DorkOps has arrived!

ANGRYMOB said:
I cannot tell a lie, some of them are pretty cool looking, must be the mall ninja in me :o
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Unless you've actually seen and held the knives in person, your reaction is probably more to the heavily photoshop-enhanced pictures in the ads. In person, the knives are not quite so -- how shall we say? -- dramatic.
 
My local dealer got in a Stratofighter recently. He and I were laughing our heads off at the promotional material, and he decided to order one for kicks.

Frustratingly enough, the fit and finish seem to be on par with Extrema Ratio - no telltale slop in the pivot, no problems with the coatings, and the blade was about as sharp as the ERs out of the box. Even the lockback bolt safety is implemented in exactly the same way.

Can't really comment on the ergos, because I didn't think the ERs were particularly nice, but I couldn't find anything specifically wrong about the grip.

I obviously couldn't do anything fun with the knife, like shove it up some terrorist's nether regions, but, if I didn't know about the ER controversy and the retarded sales pitch, all I would see is an overbuilt but well-put-together knife. Don't know anything about the steel, but the blade was well ground and all markings were sharp and consistent.

They're copies, all right, but they don't seem to be cheap ones. Nothing on them says anything about their manufacture, so I couldn't say where they were being made.

Sorry to all of you who were hoping they'd be junk... I know I was.
 
OodlesOfNoodles said:
Well you guessed it. A hole in the wall, mall cutlery shop has a DarkOps knife. It really suprised me. When I asked him where he had purchased it, he said he got it straight from the company. If you want to check it out, and are in the Dallas/Fort Worth region of Texas, its the Knife Shoppe, located in the Parks mall. Maybe this is old news since I haven't been on this site for about 5 months, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
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I'm near there. Which case (I dont want to ask them)... the one by the entrance with CRKs, BMs and Spydies and other nice knives or in one of the back cases with the cheap crap knives?
 
Halfneck said:
No idea. Looked like they are trying to compete with Blackhawk Industries. And I am thinking they contracted with Extrema Ratio to make their knives.
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They ripped off Extrema Ratio, do some searches on here and other forums for more details.
 
Brian6244 said:
I'm near there. Which case (I dont want to ask them)... the one by the entrance with CRKs, BMs and Spydies and other nice knives or in one of the back cases with the cheap crap knives?
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Its actually not in the store per se. It is on the right side as you enter the store. There is a case with a stainless stell naginata and bamboo katanas. You can see the case if you stand in front of the store.
 
I've been to the Parks knife store many times. They have carried some very nice knives from time to time. They even had a small sebenza and a mnandi for sale some months back. The owner seems like a nice fellow but the help is usually clueless. Prices are the usual mall variety-list price. However, they do have an occasional decent sale price on a knife or two.

In case you some of you guys in the metroplex haven't heard of this place.... There is another knife store a little NW of Ft. Worth (Lake Worth) that is well worth seeing called House Of Blades. He once advertised his shop as the biggest knife store in the USA. (back in the early 80's)

The guy has been in business since the early seventies and has literally thousands of knives on display. He has vitually every brand of knife you can think of, and hundreds of customs and commeratives, as well. The downside is that he's high as hell on his knives and runs a sale only once a year at Christmas time. (and the christmas sale ain't all that great) The owner has always struck me as the kind of guy who would rather be buried with every last knife in the store rather than take one penny less than list for anything. :D
 
OK, I went by the Parks Mall today and actually handled the infamous Dark-Ops folder. Here's my 2 cents-I was surprised to find out that it was a heavy, rock-solid knife that locks up like a bank vault. No play in the blade, whatsoever, and extremely smooth opening and closing. Very nice fit and finish, as well.

No doubt their ads are totally wacko but it does appear the Dork-Ops folks have actually created (or ripped off) a very decent knife.
 
The guy was some sort of a jerk. I asked to see the balisong and pointed at the Spyderfly, because I didn't think he'd know the name. In retrospect, I should have called it a butterfly knife, because most people call it that...And he's like "only benchmades are balisongs. They copyrighted it." So then I'm saying "well, that's true, but benchmade actually copyrighted bali (dash) - song...anyway can I see it?"

"well, it's not a balisong. Only benchmades are balisongs. That's a butterfly knife"

"Balisong is a classification...I'm just generalizing...."

And then I made the critical error: instead of asking to see the knife again, I used the word play.

"No you may NOT play with this knife. You'd hurt yourself. You MAY ask to SEE it though"

I did, only because there was no other place I knew of within hours that I could try a spyderfly before I bought it. What an ass.

In retrospect, I wonder if, had I called it a butterfly knife, if he would have corrected me and called it a balisong.

Worse yet, I asked if the (closed) benchmade bali he had laid on the counter had a weehawk blade...he reached for it and opened it. Of course, it did...and he's like "no...definitely not a...blade like...that........never seen one like this before."

AUGHHH

Okay, I'm going to relax now. I have a spyderfly on the way. Relax. Relax.


But nonetheless, he's a unique case. Usually they're reasonably helpful there.
 
ANGRYMOB said:
I cannot tell a lie, some of them are pretty cool looking, must be the mall ninja in me :o
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I think Strider knives are attractive and functional looking, but most of this tactical stuff is beyond me.
 
Artfully Martial said:
And he's like "only benchmades are balisongs. They copyrighted it."
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Print out the introduction here http://www.balisong.com/ and let him have it. :D

Balisong, literally means "broken horn", from the two words "bali" (which means "to break") and "sung" (which means "horn"). It is not incidental, therefore, that the original Balisong knives have handles carved out of animal horns.
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