EKA Puukofly

J

JNieporte

Joined
Nov 1, 2004
Messages
3,352
What's a Puukofly? Well, in Finland (where this knife is made) "puuko" is translated "knife" and the "-fly" comes from the butterfly knife. So, we have a Finnish puuko blade stuffed into butterfly knife handles; a neat folder, for sure. Here's what I'm talking about...
9692.jpg


The knife is the Ahti #9692. It doesn't have a name as far as I know, but these have become known as Puukoflies. They're copied from the old CIA survival knives that could be stuffed into a pocket or pack; you still got a nice puuko blade without taking up much room. The CIA ones were made with metal (I believe aluminum) handles, but these have nylon (plastic) handles. Price from Ragnar is $17. You can also buy a sheath for it, but I only purchased the knife. It's made in Sorsakoski (Finland) and is pretty lightweight at 2.75 ounces. Let's take a closer look...

The Handles: They're black nylon, which as far as I can tell, is just slightly-bendable plastic. The knife, when closed, is 4-3/4" long and 1-1/4" wide. The knife locks closed with a simple metal latch, which is pretty common for a butterfly-style knife. Both handles have the place of origin - SORSAKOSKI FINLAND - molded into them. When closed, the puukofly has no movement unless you squeeze the handles together. When open, the blade has a very slight side-to-side movement.
When the knife is closed, the handles are smooth and straight. When opened, you get a palm swell in the center of both handles, as well as swells in both the butt and the fore-end. The handles are simply pinned onto the blade. The blade doesn't make direct contact with the handles when it's open; the blade rides on metal rings inside the handles. This makes opening a bit smoother, and reduces wear on the plastic.
Even with oiling, this knife doesn't want to flip like a bali-song (butterfly knife). This is because the blade's edge digs into the nylon inside of the handle, making the blade stick a bit when opening. It's acceptable at a knife of this price, but I might put different handles on it.

The Blade: The blade on the puukofly is stainless Sandvik 12C27. It's in the traditional puuko shape and grind - upswept with a nice tip, and Scandanavian ground. The blade is 3-7/8" long and just a hair under 1/8" thick. It's 7/8" wide at its widest point. On the right side, the blade is stamped Pertemet over SORSAKOSKI in an oval. The blade came very sharp, and required only a light stropping before it was popping hair off my arm. This is a great blade, and if my experience with puukos is any indication, it will cut like a laser.

The blade is great, but due to the handles, I wouldn't use this knife for anything hard. This is more of a show knife, but I intend on using it for light-duty tasks. Because of the flexible (maybe even weak) handles, I'm not using this on anything harder than medium cardboard. For those tasks and lighter, I suspect this will be a great choice. For $17, you'd be hard-pressed to find a butterfly-style knife of better quality. The blade makes up for whatever quality issues you'd have with the handle, and even if you don't intend to use it, this knife makes a good display piece. I'm betting that cutlerylover will want one just to have ;)
 
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Esav can tell you better about the origin, but I'm not too sure about that CIA story.

I have one that looks exactly the same that I got in the '60's. I cannot remember the price.

Mine is labeled
HACKMAN FINLAND

I have no idea of the alloy, but it holds an edge nicely.

I carried a lot at one time.

I'll see if I can't fire up the scanner and get a pic.

ADD: Forgot. Scanner has no depth of field.
Camera pic is not good but will have to do.
100_2843.jpg
 
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The old Hackman and the current Ahti were made by the same manufacturer. The handles are exactly the same size. The current version blade is slightly thinner, which is why they put that spacer in at the tang, not for smoothness.

This is a utility knife and the nylon handles will hold up to a lot of abuse. Since the system isn't optimized for flipping, there's not much chance the pins will wear much.

You could think of it as a folding Mora. Like a Mora, it would make a good knife for a walk in the woods, making traps, preparing a fire, fileting a fish.

I keep one of mine in the kitchen. Good long blade, slices very nicely, easy to clean in hot soapy water, shake it off, set it down to air dry.

The older version came in black and red also, and the story went around that the CIA bought up a bunch of the red, so the "puukkofly" became known as the CIA knife.

The story could even be true, but it would be garishly inefficient of the CIA to be known for so brightly colored a knife, or even to be known, to be talked about regarding their equipment. Not real covert of them, if they actually did this. :)
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The old Hackman and the current Ahti were made by the same manufacturer. The handles are exactly the same size. The current version blade is slightly thinner, which is why they put that spacer in at the tang, not for smoothness.

This is a utility knife and the nylon handles will hold up to a lot of abuse. Since the system isn't optimized for flipping, there's not much chance the pins will wear much.

You could think of it as a folding Mora. Like a Mora, it would make a good knife for a walk in the woods, making traps, preparing a fire, fileting a fish.

I keep one of mine in the kitchen. Good long blade, slices very nicely, easy to clean in hot soapy water, shake it off, set it down to air dry.

The older version came in black and red also, and the story went around that the CIA bought up a bunch of the red, so the "puukkofly" became known as the CIA knife.

The story could even be true, but it would be garishly inefficient of the CIA to be known for so brightly colored a knife, or even to be known, to be talked about regarding their equipment. Not real covert of them, if they actually did this. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Easv :thumbup:
 
Manufacturer is Pertemet, not the swedish Eka, not Ahti (which is another manufacturer but not a dealer). Very underrated knife.
 
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I have one by Pertemet. Reasonably okay when I bought it, it developed awful blade play and rattle when closed quite soon. Opened, it's still tight and ok.

Sitting somewhere in a kitchen drawer right now, gets onion and garlic cutting duty sometimes.

All right otherwise but the pivoting pins really did eat away at the handle material too fast. In the best of BladeForums tradition, can I blame bad heat treat? :D
 
Razorsharp244 said:
The steel is Sandvik 12C27.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jerker. I've kind of wondered what alloy it is and it's good to know. It's good stuff, but you knew that:D

Thanks also to Esav. Always good to listen to him.

And thanks to JNieporte, who wrote a very nice review and initiated this very nice thread.
 
This is a great knife. My dad was given one a long time ago and it is great for skinning moose. I would like to replace my dad's for him as his is getting old and I would like one for myself. I have no idea where to get one. Can anyone send me a link to a place online where I can order a few of these awesome knives? It would make my dad's day to replace it for him.

Thanks
 
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