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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Does anyone have an RMJ Raider Dagger?
- Thread starter gdog363
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2017
- Messages
- 403
I haven’t even considered those. May have to look at themI've been looking at the Raider, too. The American Kami M1 and M2 look interesting as well, but they're even more pricey.
I just received it. I will probably buy other RMJ knives in the future based on this knife. I've been collecting since 2017 and have over 45 knives. Is X worth Y? Very tough question... I think it is a sellers market. I don't care which knife you buy, but if you really want something special you are going to pay 25% to 75% more than what you think something is worth. The steel will be excellent, or the design will be untouchable, something will set that knife apart and the bladesmith will know they have a unique piece to sell and price it accordingly. Almost 100% of my knives are safe queens. I buy to look at but I'm buying to pass down to the next generation(my children and my nephews and nieces) who I think will have a harder time affording these tools.
The sheath is unreal, probably the best sheath that I own. It is kydex, and very heavy and thick. If it broke just wearing it(not rough-housing), I'd be shocked. The sheath is probably worth $75. Now taking the sheath in to account...
The knife is 3V, tungsten cerakoted, heavy and it feels like you have really purchased something special. The handles/grips are g-10, beautifully done, and the smallest details for grip have been thought of. They even cut out a small thumb purchase on the area where the thumb would go on the dagger over the logo on the blade flat. It has 3 rivets in the grip that look very heavy duty.
My only worry if any would be heavy use with the first barrel "rivet" which is very close to a narrow in the grip. As you probably know, daggers often break, and I wonder if the first barrel rivet could have been skipped, the narrow widened 50%, and they applied epoxy to hold fast the entire handle. I'm suggesting the two later barrel rivets are fine, but that first one....I worry about. I'm not going to use/misuse the knife, so I'll never know.
Looks to me like a nice addition to my collection.
Is it worth it? YES.
I don't understand what you could be worried about, strength-wise: This dagger is a full profile tang, thus way overbuilt, as it is widely in fashion to do these days (daggers used to be more sensibly stick tang). This means it is moderately heavy for its length. 5.5 inches of blade for 7.4 ounces of weight is not great: A stick tang dagger could drop this to one blade inch per ounce, or 20-30% less than a single edge of the same stock: The whole reason to have a narrow blade dagger in the first place: Four main bevels really kill weight...
It doesn't seem particularly sharp at the heel (to say the least): Maybe it has a delayed edge bevel at the heel. Not a bad design (I especially like the handle shape, if not its construction) but a sheath should be soft so as to not dull the edge when accidentally contacting it. Again, I am sure the fad of scratchy Kydex will forever mystify future historians specializing in turn of the Millennium artefacts...
A little longer than a Gerber Mark I, but for the same weight it could be a 7.4" blade with a stick tang. The concern with strength is really getting out of hand if even full profile tangs raise doubts because of the rivet holes...
Gaston