SoonerP226
Member
On the left edge is an Oknife U1 titanium utility knife sporting an Oknife ceramic blade. From top to bottom we have an MKC Mini Speedgoat Ultra, MKC Tactical Battle Goat, Toor Knives Marlinspike/Kubaton, Reate Exo-U (with Oknife ceramic blade), Knafs Jeremy Siers Lander 2, and a Microtech Ultratech ZBP.
The two blue knives (the Reate and the Microtech) are from BladeHQ’s Zero Forks Given campaign of a few weeks ago, done in protest of the censorship of knife-related content on social media. The Reate lives in my kitchen cabinet, where it’s incredibly useful for opening food-related packaging.
The Microtech, well, it’s super useful for poking holes in things, but, aside from the tip, it’s about as sharp as a butter knife. Seriously, it’s not even good for opening Amazon boxes in its current state. The ZBP means Zero Blade Play, and let me tell you, it means what it says—when it’s opened, it’s locked up so tight it could pass for a fixed blade. My other OTFs have a pretty decent lockup, but they might as well be slip joints next to this Microtech.
The MKC Mini Speedgoat Ultra is in Magnacut with carbon fiber scales, and that thing is super light. Its edge is what I’ve come to expect from MKC—all the sharpness that the Microtech doesn’t have landed on the edge of that Ultra. That blade is exceptionally keen. That Ultra finally dethroned my Magnacut Speedgoat as the knife on my belt every day when I go to work. I had to add the paracord lanyard because it disappears completely into the leather Speedgoat sheath I use with it.
The Battle Goat is black Cerakoted Magnacut with G10 scales. It’s basically the same size as the Speedgoat, but where the Speedgoat is an ultralight knife designed for hunters to use in the back country, the Battle Goat is designed for more, well, tactical uses, and is a bit thicker. The G10 scales make it noticeably heavier, too, but the Speedgoat is so light that anything would be noticeably heavier.
The Toor Knives Marlinspike was intended to be a replacement for my Camillus sailor’s knife. The backspring on the Camillus broke some while back, and I’m already carrying enough knives to outfit a small army, so I figured I’d replace its unique feature (the marlinspike) with a purpose-built tool. The Toor tool is a lot more needle-like than the Camillus’s marlinspike, and the black oxide finish isn’t as smooth, plus it’s a fair bit bigger, but I’m giving it a go to see if it’ll work.
The Knafs is a collaboration between Knafs founder Ben Peterson and Jeremy Siers. I’d never heard of Siers before this, but I do like this knife and his “Hold Fast” motto. It’s basically a Knafs Lander 2 with S35VN blade steel and milled black burlap micarta scales. It has a very nice action, and Knafs threw in some spare parts, including replacement omega springs for the clutch lock mechanism.
As noted above, the two utility-blade knives are wearing Oknife ceramic blades. Those things are scary sharp, and they’ll go through cardboard like it’s not even there, but they’re brittle as hell. It doesn’t take a whole lot of twist to take chips out of the edge, so they’re not awesome for, say, cutting zip ties, but they will flat out slice and dice cardboard boxes like there’s no tomorrow.
I do prefer the tool-less compliant spring blade retainer on the Reate over the captive screw on the Oknife, but the Oknife is the one I carry. The reason is the Reate is a gravity knife, and its lock is magnetic, so there were a couple of times that I pulled it out of my pocket to discover that the gravity mechanism worked a lot better than the magnetic lock mechanism. I figured before it sliced open my pocket (or, more importantly, my leg), it needed a change of station to the kitchen, where it could be useful while not being a danger to me…
