710 Topper

[Jonny1280]

The 710 Topper is designed by Julio Diez, owner/operator of 710 Customs.
The knife is made by Imacasa in El Salvador.
The sheath is hand made by 710 Customs.
It is available for purchase at 710customsheaths.com

Imacasa is probably best known for thier bullet proof machetes.
They also produce knives for Condor Knife and Tool.

Here are a few words from Julio describing the knife:
"The original the 710 Topper was handmade and was mentioned in Blademagazine May 2015 page 67. It was and is one of my biggest sellers, I thought I'd give a prodution run, so I started looking into a few factories when I found Imacasa. They are a Knife factory in El Salvador and I thought It would be great to get my first production run from the country my family is from. So to honor them The 710 Tooper was made in El Salvador. The overall Blade it 10 inches with a blade length of 5 inches. The handles are roughed out natural micarta for a grippy texture. The sheath will be black or coyote brown and have optional kydex loop or leather loop set up. If you require a different color sheath or set up please contact me before ordering. All camo colors have a $10.00 mark up do to the amount the sheets cost to order. Shipping included within the USA.
These blade will offically come out at Bladeshow 2016."

SPECS:
Overall length: 10"
Blade area: 5"
Thickness: 1/8"
steel type: 1075
Handles: natural micatra




I've known Julio for a few years now and I've been a champion of his sheath work for some time. His hand made sheaths are always high quality. His innovative designs, attention to detail, quality material, and excellent customer service put him a step above a lot of the other Kydex sheath makers in my opinion.
Julio has made sheaths for awhile now and a few years back he started grinding custom knives. A few of his designs have always caught my eye: the 710 Split, the 710 Drop, and the 710 Topper. I own a 710 Drop and it preforms great. I've been able to handle and admire many of his designs on multiple occasions and have been really impressed with the quality of his custom knives.
When Julio told me there would be a production run of the 710 Topper I was really excited and couldn't wait to see how it turned out.

I've had the knife for a few weeks and have yet been able to find time for a proper "in use" review.
I plan on sending it to a few friends here in the knife community so they can Give thier honest thoughts and reviews as well. When it gets back to me I plan on posting a thourough review of the knife. For now I'd like to share my initial impressions.



The knife arrived packaged very well and included a 710 sticker and one of Julio's business cards.





The hand made sheath is a modular design made with Kydex and leather.
The leather belt loop is removable if one prefers to scout carry.
The leather straps can also be removed to mount Tekloks, molle locks, etc. to the Kydex sheath.
I should also mention that Julio offers many other sheath options on his website.











The sheath retains the knife very well and provides the nice audible "click" upon inserting the knife.
The sheath rides nice and close on the waist and feels comfortable.




The 1075 blade has a scandi grind with a micro bevel.
Imacassa has stamped El Salvador on one side and engraved 710 on the other.






The blade has a black epoxy coating.
The natural micarta handles are sculpted very well and provide a very sure grip and pinned with brass rods.








Overall I'm pretty impressed with this knife.
I'm really looking forward to putting it through the paces and sharing my results here.

 

[granitestateofmind]

Aight, this has taken me too long....but I've at least had some time to use this baby. All the things Jonny said go the same for me. Julio's sheaths have excellent retention while still allowing a pretty easy draw. The sheath would probably carry well for me, too....were it not for the middle age spread. This makes danglers a better fit for me, so I added a D-ring and a little leather loop to Julio's excellent sheath to drop the handle below the love handle .

*still trying to find the pics*

The spine is a gonna need a squarer edge if I want a good firesteel sparker. It's marginal as is, but works just OK. Had a tough time getting the tinder lit:

*still trying to find the pics*

First test cuts (on a cedar shingle, which just serves to give every knife I check out an even starting point) didn't overly impress me - so I took the Topper to my DMT XF stone and 6µ strop.
If you like Scandi grinds (and I personally do) the Topper is a fine example. Cuts in some dead maple branches were controllable; though the knife doesn't bite really deep, it does feather stick fairly well.

*still trying to find the pics*

Overall, the710 Topper seems like a pretty good "bushcraft" blade; though I only received this as a test and will be moving it along to the next tester, Julio's list price also seems like a decent value for a Micarta scaled, Imacasa manufactured, 710 sheathed (almost worth the price of admission on its own!) knife.

A couple thoughts:
=> The Topper is probably not the knife for large hands. My average (to slightly smaller than average) mitts fit in between the pinky hook and the index finger "guard"...but only just.
=>The 1075 blade takes a nice edge, though it'll take a bit of maintenance to keep it cutting well - the 1075 isn't a champion at holding an edge; tho sharpening it is easy enough. I didn't test it, but the Topper seems like it
would be an easy knife to field sharpen - especially if you don't mind a little secondary grind on your Scandis.
=>Nice, smooth protective coating that seems pretty durable. I didn't wear any off during my few weeks of use.

I'll be trying to find the pictures to post, though I'm gonna make a bet they're on the card in the camera that took them - which is a few states away from me for the next week.

Thanks for giving me a chance to use this, Julio. The Topper is certainly worth a look to anyone in the medium sized, fixed blade market.

 

[Diez Knives]

Thanks for the reviews guys, hey Granitestateofmind the "exposed" Blade areas have a clear coat, I'm guessing it's epoxy, I've been modding a few and I've noticed it.flakes off. The spine is pretty squared just need to remove that clear coat.

 

[bigghoss]

So I got to play with one recently but unfortunately due to wildfires in my area I didn't get to spend as much time trying it out as I would have liked. It's also worth noting that I got to try it out as part of a pass around so I was not the first person to use it. Anyway, the knife as I received had very nice fit and finish with flush handle scaled and pins. The sheath had great retention with some very nice leather attachments.

I tried a little carving and whittling and it did very well. I split some wood and it did just fine there too. It's a thin knife and the wood wasn't very dry so I did have to baton it all the way through the piece but nothing I haven't experienced with a bunch of other knives.

Decided to try baton chopping for the heck of it. Worked fine and held up well to the repeated pounding.

All-in-all it seems to me like a solid performer and a good value.

 

[1066vik]

Installment 1 of my review:

First impressions out of the box:
nicely made sheath -- good carry options.
good heft and balance to the blade - balance point is at the front pin, so I'm thinking it's better suited to camp tasks, food prep, and finework. (I prefer a handle heavy balance so this is not a bad thing for me. I also have bigger knives & axes for chopping/splitting tasks)
the handle: nicely contoured, about a 120 grit finish, which in my mind is about perfect for being grippy, but not abrasive.

OTOH ---- I have large, wide, hands. if I hold this knife in a hammer grip, all of the micarta disappears from view. it's also thin -- I will not be surprised if I have issues with hand fatigue when using it for wood carving for extended periods of time.

That said - it's pretty comfortable in a 3-finger grip with the "beak" nested between my ring and little fingers and my little finger wrapping behind the handle.
spine is sharp - especially near the tip. I doubt that it left the factory this way.

first thing I did was touch up/clean up the edge: 30 seconds or so on a Baryonyx Arctic Fox hone followed by a minute or so of stropping and the knife shaves arm hair, push cuts through 22 pound bond paper with a little effort to start it, and snap cuts through the same paper free hanging in my hand (yay, I got to chop up junk mail).
then I checked the spine -- yup, it strikes sparks just fine.

yes, I could have spent more time "properly" sharpening and polishing the edge, but why? it's going to be cutting wood, weeds, and green vegetation in a few days when I have time to get outside for an extended amount of time and do myself a proper fry-up over a wood fire.

more to come....

 

[NixKustoms]

Great reviews so far!! I've had the pleasure of handling one a couple times. I hope I can get one before they're all gone!!

 

[1066vik]

Installment 2:
food prep -- because it takes a lot of calories to maintain a figure like mine.
handle is comfortable in a variety of grips.
whoever sharpened the spine did a pretty good job of it, unfortunately, that makes the knife less food prep friendly, because I tend to do a modified pinch grip with my index finger riding the spine when cutting veggies.
my cutting board dulled the edge slightly -- totally not a surprise.
a couple light swipes on a ceramic hone and 30 seconds on the strop brought the edge right back.

slicing meat, onions, and cheese it did great.
Slicing up potatoes and carrots, it made the initial cut easily, but then basically wedged the veggies apart - again, totally not a surprise.

 

[Bill Siegle]

I snagged one of these recently and am very impressed with what Julio and Condor accomplished! The pattern hardens back to the old Trade Knife patterns of the fur trade era. Just a very useful size and shape Mated up with a 710 sheath and I don't see how it could be better!

 

[dresnor]

I shot some video of my impressions of this knife. My computer crapped out and I may have lost the video files. I may be able to recover them but I am not sure.

I did like the knife though. If I can't get the files I will do a write up. Pretty pissed about the video though.

Jeremy

 

[worldwood]

Received the knife today and will get a review up in the next few days as i have time to put it to use!

Just handling it a little bit i can say it feels like a great blade and sheath combo and fits my hands pretty good, but my hands are not huge.

I look forward to playing with it... LOL.... And will report back soon!

 

[worldwood]

[video=youtube;mGntm3C7p9Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGntm3C7p9Q&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[Diez Knives]

Ej Snyder used a Topper in Dual Survival season 9 episode 3 "Dying of thirst"