- Joined
- Sep 7, 2015
- Messages
- 965
I recently purchased this knife very little at my local pawn shop, as mostly a curiosity. So please take in account that I never bought it with intentions for serious EDC etc so that may bias my opinion of this knife.
(Pic borrowed from Blade HQ via Google)
As you can see CRKT Raikari is the ugly bastard child of the above custom knife
created by Dew Hara. Dew's main claim to fame is that he is the Son of the legendary Koji Hara. But in reality Dew Hara is a fantastic artist in his own right, and makes incredibly beautiful custom knives.
Unfortunately the CRKT curse of taking the work of an amazing artist/knife maker and turning out complete crap has struck again...This knife has almost zero positives going for it and maybe one of the worst I've owned.
The design is more artistic then functional.
The first thing I noticed is that the huge hole in the blade is extremely difficult and uncomfortable to try to open the knife. You will quickly realize that this knife is designed to only be opened by the flipper tab which brings us to our next problem. The action sucks!
The flipper tab jimping really likes dig into your thumb and it takes quite a bit of force to defeat the detente and pop open the blade. It honestly hurts a little to open this knife.
The field strip technology makes adjusting the pivot difficult. I own one of the first Home Fronts where the pivot was much more adjustable but the problem was adjusting it would put the pin out of alignment and the knife would either no longer come apart or go back together anymore. They seem to have fixed that but now adjusting the screw isn't gonna help the action as much as you hope.
The field strip tech which is why you are over spending on this knife and it's a garbage gimic system. I've owned 3 field strip knives and none of them come apart or go back together easily. Just watch the demo vid by CRKT of the Raikari and the guy literally has to drop the knife on the table for it come apart.
The handles are "Cold Forged" aluminum but the coating on them feels cheap and almost gas station quality; compared to the original Home Front I owned which also had aluminum handles.
The overall geometry of the blade is pretty nice for slicing and cutting. I wouldn't recommend any hard use as it is pretty thin behind the edge. But CRKT used 1.4116 steel which the literal German translation means "billig"... or "cheap" in English. It's basically a even cheaper form of 420 steel.
Lastly the liner lock on this knife is very basic and for this price and should be nicer. I originally had serious problems with the lock up because the previous owner had attempted to loosen up the action of the knife.
TL;DR Version
1) The hole in the blade is basically non functional
2) The action is uncomfortable to open
3) The coating on the handles feels cheap
4) Field Strip is a cheap gimmick technology that doesn't work as great as advertised
5) The blade steel is 1.4116 which is cheap and in this price range there are way too many better options
There are just too many other knifes made from better steels and better quality in this price range for this knife to be taken seriously. It's a art piece / fantasy knife that if you really love the aesthetics of it then you will be happy with it.
