Review by Milu - 12 March 2006, 11:50 UTC
Rating: 5/5

Basically this one is one heavy bladed lockback. If it was made by Microtech or ProTech everyone would be raving about it. As it is, it's not and it doesn't have much of following. It's not up to MT or PT standards but it's good and it's an awful lot cheaper! I'm not sure who makes it but it's been distributed by Adams International, Indiana and now SKM. Adams carried a few with a sheath with an East German police logo but this was just a marketing ploy - this knife is Italian.

The handle is usually in micarta but an alloy one is available as well. the steel is 440B with a rockwell hardness of 58, I know this because it is engraved and guaranteed as such on the blade of one of mine, the other one I have is sterile. A friend of mine has one marked MCM with a half moon logo and a nail nick. Why a nail nick on an automatic knife? Well this knife has a really great feature: the spring can be easily removed by unscrewing one of the scales to convert it to a manual lockback knife, convenient if travelling in non-auto friendly areas. The spring is not a coil as stated by SKM, it's a clever piece of bent wire. Remove it and you are carrying a lock knife that is legal in most places, the flush button is renderred superfluous and you have a clunky lock knife. Clunky because the same spring actuates the lock and we have removed it, it would be very easy to prepare a spring that only worked the lock by filing down the end of the spring that flicks the blade open.

The knifecomes sharp and holds an edge reasonably well. Fit and finish is good. I think it's a bit to big to carry in a pocket and it lacks a clip, but it works well with a sheath. It fits most hand sizes well and looks much more expensive than it is. It's a bit of a bargain!