife.

The real competition in the Kershaw catalog, of course, comes from the Leek. And how does the Dividend compare to the Kershaw’s most iconic knife? Pretty favorably. I like the Dividend’s larger handle and less doofy pocket clip much better. Its blade shape has some of the sinuous character of the Leek without the fragility. It would be a straight upgrade were it not for the steel. 420HC is bad, there’s no two ways around it. Ultimately, I’d probably still give the nod to the Dividend, but until we see one with better steel (and I suspect we will) this matchup isn’t cut and dry as it otherwise would be.

Kershaw Dividend – Final Thoughts

In the intro I alluded to my disenchantment with the Dividend. There’s a lot of good to be found here: I like the slim profile, blade shape, weight, and pocket clip very much. I can even get behind the SpeedSafe mechanism. But I keep stopping just short of enthusiasm. Why is that?

The overall design is deeply competent, but also fails to stand out compared to classic in-house Kershaws like the Skyline and Knockout, as well as their more characterful collaborations and competition outside the Kershaw family. And over time the price thing really got to me. The aluminum version of the Dividend will probably cost you just under $50 – not what I consider a value knife, and not offering much compared to other knives you can get for the same price or less.

But although my initial enthusiasm eroded away, the Dividend isn’t bad. Carrying it was never a chore, even if it was boring and the steel was not so good. Sometimes you get a knife in your head and you just want that knife, even if it’s not mathematically the best choice. If the Dividend is such a knife for you, I say go for it. Otherwise, grab a Skyline or a save up for a Delica instead.

Kershaw Dividend Lightweight Utility Pocket Knife with SpeedSafe Assisted Opening, Grey

List Price: $39.99

Current Price: $38.38

Price Disclaimer

I recommend purchasing the Kershaw Dividend at Amazon. Please consider that purchasing anything through any of the links on this website helps support BladeReviews.com, and keeps the site going. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

WE Knife Company Model 605 Review

by Dan Leave a Comment

WE Knife Co. (or “WE Knives”) is a relatively new manufacturer from China. Technically that isn’t true as, they produced OEM knives for other brands for years, but WE Knives has recently garnered attention from knife collectors under their own brand. This is thanks to a combination of precision machining, high end materials, and a unique aesthetic.

I thought WE Knives were interesting, but largely dismissed them as most of their models feature 3.75″+ blades. I don’t mind a bigger knife, but for a true daily carry piece I gravitate towards knives with a 3.5″ blade or under.

The WE Knives Model 605 is a strong departure from their typical 4″ bladed behemoths. Here we have a compact and curvaceous design. Offered in a variety of colors and finishes, the 605 is anything but boring. And when I got a chance to check one out in person at Smoky Mountain Knife Works, I knew I had to pick one up for review.

General Dimensions and Blade Details

The Model 605 has an overall length of 7″, a 3″ blade, and weighs 4 ounces. My particular model is the 605J, with grey titanium handles, a two-tone blade, and purple anodized accents. This is a nice size for daily carry, but the knife itself is almost too nice to really beat on. It certainly could be considered a collectible, and it comes in a zippered nylon pouch with microfiber cleaning cloth.

The blade is a modified drop point. It has a satin finished high hollow grind and swedge, and black oxidized flats. The blade is beautiful featuring immaculate grinds, a perfectly even edge, a rounded thumb ramp, and interesting details around the thumb hole.

WE Knives went with S35VN blade steel for the model 605. Knife enthusiasts will know that this is an American steel made by Crucible. Much like Kizer, WE Knives appears to import raw material from the United States to manufacture their knives. That level of attention is uncommon, and helps shuck off the stigma that Chinese knives are cheap and undesirable.

S35VN is an excellent choice for blade steel and is cropping up in a lot of the high end knives I review. Much like CTS-XHP and CPM-154, S35VN gives you a good balance of edge retention and ease of sharpening. It’s a practical steel for a user knife. It’s high end, but not high maintenance. It also takes a beautiful polish as this 605 clearly demonstrate. I had a tough time getting a photograph of the blade without getting reflections in the shot.

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

The handle of the 605 is another thing of beauty. The crisp lines, the use of texture, and faceted handle all serve to catch the light and draw in the eye. The bookmatched titanium handles provide the illusion that the handle is made from a single piece of material. And of course we can’t ignore the purple hardware. Usually purple isn’t my first choice for a knife, but it’s a nice change of pace from the typical blue. WE Knife Co. has a muted color palate that they like to feature on all their knives. It’s unique and I like it. Another surprise is the fact that the inside of the handle has been milled out. This lightens the knife and shows even more care and attention.

While the handle itself is immaculate, I care less for the choice of proprietary star head hardware. Much like on the Southern Grind Spider Monkey, hardware like this makes the knife impossible to take apart without a special tool. That said, at least WE Knife Co. has the decency to include a take down tool with every knife. That is much more forgivable to me, but it still requires the use of a specialized tool.

The 605 ergonomically dialed in. This is a small knife with several finger grooves. Oftentimes that spells disaster, but here WE Knives managed to get this spaced right, at least for my larger hand. There is just enough room on the handle for a full 4 finger grip. However, if you use the forward finger choil on the blade there is plenty of room the spread out. I’m generally a fan of forward finger choils, and the one on the 605 is no exception. For traction you have light texturing on the handle and a short run of jimping on the spine of the blade. This jimping is good: it offers some traction without being too aggressive.

The 605 comes with a milled titanium pocket clip. Milled clips seem to fall in and out of favor. At first they were a desirable high end feature appearing only on expensive custom knives. As they became more accessible some people came to the conclusion that they were ineffective pocket clips, bulky and with poor spring retention. I haven’t had a ton of experience with milled clips, but I can say the one on this 605 is excellent. Retention is about perfect. The knife slips in and out of the pocket easily, but isn’t loose. Aesthetically, I think it’s a big improvement over a stamped clip.

This knife carries well, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. It has a small blade, but at 4 ounces and .54″ thick it’s pretty chunky. The pocket clip does a good job keeping the knife in place, and I largely forgot about the 605 as it rode in my pocket.

Deployment and Lockup

This knife comes with both a thumb hole and a flipper. Of course most people will be drawn to the flipper, myself included. I found it flips nicely. It’s on par with my Zero Tolerance flippers and my Kizer Intrepid. Much like some Zero Tolerance folders, you do need to take care when opening up the knife with your right hand. If you put pressure on the lock bar, it will make it tough to deploy the blade. That is one of the few perks of being a lefty.

Of course if you get tired of the flipper you can also open the knife with the thumb hole. The detent on the 605 is substantial so it will take some dedication to use the thumb hole, but it’s entirely possible to open the knife this way. Action is smooth thanks to a ceramic ball bearing system. It is not the absolute smoothest knife I have operated (that is probably reserved for the ZT 0454 or the Shirogorov 95t), but it’s pretty damn smooth. You can shake the knife closed after disengaging the lock.

Speaking of locks, the 605 comes equipped with a titanium frame lock with stainless steel lock bar insert. The lock has been executed perfectly. There is no lock rock, lock stick, or blade play of any type. I would again put this on par with my ZTs, which I consider to be a gold standard for titanium framelock flippers.

Blade centering is dead perfect.

WE Knife Co. 605J – Final Thoughts

We are only 3 months in to 2017, and I am already thinking that this could be the nicest knife I review all year. I enjoy it because it is unique, meticulously machined, and above all, thoughtful. There are so many details to consider that I can’t help but compare this to a Shirogorov. It’s not quite on that level. It is pretty close, but it’s not a $700 knife. Everything from the superbly finished blade to the pocketed titanium handle has been a fanatical level of consideration. I also enjoy the design. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but I think the 605 is unique and compelling. This is something I can’t say about every one of their models.

I am glad I took a chance on the WE Knife 605. I’d recommend it without reservation if you are interested in the design. It isn’t cheap, but I see a lot of value for money here. I think you will be impressed.

We Knives 605J – $242.25
From: BladeHQ

I recommend purchasing the We Knives 605J at BladeHQ. Purchasing anything through any of the links on this site helps support BladeReviews, and keep this review train running. As always, any and all support is greatly appreciated.

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General Dimensions and Blade Details

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

Deployment and Lockup

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Emerson Sheepdog – Final Thoughts

General Dimensions and Blade Details

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Dividend or Link (or Leek?)

Kershaw Dividend – Final Thoughts

General Dimensions and Blade Details

Handle, Ergonomics, and Pocket Clip

Deployment and Lockup

WE Knife Co. 605J – Final Thoughts