daboia Flipper review.

[PURPLEDC]

So I got my daboia/ckf/kevin john flipper today. Before anyone has a stroke, no its not a clone or counterfeit. This example is one of the few that is completely sterile. Some had stonewashed blades with the K. John Venom II logo, some had black sterile blades and then this type which is a sating finish. Here are the specs.

Opening system: caged ceramic ball bearing (single row) and ceramic detent.
Blade Length: 3.875" (98 mm)
Blade Steel: S35VN Stainless Steel
Overall Length: 8.375" (213 mm)
Closed Length: 4.5" (114 mm)
Handle Material: Carbon Fiber Face Scale with Titanium Liner and Frame Lock
Weight: 4.9 oz. (139 g)
Made in China

Pros: Very grippy, excellent ergos. Great centering. Flipping action is absolutely perfect. Snappy detent and blade falls right back into the handle under its own weight. Early lockup that is secure with no blade play in any direction. Perfect blade finish. No scratches. Very sharp polished edge. Perfect size. Its smaller than expected but has very good blade to handle ratio. Overall has a lot of bang for the buck.

Cons: Thumbstuds are decorative only. The strong detent as well as the stud placement make it impossible to open with them. There are a couple very very small marks under the coating that IMHO should have been dealt with before coating. To be fair I am ultra picky and I have seen worse on knives costing much more. Also it appears one of the tritium vials has a hairline crack. I am seeking a replacement if possible.

Overall: Very pleased with the knife. Sure there are a couple minor issues but nothing more than any other in this price range. At the price I find it to be wel worth the money. Only time will tell if it earns its keep. Unfortunately these are now impossible to get. I have a feeling it will be available again but through different suppliers. One thing is for sure if they pop up again, I will be buying another.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Jealous, I can't wait! Did you get yours straight from CKF/FRWK or did you get yours from Knifecenter?

Those studs aren't decorative, they appear to be frame stops like on an Umnumzaan/ZT 0561/Reate D9.

Can you get a closeup of the Tritium vial "crack"? Does it still glow?

 

[PURPLEDC]

Jealous, I can't wait! Did you get yours straight from CKF/FRWK or did you get yours from Knifecenter?

Those studs aren't decorative, they appear to be frame stops like on an Umnumzaan/ZT 0561/Reate D9.

Can you get a closeup of the Tritium vial "crack"? Does it still glow?

No, I cant get the crack to show up in pictures. My camera wont focus that close. I got mine from knifecenter. Im not in good standing with CKF. The studs dont seem to be blade stops as there is an actual pin in the blade that you can see that acts a a stop in the open and closed position.

 

[gmorel1916]

Man I wish I hadn't missed out on these. Such a good looking knife.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

I can't wait for mine to come. This thing ticks every one of my boxes and then some. Ceramic bearing, ceramic detent, Spanto grind, flipper, carved CF, titanium, tip up, blade size. And the real kicker, Tritium. It's like they took a Kizer 403 and made it perfect for me.

 

[RamZar]

Nice review and vongrats PurpleDC. :thumbup: How's the coating on the frame?

Next time I'll order mine before posting about a new knife. I snoozed a tad on this vacillating between the satin and coated blade.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Nice review and vongrats PurpleDC. :thumbup: How's the coating on the frame?

Next time I'll order mine before posting about a new knife. I snoozed a tad on this vacillating between the satin and coated blade.

Well, they also dropped the price $70 on FRWK. Even with the $30 shipping and slow boat from Moscow, that was too hard to pass up. I'm guessing they sold most of them out after that.

They made some cryptic comments about it going to "mass production" after they sold out, I don't know if that means they are making more or if they are kicking the design back to Kevin John so they can put their ugly billboard back on it or what.

 

[PURPLEDC]

Well, they also dropped the price $70 on FRWK. Even with the $30 shipping and slow boat from Moscow, that was too hard to pass up. I'm guessing they sold most of them out after that.

They made some cryptic comments about it going to "mass production" after they sold out, I don't know if that means they are making more or if they are kicking the design back to Kevin John so they can put their ugly billboard back on it or what.

My guess K. john wants to sell more knives and knows they would if they werent using a sole dealer in russia to do it. I have been pushing hard for them to use other dealers via the people I know and hopefully the design wont change too much. I picked one up just in case.

Nice review and vongrats PurpleDC. :thumbup: How's the coating on the frame?

Next time I'll order mine before posting about a new knife. I snoozed a tad on this vacillating between the satin and coated blade.

The coating for the most part is very nice. It is very smooth and sparkles like diamond in sunlight. I think the machining needs a tiny bit more attention to detail because the coating doesnt hide a couple very very minor flaws. I am super picky. When I first inspect a knife I swear I see things bigger than they actually are. And the "defects" look amplified. Later on after my blood temp cools down the issues look much more minor. To be fair I have had knives costing twice as much have double the flaws. The blade finish is what really impresses me. Its honestly my favorite finish of all the knives I have ever owned. It is a very very fine satin/polish. You can see the grind lines but they seem to have been mirror polished over. Its amazing. The flats are a light stonewash and then the flute in the blade is that deep orange peel like on buck specials.

I have noticed two things though having been playing with it awhile that I would change. The first is I would move the detent ball location just a tad so that the hole in the blade would be hidden when open. The other is the flipper tab while very very well machined and attractive is a bit small. I think either a relief cut on the back of the frame or making it slightly larger would benefit the design. As it is the the tab is a bit too small for my tastes and the jimping underneath is rather sharp. You can work around it but it takes some getting used to . Still the overall build is very impressive. with this many layers carbon on ti, then backspacer then the other handle slab I was very much expecting to see light peaking through as getting everything perfectly flat on a knife like this almost never happens. But there is not a gap to be seen. And the carbon fiber is very very nice stuff. it is not your standard weave. Its a marbled swirl CF.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Mine will be here Monday and I will be doing a review and sending one off to Auston for a video (I got two). Super excited.

Looking through CKF's Instagram it seems a sure thing this is going back to KJ, he says that when it comes back the quality and fit and finish will be worse. But he also seemed to say that they are considering making an updated version maybe through their own channels. So might be something to look out for.

 

[PURPLEDC]

Mine will be here Monday and I will be doing a review and sending one off to Auston for a video (I got two). Super excited.

Looking through CKF's Instagram it seems a sure thing this is going back to KJ, he says that when it comes back the quality and fit and finish will be worse. But he also seemed to say that they are considering making an updated version maybe through their own channels. So might be something to look out for.

Well that too me just doesnt make sense like a lot of things that come from those guys. First off this was always a Kevin John knive and made by them. In fact the first place this knife showed up was on a certain chinese site that everyone hates. Then after about a week they disappeared. The only place to get them at that point was through the guys at custom knife factory. For the longest time those guys had these in stock with the kevin john logo and the Venom II markings on the blade with the snake. It was only the last month or two that they had the black and satin blade version. I dont know why they would say its going to be lower quality just because they wont be the sole seller of the design. Despite the bad press K. John has about them for obvious reasons they build knives with exceptional fit and finish. And to be fair most of the true K. John knives I have seen in person ( a lot) the fit and finish was actually better than this duboia flipper I have. They werent as intricate but the areas that are messed up on mine isnt from the intricacy of the design as the flaws are in spots not require a lot of attention to detail. If and when they do come back I will for sure be getting another and I will let you know of any differences if any. But to be honest I dont think there will be that much if any of a quality gap.

I have no real evidence to support this but its just a hunch based on the knives I am seeing them release but I have a feeling there was falling out with K. John and that is why there is no more selling of the duboia. Judging by certain knives they have released it looks like they were using both K. John and A Dai to manufacture the parts they use in their knives. The decepticon looks very much like the work of K. John while things like the sukhoi, T50 and Morff look very much like the work that A Dai puts out. The slightly modified oversized pivots and the finish techniques look very much like adai. The decepticon II seems to be an A dai Knife as well. Im wondering if they may have stopped using K. John for their knives all together as none of their models exhibit any characteristics of K. John knives. And it would make sense now that they are in essence bad mouthing K. john and predicting a quality drop. Because in my experience while A dai and K. John both make functionally great knives and A dai seems to be more comfortable working with carbon fiber I still feel K. John has them beat in terms of fit and finish. You wouldnt see a satin finish like on the duboia on a A dai knife. They do good stonewash but not satin. Im almost thinking that the Duboia was a mix up of elements of a hinderer, shirogorov and the decepticon and CKF got upset that they borrowed design elements for their own knife and worked out a deal to have exclusive rights to sell it. But look who they did business with. Im surprised I havent seen K. John labeled Decepticons on certain websites at a 1/5 the price and I would be very surprised if we dont see them. I have a hunch things went sour which is why the decepticon 2 is slightly less intricate and seemingly CNC'd by a dai now. Again its just speculation based on the few puzzle pieces I have found.

T

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Then again, they also said that they had the "greatest success" in trying to get KJ to stop selling knockoffs. It may have been broken English and he may not have said what he meant, because that goes against what I've heard as well.

Was it just me or was the Viper II more expensive when KJ was selling it on that other site? I found it listed but not available when I was doing my research and seems to me they were asking something like $300 for it.

I don't know that CKF is bad mouthing KJ, I think it was more saying that the design was going back to KJ and that CKF wouldn't be in control of the QC any more, so they couldn't guarantee that they were going to be the same as what people had come to expect. Sometimes with the Russians you have to read between the lines a little.

 

[PURPLEDC]

Then again, they also said that they had the "greatest success" in trying to get KJ to stop selling knockoffs. It may have been broken English and he may not have said what he meant, because that goes against what I've heard as well.

Was it just me or was the Viper II more expensive when KJ was selling it on that other site? I found it listed but not available when I was doing my research and seems to me they were asking something like $300 for it.

I don't know that CKF is bad mouthing KJ, I think it was more saying that the design was going back to KJ and that CKF wouldn't be in control of the QC any more, so they couldn't guarantee that they were going to be the same as what people had come to expect. Sometimes with the Russians you have to read between the lines a little.

They just updated their website so i can quote them directly but it said something to the effect that despite their best efforts they were no able to dissuade K.John from making replicas due to the demand in china and in russia as well as other parts of the world. Now one might think that means they stopped doing business with them because they refused to stop making replicas. This however I dont think is true. The concept of NOT selling counterfeits is a new one with CKF. Just a short couple years ago the majority of what they sold were clones. In fact they still sell them. Their best blade site sells exact copies of brous, Rassenti, pohl force among others. They just dont put them on the site intended for USA buyers.

As for teh price on the K. John when sold elsewhere I remember the price as being $270. I didnt buy one at the time because I felt it was a bit too much as when they first release a knife they usually charge a lot for it and reduce the price a couple weeks later. I was holding out for the price drop when all of the sudden they disappeared. When I asked if more would be available the dealers all said that no and they had were solely for the Russian market but maybe later. Seems later may have arrived.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Mine just got here and let me say, they are absolutely brilliant. Probably the smoothest flippers I've ever owned. One of them is now on it's way to Auston for his video review. Expect an in depth post from me this evening. Really really impressed at the value represented by this knife.

Looking at it closely, I don't think it would be extremely difficult to replace the Tritium tubes when they inevitably burn out, or if you wanted to change the color (as if something was wrong with classic green).

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

SOOOOO here we goooooo.

First off, I've carried and have been playing with this knife all day and nothing has gone wrong. Pivot hasn't loosened, 0 blade play, falls closed under it's own weight, flips out nicely. The detent is strong but lets go cleanly and easily, and the blade flies open with authority once it lets go. Both lightswitch and push button methods work on the flipper without much fuss. This is an incredible knife for the money.

For anyone wondering, a Daboia is a kind of viper, AKA "Russell's Viper" which is found primarily in India and Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daboia The name is fitting since the KJ name for this knife was "Venom II".

The specs have been posted above, so I'm going to mostly post my impressions and a tear down. I love tearing down my knives when I get them, cleaning them my own way, and figuring out how they tick. Usually if you are going to find flaws, it's going to be in a teardown. This thing revealed very few flaws during the teardown, and in fact many things that I would expect from much more expensive knives.

Here's the beast:

Packaging:

Packaging is very simple, a very nicely made lined nylon pouch done in orange, blue and grey stripes with an embroidered CKF tag (even though this is not officially a CKF product). I'm sure the stripes are intended to evoke the Russian flag, Red Blue and White. It is nicely lined with a faux fur and a full length Velcro strip. The liner does NOT shed which is nice, I've paid more for knives that came in some kind of velour bag that left tiny black hairs EVERYWHERE. NO. THANKS. So it's nice to see a quality pouch here, and not the usual wool and faux leather or nylon zip-up taco affair we usually see. Even my wife thought the pouch was cool.

Also included is a very nice unbranded microfiber cloth.

The Knife:

From outward appearances, the knife is very well made. Titanium frame, nicely carved CF overlay, steel insert on the framelock, lanyard loop, nicely designed flipper, decent jimping. The size, to me, is perfect. The grinds on the blade are excellent, and I love the Spanto grind. The whole package is surprisingly slim despite the size and it carries well.

The blade is perfectly centered and came right back to center after the teardown. As you can see, the tolerances of the frame to the blade are SUPER close.

And of course, the tritium. Oh lord, the tritium. I'm like a moth to a porch light when it comes to tritium, so this sent the knife in to the stratosphere for me.

Teardown:

Here we get in to the nitty gritty. First off, all the bolts are T8 except for the pivot which is T10, this is nice because you won't constantly have to be changing your driver size as you go. The bolts are well made and don't feel prone to strip. All are very tight as well, so make sure you have good quality drivers.

The CF overlay is held on with three T8 screws and is separate from the frame.

This means that changing the scale will be as easy as three screws. Excellent.

The scale is also nicely milled for clearance on the pivot.

The texture of the scale is excellent, grippy but not too aggressive that it cuts up your hands.

The blade is nicely detailed with all the edges chamfered, a very nice high end feeling touch.

The bearings are properly raced with washers.

All of the machine work is decent. It's not perfect, but it's not the worst I've seen. I have more expensive knives with terrible looking insides compared to this.

In fact, most of the "flaws" you are seeing in these pictures are grease/lint/etc. and not machine errors.

The lock bar uses a ceramic detent (my fave) with a steel insert. The end of the lock bar was machined to use the steel insert tab as an overextention stop, a very nice and trick detail.

The bearings are indeed sealed ceramic.

The "thumb studs" do indeed engage pockets in the frame. They are not fully blade stops (the tracked pin does this internally), but they do somewhat function as blade stops so they are kind of "backups". The blade is very very solid when locked.

All of the parts.

Comparisons:

Here's the Daboia up against some other knives of similar size and blade grind, namely the Kizer 4403A, ZT 0561 and CRK Umnumzaan.

As you can see, it's actually pretty slim and trim when you compare it to some of these other beasts.

I put it up against the Kizer 4403A because that's one of my favorite Kizer knives (other than the tip-down clip). Earlier I called the Daboia the "Perfect 4403A" and I took these pictures to show why, it's the 4403A turned up to 11.

Complaints:

I'm going to be perfectly honest and harsh here, because really, there are very few complaints on this knife, particularly for the price I bought it at ($170+$30 shipping from Russia). These are the only things "wrong" with this knife.

1) There are some rough spots in the machining that create some sharp points, namely in the nestles for the stop pin, right around the flipper when deployed. It's not an area you usually put a finger or would touch, so this is very minor, and it would be easy to fix just by knocking it down with some sandpaper.

2) There are sharp spots on the scale on the edges since the scales are apparently carved and then CNC'd to fit the knife to save time and money. This is an easy fix with some sandpaper and some elbow grease. The worst spot on mine is the little "peak" underneath the thumb studs.

3) The detent hole is visible when the blade is deployed. This is extremely minor and more of a personal preference. I have high end knives that cost orders of magnitude more that have visible detent holes when the blade is deployed.

4) On this example, for some reason the thumb studs kiss the frame during deployment. When I first got it, it was strong enough to feel like a second detent. It's now broken in and you barely feel it. Oddly enough there's very very little evidence of rubbing on either the studs or the frame. My other example which I sent to Auston did not seem to have this issue. The tolerance in this spot is very tight and this one was probably made at the high end of those accumulated tolerances.

5) The pocket clip is VERY tight. Getting it slipped in to my pocket isn't so much of an issue as that it doesn't want to come out.

All of these issues are pretty minor, as you can see. The long and short of it is, this is really a fantastic knife for the money and I wholeheartedly recommend you to get one if it fits your size/style needs.

 

[PURPLEDC]

Mine just got here and let me say, they are absolutely brilliant. Probably the smoothest flippers I've ever owned. One of them is now on it's way to Auston for his video review. Expect an in depth post from me this evening. Really really impressed at the value represented by this knife.

Looking at it closely, I don't think it would be extremely difficult to replace the Tritium tubes when they inevitably burn out, or if you wanted to change the color (as if something was wrong with classic green).

For the sake of not re hashing your very awesome review (thanks, I love tear downs myself) Ill quote this instead. But thanks for taking the time. I have a similar opinion of the knife. And I am really astonished with how well its made and how smooth it is. I like how its named after the russells viper. Its fitting as they are both nasty beasts. In a good way. A tip for you that you may find useful. My example has some pretty dirty carbon fiber as do most C/F knives I buy. If you want the C/F to really shine and have a three dimensional quality and really shine I cleaned mine with a little windex on a terry cloth towel. It cleans all the dust out of the nooks and crannies of the carbon fiber and it makes it look so darn good. Awesome review though man. I feel you and I are very very lucky to have scored one of these. And I am really hoping they make more because I too want a second. I also found it really interesting that the carbon is actually the standard weave pattern yet the way its cut gives the impression of a swirled marble effect. Too cool. Might have to make a custom scale for mine.

EDITED TO ADD: Just looked at mine and the "thumbstuds". WOW! I cannot believe how close those come to hitting the frame when being deployed. Mine dont touch at all. No rubbing whatsoever. But I swear you couldnt get a human hair in their as the blade swings. Did you see if there is any give to the thumbstuds? Maybe loosening them and holding them forward while you crank it back down maybe giving you a tiny bit more room?

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

I tried doing what you suggest, loosen the studs and see if they will move, and they barely move within their sockets. Since I did the teardown it seems to be a little better so they may have slightly moved.

As I said, the tolerances are very tight. It only takes one part being at the end of one tolerance and the other part being at the other end of the tolerance for this kind of stuff to happen.

 

[PURPLEDC]

I tried doing what you suggest, loosen the studs and see if they will move, and they barely move within their sockets. Since I did the teardown it seems to be a little better so they may have slightly moved.

As I said, the tolerances are very tight. It only takes one part being at the end of one tolerance and the other part being at the other end of the tolerance for this kind of stuff to happen.

Yeah, i didnt think her would be a huge amount of wiggle room but i figured it was woth a try. Mine come so close to hitting its scary. Still talk about tolerance. Light doesn't get through the space but it doesnt touch.

 

[Lost Cosmonaut]

Another spot that's shockingly close is the lockbar and the blade when the knife is closed. If you hold it up to the light you see a tiny sliver of light coming through, but it is CLOSE as well.

I deal with a lot of tolerances in my work, so that kind of stuff always impresses me.

 

[POCEH KOCEB]

... First off this was always a Kevin John knive and made by them. In fact the first place this knife showed up was on a certain chinese site that everyone hates...

KJ released 300+ Venom II knifes trough the Russian Site, this is the only batch they sell so far in Russia. Also, if you follow some of the Russian forums, turns out it's not completely KJ's own design.
There is a YTube video ( in Russian) linking Venom II to DAMM flipper, made by the Chinese company MG.
If you look at the blade shape, they are almost identical:

Also those two knives share the same internal stop-pin mechanism...
Further on, DAMM knife is linked to a so-called "Alien vs Predator" knife made by the polish knife maker Marcin Slisz, who also have done few projects with Spyderco.

DAMM flipper is direct copy of Slisz' knife, they only added clip for tip-up, but they placed the clip in such place, that some of the Russian testers complaint that it grabs the pocket when pulled out,
something that is also reported with the KJ's Venom II...

So again, this isn't completely KJ design, they just added some features as the 'studs" on the blade, some textures here and there, IMHO the very cool looking but completely useless green tritium vials and so on...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trashing the knife, it's solid build, great craftsmanship (thanks to the CNC machines), nice materials and so on, but the design doesn't do anything for me, I'm still cannot make myself looking at this Venom II as something other than another Strider or Sebenza knock off (even it is not...)

In regard of what was told about the quality of KJ, A Dai and such knives - Kevin John is a brand name, part of Triumph Precision Ltd. that makes parts for the Chinese aerospace industry, I would be very surprised if they don't have the capacity to manufacture such precise details as the one we find in the Decepticon line of knifes or this nicely done knife. Russians are using those resources to manufacture the parts but the knifes are put together in Russia.

 

[PURPLEDC]

KJ released 300+ Venom II knifes trough the Russian Site, this is the only batch they sell so far in Russia. Also, if you follow some of the Russian forums, turns out it's not completely KJ's own design.
There is a YTube video ( in Russian) linking Venom II to DAMM flipper, made by the Chinese company MG.
If you look at the blade shape, they are almost identical:

Also those two knives share the same internal stop-pin mechanism...
Further on, DAMM knife is linked to a so-called "Alien vs Predator" knife made by the polish knife maker Marcin Slisz, who also have done few projects with Spyderco.

DAMM flipper is direct copy of Slisz' knife, they only added clip for tip-up, but they placed the clip in such place, that some of the Russian testers complaint that it grabs the pocket when pulled out,
something that is also reported with the KJ's Venom II...

So again, this isn't completely KJ design, they just added some features as the 'studs" on the blade, some textures here and there, IMHO the very cool looking but completely useless green tritium vials and so on...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trashing the knife, it's solid build, great craftsmanship (thanks to the CNC machines), nice materials and so on, but the design doesn't do anything for me, I'm still cannot make myself looking at this Venom II as something other than another Strider or Sebenza knock off (even it is not...)

In regard of what was told about the quality of KJ, A Dai and such knives - Kevin John is a brand name, part of Triumph Precision Ltd. that makes parts for the Chinese aerospace industry, I would be very surprised if they don't have the capacity to manufacture such precise details as the one we find in the Decepticon line of knifes or this nicely done knife. Russians are using those resources to manufacture the parts but the knifes are put together in Russia.

1. I never said who it was designed by. I have no idea. I was simply stating that it has always been made by K.John so I dont know how CKF could "give back" something that isnt theres.

2. If you are saying that the only Venom II's sold were sold out of russia you are incorrect. There was a chinese site that sold some. They were only sold for about a week before they were pulled but that Is how I found out about them. You have to remember this is K. John so even if they told CKF that they were the only ones to get them chances are it may not be true.

3. Not sure why your bringing up the damm flipper. I dont feel the K.John knife is all that similar. There or more differences than simalarities. The damm has a lot of simalarities to the slisz knife but saying the K.John is also that close is reaching a bit to far. Again more differences than there are simalrities. Different grind, different flute, different handle shape textures. You MIGHT be able to say some of the slisz might have influenced certain aspects of the build but if you look at the venom II so did 50 other knives.

4. Useless tritium is in the eye of the beholder. I think its a nice touch and its all ready helped me find the knife several times in low light conditions.

5. Your right its not another sebenza or strider knock off.

6. I have never been able to find anything on Triumph precision LTD even existing. But I understand that Kevin john is a brand and that about 100-200 individuals claim to actually be Kevin john of which I dont think anyone with that name (associated with these knives exists)

7. I agree on their capabilities. I dont think much if any "finishing" happens on CKF knives in russia given the quality I have seen the chinese making knives.