Dark ops stratofighter covert opinions please.

K

knarfan

Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
12
I bought a Dark ops stratofighter covert off of a buddy for $125. I know that I got a good deal. Obviously the knife is very strong & durable. Could anyone give me some opinons about this product? Are the claims about the cobalt tungsten vandadium stainless steel being superior to rockwell accurate? Is the locking system as good as it seems to be? What are the pros & cons?
Any opinons (expert or otherwise) would be apreciated.

Thanks,
Frank.
 
Dude, SCORE! :rolleyes:

I love reading Dark Ops Marketing Material. It so R-O-C-K-S!!!
(Actually, it makes me giggle like a lil' school girl, but don't tell anyone, OK? ;) )

Dark Ops Knives are made from a proprietary hybrid alloy of Chromium, Cobalt, Tungsten, Vanadium, and Molybdenum with surgical grade stainless steel! CTV2 offers both strength and edge holding ability that is unrivaled! Zone selective cryogenic hardening allows for medical grade edge sharpness while avoiding the brittleness of high Rockwell hardness!

The American Serviceman deserves the best. It isn't often that a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine needs his knife in a lethal engagement. But should you run out of ammo and need to slash through the mob, these are the tools to use! They are considered by many to be the most effective edged combat weapons in existence today. Dark Ops Knives feature brutally rugged construction designed to perform in the gravest extremes. They do not contain complicated locking mechanisms that plug with sand or toy like cosmetic features. The blades are nearly double the thickness of imitators. The locking system has been proven in combat and is as strong as the CTV2 steel itself, with the pressure not born by small plunge locks, thumb studs, or unreliable liner locks. Made by operators for operators in the greatest country in the world!
By the time you are using your knife and not your rifle or sidearm, things have already gone to hell. Our knives are designed to retain maximum grip and leverage when covered with hydraulic fluid or blood. Our mil-tested handle designs contain ground quartz inserts for maximum grip, aided by substantial finger grooves that orient the knife in the dark. The blades are long and sharp enough to penetrate both airplane skins and Comm-bloc body-armor. Strategically placed blood grooves control blood spray in covert deanimation activities.

StratoFighter Covert
Description:
With 100% of the features of the fullsize StratoFighter, the StratoFighter Covert offers the same capabilities in a concealable package. A full inch smaller when folded, 17% lighter, but equally lethal. For Law Enforcement applications where the deployment of a full size fighter may be inappropriate, the Covert model is pocket concealable, with multi-configurable belt clip. 100% made in America! Choice of Tanto or Spear point blade styles with half serrated cutting edges, specify blade choice. For a complete list of features, See the StratoFighter description!
 
Reports are the the knives aren't bad. They're not all they're cracked up to be, but then again some of the stuff they're cracked up to be is physically impossible.

The objection people -- myself included -- have had is not with the knives but with the advertizing. Refer, please, to my comments in THIS thread to see why I think Dark Ops ads are so harmful.

If you got it for $125, it's probably not a bad thing.
 
Ok we all know what they are driving at when they talk about "body fluids". It a knife that kills people the best, and you don't have to get it dry cleaned if it gets blood on it.

But I just realized - Why the hell am I stabbing a knife into hydraulic lines? Do you get a secret mission with the purchase of the knife?

Edit: Ok just noticed the "Medical Grade Sharpness" babble. I've worked in the Medical Field since 1993 and have yet to see any of our scalpels marked this way. Of course maybe my Hospital's Material Management intercepts the inferior grade scalpels before they reach my clinics.
 
Gollnick said:
Reports are the the knives aren't bad. They're not all they're cracked up to be, but then again some of the stuff they're cracked up to be is physically impossible.

The objection people -- myself included -- have had is not with the knives but with the advertizing. Refer, please, to my comments in THIS thread to see why I think Dark Ops ads are so harmful.

If you got it for $125, it's probably not a bad thing.
Click to expand...

Do you think that this type of asinine advertising is done to market this knife to the military or the general public? I personally think it's aimed at the gen public. I don't think any serious military person could take this seriously. Oh well, I guess the knife has some good qualities but, the advertizing probably does more harm then good & it should.

Thanks for the response,
Frank.
 
Truthfully I've never handled a Dark Ops knife. My opinion overall is very close to Gollnick's. Probably a decient knife, but the marketing is so over-the-top that it totally turns me off...

YMMV

Go hack up a beef carcass while covered in Pennzoil and tells us how it handles. :D
 
GlassJax said:
Truthfully I've never handled a Dark Ops knife. My opinion overall is very close to Gollnick's. Probably a decient knife, but the marketing is so over-the-top that it totally turns me off...

YMMV

Go hack up a beef carcass while covered in Pennzoil and tells us how it handles. :D
Click to expand...

I agree. You want to really get turned off you should see the goofy box it comes in:jerkit: . Next to the pictures of the cartoon soldiers it says 9/11/01 we will not forget. Really from the start I hated the advertizing but, when you handle the knife it really is a rugged folder but.....
I can't wait to wake up tommorow & read this thread :rolleyes: .
 
knarfan said:
Do you think that this type of asinine advertising is done to market this knife to the military or the general public?
Click to expand...


It is certainly NOT done to market to military or law enforcement.

I have seen the material that other knife companies who do successfully sell knives to military and law-enforcement use and it is very professionally done. It is a very technical sell, not an emotional sell. Dark Ops uses pure hype and pure emotion. That is simply not how you sell knowledgable, professional law-enforcement and military customers. I've also read many trade magazines for military and some for law-enforcement and the ads in them are nothing like Dark Ops stuff.

And for law enforcement, there's another problem: legal liability. A police department has to bear in mind when selecting equipment that every bit of it could end up in front of a jury as part of some suit against them. Every police department tries to promote a "soft" image -- at least most of the time. They want to appear to the public to be something that the public -- or at least any given group of twelve of them -- will be comfortable with and, indeed, comforted by having in their community; they don't want to appear to be a military commando squad running amok through the community covertly deanimating people. The last thing you want in a court case is the plaintiff's attorney putting Dark Op's website up on the projector for the jury to see and then carefully and slowly -- and with that certain emphasis -- reading some of the choice passages while asking the Chief how this passage or that influenced his selection of this particular make and model of knife to equip his staff. No; that will not go over well.

So, as hard as they may try to convince you otherwise, law enforcement and military are not Dark Ops target market.
 
knarfan said:
Do you think that this type of asinine advertising is done to market this knife to the military or the general public?
Click to expand...

I think the Dark Ops advertisement is mainly directed to mall ninjas who
just want to be cool and want to have a knife that's somewhat special.
And who have the money to purchase the quite expensive Dark Ops knives.

The quality of the Dark Ops knives seem to be good, but because of their
advertising I can't take these knives serious and would never buy one.

Just read this quote on the Dark Ops website about the StratoFighter Covert:
A full inch smaller when folded, 17% lighter, but equally lethal.

When knives are described and promoted as lethal weapons, it could do much
damage to the knife industry and their image in the general public.

For US$ 125 you've got your Dark Ops Stratofighter Covert at a good price,
but my opinion is a clear: Dark Ops Knives - NO THANX!
 
ooh not again! i mean that "covert deanimation" and lot of giggling afterwards...
Looks like very few of a knifeknuts own a dark ops, so no informative response. ((
 
Thanks Lenny & others. I really don't know to much about the advertising end of the knife market (although I do know enough to know that dark ops is BAD!). I have a modest collection of knives (about 12) spyderco,benchmade,emerson,coldsteel,buck,sog,KA-BAR,ontario. I generally try to stay away from the hard core stuff. Although I think the dark ops is a technicly good folder, somthing about it bothered me, I think thats why I started this thread I wanted some educated opinions & I think that I got them. Thanks to all who responded (with some great replies) I have my answers. There is more to buying a knife then meets the eye ;) .

Thanks again,
Frank.
 
GlassJax said:
Truthfully I've never handled a Dark Ops knife. My opinion overall is very close to Gollnick's. Probably a decient knife, but the marketing is so over-the-top that it totally turns me off...

YMMV

Go hack up a beef carcass while covered in Pennzoil and tells us how it handles. :D
Click to expand...

I would bury the thing in the back yard and just forget-about-it. It is one of those products that makes one ashammed to be seen with.*

n2s

*note: just make sure it is nicely wrapped and oiled first - this may turn into one of those weird knives that command collector interests in 25 or 50 years.
 
Don't forget about the Extrema Ratio rip-off angle to the wonderful Dark Ops saga. I seem to remember reading that the very first ones were just re-logo'ed Extrema Ratios, and I think one or two even showed up with the Extrema Ratio logo still intact.
 
GlassJax said:
Truthfully I've never handled a Dark Ops knife. My opinion overall is very close to Gollnick's. Probably a decient knife, but the marketing is so over-the-top that it totally turns me off...

YMMV

Go hack up a beef carcass while covered in Pennzoil and tells us how it handles. :D
Click to expand...

Ditto, and i would totally be into the beef carcass thing.
 
Dark Ops shoud let me test a knife.

I want to see how it resists some of my non-bloodly bodily fluids. *ahem*
 
Dark Ops Knives are made from a proprietary hybrid alloy of Chromium, Cobalt, Tungsten, Vanadium, and Molybdenum with surgical grade stainless steel!
Click to expand...

Surgical grade stainless steel! :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit: :jerkit:
 
TorzJohnson said:
Don't forget about the Extrema Ratio rip-off angle to the wonderful Dark Ops saga. I seem to remember reading that the very first ones were just re-logo'ed Extrema Ratios, and I think one or two even showed up with the Extrema Ratio logo still intact.
Click to expand...

I read somthing somewhere that said that the guy that runs dark ops used to work for (or maybe was a higher up) in the extrema ratio company? The way I read it was that the reason that he started dark ops directly related to the fact that he had made numerous design suggestions to extrema ratio (I think for the Folcrum knife). A more secure grip was one of the changes because they had received alot of complaints about the Folcrums slippery aluminum grip. They basically suggested that the dark ops strato fighter was a ER Folcrum with some upgrades (the grip being one of them) I guess this is were the hydraulic fluid thing started :) . Who ever wrote this said that the strato fighter was actually a better Folcrum for about $200 instead of the Folcrums $300 price tag.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top