Top positive review
1 people found this helpful
Great knife!
By JJ Burns on Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2017
I have collected knives for many years and I have a pretty extensive collection. This knife is easily in my top 5 favorites of all time. First off, this is a good-looking knife! It is very well designed and has great visual balance. The G10 Micarta handles look great on the solid black tang and the polished silver edge outlines the blade and really makes it a very appealing piece of craftsmanship. Next, it just FEELS right! This knife is very comfortable to hold. No rough awkward edges, plenty of room on the handle and again, very well balanced! The handle starts where it should and then ends where it should. No wasted space or over-sized handle but plenty of room to get a full, comfortable grip. The hilt is substantial enough to trust that your hand won't slip onto the business end and the thumb grooves across the top of the tang and blade gives you the option of thumb placement depending on how tough you need to get with it. Next, it is made of very high quality materials for this price! It hones to a fine edge very easily and it holds the edge very well with normal use. Although I have not yet seen how well it holds up over several years of use, it looks and feels like it was made to stand the test of time. The sheath is probably the weak link and will probably not hold up as well as the knife over time which is just fine by me. They put the highest quality where it belongs, in the knife itself! The sheath is well designed with a velcro belt loop that allows you to add or remove it without completely taking it off the belt. It has a hard plastic internal sheath to protect the outer nylon (and the user) from any accidental cuts or stabs through the sheath. It has a tie-down string at the bottom to secure it to your leg and also a small pouch on front that can be useful for carrying any number of things. Finally, it is just the right size! The knife is compact enough that it is not bulky or cumbersome. It handles very well and feels like an extension of your hand. Even with its compact size, it feels like you are holding a beast of a knife with the power to do any job that it might be needed for. After my first one came in, I was so impressed with it that I went back and ordered a couple more before I even tried it out. Since then, I've lost count of how many more I have bought but it is easily in double digits! I just can't say enough about this knife. If there were more spaces I would give it more stars!
Top critical review
78 people found this helpful
Not a bushcraft knife... not a chopper... why did I buy this ???
By Medic.WV on Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2014
I really wanted to love this knife before I even received it... heck, I even went so far as to order up a custom kydex sheath for it before it came in! Unfortunately, there are enough little issues with it to prevent it from taking a permanent place on my hip as the "one and only knife". I'll run this down as a "Pro's & Con's" list for you: Pros: - Stout! You will not be able to break this knife. - Great looks! The lines are great on this knife... just a beautiful visual design. - Decent Stainless Steel - Micarta handles & lanyard hole - Fairly thick and usable sheath - lower cross-guard to prevent forward movement of the hand - And of course, the price! Cons: - Handle is a bit too short for XL-glove wearing hands like mine. It "barely fits"... which is not a good choice for a field knife. - Finger groove: It is too big (the bump is too far back, resulting in a non-ideal hammer grip (your middle finger will be on top of that bump, or you will not be fully choked-up on the handle, your choice!) - Weight: It's just too heavy for such a short knife... no need whatsoever for a 1/4" thick blade on a 5" bladed knife... way to much weight "wasted" in the handle, and arguably, the blade. It's the same reason why the ESEE-5 is not a good seller. - False Edge: half the blade is a false edge, which looks really cool, but results in a less then capable batoning platform; combined with the short overall blade length, this can only do inefficient batoning on smaller limbs. - Blade design: Sure, it looks REALLY cool, but that fat-ish recurve has historically been for a large chopping blade, for good reason! You can not sharpen this short blade with a stone! That's a big failure for a "survival/woods" knife. And even though it has a good belly for cutting, the wide blade significantly limits the usefulness of this blade for precision work. - Edge grind: /Joke on: How many Chinese workers does it take to screw up an edge grind on a Taylor brands knife? Three: One to setup the machine wrong, one to spend 10 seconds grinding it wrong, and one quality control guy to never show up to work because his uncle is a communist party boss! /Joke off. While the grind was centered, it was about 35 degrees on one side, and 20 degrees on the other... way too far off to be worth trying to correct it yourself, without at least having a $70 Work-Sharp belt sharpener available. I might be a bit picky about getting a knife with an even grind, but this was way past just "picky", and closer to "Cold-Steel Machete" mis-aligned grind. - Jimping: While they tried to provide good jimping, they failed. the Jimping is too wide to be very useful, and they should have brought the jimping all the way up the thumb rise; without it there, you can't get a great thumb forward grip. So there you have it! Like I said, I loved this knife so much before I received it, based upon reviews here and on Youtube (and it's great looks), that I ordered a $55 kydex sheath for it from Cleavland Kydex. After spending the weekend with the knife in the forest across the street doing bushcraft tasks with it, I canceled that order and ended up sending this knife back to Amazon. My suggestion/take away: There is no such thing as a "one knife" solution. If you REALLY need a chopper for doing a lot of wood processing get a KA-BAR Heavy Bowie or BK9, an Ontario SP50/51, a Kershaw Camp 10 or a CS Trailmaster. I think if most of us were honest though, at least with ourselves, we would realize that we don't really need to do much if any wood processing. Therefore, I think most hikers, campers and preppers should go with a true bushcraft knife from Mora, Condor, Schrade, Becker, Tops, etc...just search Amazon for Bushcraft Knife(Even after replacing this knife with a cool and pricey TOPS Bushcraft BOB, I still find myself going for a simple Mora Bushcraft for most real bushcrafting/field cutting tasks... I tell you, once you use them, you will be hooked, and they are under $20! They are not fancy, nor "tacti-cool", but the old experienced field guys who see me with it just nod and say "Mora huh? good choice.") GET OUT THERE AND PRACTICE THE FIELDCRAFT TASKS! Just like owning a gun; without practice, your performance under real-life pressure will be compromised! Build some shelter, fire and spears so you will have confidence if you ever need to do it for survival. Check Meetup dot com for Bushcraft/Prepper groups in your area who hold weekend meetups and get some practice in and get a chance to compare gear with your bushcraft brethren!
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