Cold Steel AK-47
I have carried a knife since I was 10 or so. A knife is almost as important as the ability to make fire. Look around you, almost everything that you see has been cut during one point or many of it’s manufacture. I have studied knives almost all of my adult life too. At one point I sold knives. I have been studying knife work for the last 12 years in the form of Inayan Eskrima. If you want to know about knife fighting you ask a filipino. That is still the main source of violence there.
After these years of studying knives I have settled on the almost perfect knife to carry for combat reason. Your reasons for carrying a knife may be different and if so I would be happy to point you to a good blade for your needs. Cold Steel is definitely one of the better mass-production knife makers in the world. I own several. When they made the AK-47, they hit the mark.
Let me start with the first action of the knife and that is to open.
This part on top of the blade is called the cobrahead. It’s function is to catch on the edge of your pocket and pull the blade open as you pull the knife out of your pocket. It’s fast. Faster than any switchblade or automatic. It takes a little practice to get the blade out and into your hand in the correct position, but it’s worth it.
Next is the locking mechanism. It’s important to have a lock on a folding knife that you trust. The AK-47 comes with Cold Steel’s Ultra Lock® locking mechanism. It’s strong enough to hang off of. Seriously. It’s also easy to close with just a thumb.
Of course we can’t talk about a knife without mentioning the blade. From Cold Steel’s website: “The hollow ground blades are honed by hand until they reach levels of sharpness only seen on a surgeon’s scalpel. They’re made from Japanese AUS 8A Stainless steel, then vacuum heat treated, and sub zero quenched to make them as tough and rugged as humanly possible.”
I rarely ever use my blade for cutting utility items, but this one has kept it’s seriously sharp edge honed for the 2 years that I have carried it. Perfect blend of strength and hardness in a blade. You ususally won’t find both. A strong blade is too soft to keep and edge. A hard blade will keep an edge, but will be too brittle.
Last piece of the knife is the handle. This model comes with two handle types. Plate aluminum and G-10 scales. Both are fine depending on how much weight you like. The aluminum is a little heavier. The butt (pommel) of the handle is fixed with a skull-crushing piece made of Grivory® and will bust a windshield or skull if needed. The handle also is completely ambidextrous as the pocket clip can be afixed to either side. Lefties or righties will be pleased with this feature.
This is one serious knife for combat carry, whether you are law enforcement, military or a trained civilian. It won’t let you down, it’s sturdy in both it’s feel and make. The knife usually runs $99 for the aluminum model and $135 for the G-10 model.
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What do you think about the US Redefining the Knife laws basically making almost all knives illegal except for ones you can’t open with one hand?
http://www.kniferights.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=150
Well I hope it doesn’t come to that. History has shown what happens if you give your government all of your power. I guess we’ll be back to throwing rocks at tanks like a 3rd world country.
There are, as always, two sides to this coin. TheSnarkyOne has a very valid point. At the same time northern European countries have had great success in the reduction of violent crime by greatly controlling its people’s access to weapons.
Does that mean that violent crimes have come to a stop? Not and all. Have these countries seen a 20 to 50% drop in violent crime? Without a doubt.
Here in the U.S. violence is ingrained in our culture. It is pervasive on our TVs. Violence is seen as a first resort to the absolution of a conflict as opposed to the last. Violence is how we deal with other countries and indeed how we deal with our next door neighbors.
In a country that claims to be a good “Christian” nation very few of it’s citizen act in a “love thy neighbor” way.
I don’t think the knife is the real problem. I think the problem lies in how we as Americans view the knife and how we choose to use it.
This isn’t a political blog, but that being said I would like to point out the state of affairs in England, Ireland and Scotland right now with the “Nanny State.” There is a camera on every corner and rights have been severely eroded.
Interesting discussion. I have to add some legal updates from Europe. I live in Switzerland and since we signed the agreemend of Schengen and Dublin, we can carry bloody samuray swords with us. As long their blades don’t open fully automatic everything is fine. That wasn’t possible before. You see there are some positive things about the EU as well. But I’m afraid our government will fix that glitch again.
BTW: Banning any kind of weapon is useless to prevent crime. In Switzerland theoretically every man has one of the finest assault rivels in the world (Service in the army, SIG SG 550-1 ) and you don’t see many people killed by guns in Switzerland. It’s not a question of weapons but of the way people treat themselves in a society (But changing this is just a little bit harder and less popular than banning waepons).