Knives Illustrated May - June 2017

“THERE IS SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL ABOUT HAVING A KNIFE THAT YOU BUILD MEMORIES WITH, BUT THERE REALLY IS NOTHING LIKE HAVING A KNIFE BUILT FROM A MEMORY.” Anyone who uses knives on a day-to-day basis knows that over time, if a knife lasts long enough, that knife becomes part of your story. You build a bond with it that includes memories that will not soon be forgotten. However, every once in a great while, you get the opportunity to have a memory turned into a knife, and that is something very special indeed. Back in 2014, I had the opportunity to go on a trip to the Amazon jungle, in the southernmost tip of Colombia, with Bushcraft Global—run by a good friend of mine, Joe Flowers. Also on this trip…

Congress passed it during a wave of politically motivated, Hollywood-induced hysteria. Movies such as “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Blackboard Jungle” demonized the popular Italian switchblades of the era, featuring them completely out of proportion to their actual use by gangs and delinquents. As too often happens, a few politicians seized on outlawing them as the cause célèbre du jour. The Federal Switchblade Act, originally enacted back in 1958, is way overdue to be repealed. Legislation Pending Knife Rights aims to finally set things right with the Knife Owners’ Protection Act (KOPA) of 2017 (H.R. 84). KOPA was originally conceived and authored by Knife Rights in 2010 and initially filed in 2013. It now includes repeal of the Federal Switchblade Act. H.R. 84 was introduced the first day of the…

“TO REACH FOR THE KNIFE AND DEPLOY THE BLADE ONLY TAKES ME A FEW SECONDS, WHICH IS CRITICAL, BECAUSE TIMING IS EVERYTHING IN COMBAT.” They're the elite. The very best of the best. They are SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, Marine RECON and more. In this new column, you’ll meet some of them, find out what blades they carried while on active duty and why, and what they now carry as civilians. First up is Grant McGarry, a former U.S. Army Ranger, best-selling author of “A Night in the Pech Valley” and a combat veteran with five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in the War on Terror. Respect them, appreciate them, learn from them. —Editor “… THE GROOVES CUT INTO THE HANDLE CREATED THE TEXTURE TO BETTER ENABLE A GOOD FIRM…

“ONE OF THE DISTINCTIVE COMPONENTS OF THE SOCP SERIES IS THE SPECIALIZED SHEATH.” Use the right tool for the right job. If your eighth-grade shop teacher or a didactic dad didn’t drill that into you, then you learned it from life experiences … like trying to find the right Allen wrench to open the battery compartment in your child’s new Christmas toy, or the correct wrench for that Japanese motorcycle. The knife world is replete with “do-it-all” survival blades and multi-purpose EDC knives, but the everyday workman knows the truth about any tool; no one tool can be everything all the time. Although the SOCP Rescue Tool can be integrated easily into civilian use, its slim, lightweight design is perfect for law enforcement and military personnel Purpose Built Law Enforcement…

I first met Kelly McCann in October of 2012 when I traveled to attend training at his newly built Kembativz Civilian Training Center, the CTC, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Kelly had invited a small handful of people to personally beta test his new civilian program before it went public. I had long been a proponent of Kelly’s methods prior to our meeting, having trained from his Paladin Press video tapes for several years. Up until this time, Kelly only offered training to military, law enforcement and government personnel, so this was an exciting opportunity I was not about to pass up. It was during this first meeting that Kelly showed me a couple of new knives he had designed, the Canis and the Gouge. “THE GRIND ON THE CANIS IS RATHER…

With more than 1,600 companies and approximately 67,000 attendees, it is not hard to see what makes SHOT Show the largest show of its kind in North America. As you can imagine, it can be a daunting task to see everything and report back on the best the show has to offer, but our dedicated staff has happily taken on the job of walking the floor and reporting back to you with some of the products that rose to the top in the area of high-quality cutlery. CONDOR TOOL & KNIFE (407) 458-9396 www.CondorTK.com Condor always has a steady stream of new blades, and they certainly didn’t slow down in 2017. While there was a wide variety, ranging from wood carvers and neck knives all the way up to Viking…