Extrema Ratio MPC folder

brownie0486

brownie0486

Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Messages
1,913
Just picked up the MPC from ER the other day.

Anyone else taken the plunge on this knife?

Opinions? Commments?

I'll be reviewing/testing this knife on our website eventually.

Initial impressions-------
It's rugged to the extreme, it certainly is the most rugged of the folders I have seen, handled and/or owned.

If you are in need of folder that will take the abuse of a quality straight knife and keep on running, check them out.

Makes my Strider SnG pale by comparison relative strength, and thats saying a lot as I carry the SnG Strider daily with defensive purposes in mind.

The backlock is overbuilt and the knife is designed with an additional crossbolt safety such as found on lever action rifles and shotguns.

Stay sharp

Brownie
 
If you get a chance or feel so inclined, what I would like to see commented on is what can a knife built like that do which you would not be able to do with a decently rugged knife like the Spyderco Military, or a very rugged one like the Buck/Strider. Can you for example actually treat it like a fixed blade and not be concerned about impacts or heavy loads weakening the lock. Can it block/take full power impacts on the blade and such (lots of utility applications as well such as batoning and such).

-Cliff
 
I've used mine as a fixed blade for chopping and such on a camping/testing weekend this past summer. It is as secure as they get. :D
 
...that I bought another one like it within a couple o' weeks later.
It is a hoss.
Locks up like a bank vault.
They are my most expensive folders.
I took off that crossbolt safety though.
 
Cliff Stamp:

I'm a big fan of the Military model by Spyderco. The Millie would be broken and discarded long before any damage would occur to the MPC.

The tip on the Millie would suffer breakage or disfigurement pretty quick in hard stabbing/prying while the MPC would just keep on rocking.

The linerlock on the Millie is solid as you know from your own testing and reporting here, yet it would fail long before the MPC's lockbar gave out/wore out and with the crossbolt safety engaged it becomes as strong as a good straight blade.

Leroy Thompson wrote an article where he has gone to carrying the MPC for realworld events he finds himself facing, and has retired several straight knives as the MPC is more easily concealed and in his opinion gives up nothing to his better straight blades in strength or durability.

My Strider SnG is very rugged as folders go. It would break and be discarded long before the MPC even suffered damage as well.

The are tradeoffs. The MPC is BIG, heavy,
and does not have the delicate slicing ability of others like the Millie and Strider.

The steel just behind the edge is thick and reminds me of an axe looking at it. It was not as sharp as I like my normal EDC's, but took a respectable edge [ for it's geometry ]wioth only a few passes on the crock sticks I use.

It will never equal the Millie in thin cutting/slicing chores due to it's design. It was not made to be delicate in anything and in that regard the Extrema Ratio people have done their job very well.

The top [ spine ] of the MPC has a "flat" area specfically designed to be used as a platform to take blows to the spine and could easily be used to split firewood.

The Buck/Strider would is not in the same realm or comparable in strength to the MPC.

I now have to decide whether I want to carry it on the pocket or on the belt in a sheath of ome kind. The knife is totally ambidextrous for those like TorzJohnson or Glockman99 who require this feature if they have a choice.

The MPC also has a glass breaking feature at the back end which may come in handy one day as well.

Brownie
 
i am concerned with how well they cut, 1/4 steel seems very thick for a saber grind like that, i wish that they came in 3/16th, and had wider blades.

What do you think of the cutting performance, i realize that this type of knife is not supposed to cut like a spyderco military for example, but how good/bad is it?

What was the out of box sharpness like?
 
brownie0486 :

The tip on the Millie would suffer breakage or disfigurement pretty quick in hard stabbing/prying while the MPC would just keep on rocking.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the tip would be broken prying easily, stabs might be a problem but you would want a really hard tarket like thick bone.

The linerlock on the Millie is solid as you know from your own testing and reporting here, yet it would fail long before the MPC's lockbar gave out/wore out and with the crossbolt safety engaged it becomes as strong as a good straight blade.
Click to expand...

This is what I am interested in, from working with the Military it would seem to me that the breaking point of the lock is similar in magnitidue to that of the blade, and this isn't really low by any standard.

My Strider SnG is very rugged as folders go. It would break and be discarded long before the MPC even suffered damage as well.
Click to expand...

This can't possibly mean the blade can it? With the lock just what kinds of tasks would be required to damage it? Even with rugged lockbacks, it is hard to damage them without putting the blade in danger os breaking, thus to break a quality one (one of the heavy Spyderco backlocks, or compression locks) would seem to be a fairly extreme activity. This is what I would like to see explored, just how extreme of an activity is needed before you require the level of durability and strength.

-Cliff
 
Hi Cliff,

As to the SnG, I was referring to the blade tip if used for prying, stabbing hard targets vs. the MPC

Not that it would not take a lot of force to do so [ break something ] with the SnG, but it would fail before the tip on the MPC.

As to lock strength between the two, I can not give an informed opinion at this time. Both are very strong locks and so strong it may take destroying the blades before the locks give as you correctly mention.

I think if the Millie blade was vised at the pivot, the knife would fail/break before either the SnG or MPC. The results would certainly be subject to the materials they are made from to begin with [ IMO ].

Stay sharp

Brownie
 
MPC stands for Multipurpose Combat folder. - it is a multipurpose knife, due to the toughness it has in it's design and build quality. I would take it camping, for example. It cuts a variety of tough things well. But for fine slicing, like for food, you need an additional knife. But what knife knut doesn't have an extra knife or two to have along with them?

As for it's combat application, it does have a reliable lock that you have to see first hand to understand. You have full 1/4" thick steel fully contacting steel of the same thickness, with no room to move laterally. The cross bolt feature is overkill and is good for folks who want extra security, but it's not necessary.
 
Thanks for the pictures, I assumsed the Striders ran similar tips as on the pruduction folder which is impossibly to damage without breaking the main blade in half, or attempting to dig through solid rock.

-Cliff
 
In Kai's pictures you can claerly see the difference in tip strength of the Fulcrum to the Strider.

When one looks at the pics, you have to remeber Strider is considered one of the strongest folders on the market.

Now take a look at the tips again, and multiply the strength of the Fulcrum or MPC [ the big brother ]x ?

Brownie
 
Spyderco also has some heavy duty folders, Chinook and company, a few comparitive comments along those lines would be appreciated.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,

I have the Chinook. A very stout knife in all aspects.

Related story on the Chinook strengths: I gave mine [ the chinook ] to my contractor several weeks ago after I had given him an Emerson CQC-7 two years before that.

He beat the Emerson to death in a month using it to pry metal and wood, scrape paint, cut pvc, etc etc. His impression was it wasn't enough for him.

He has had the chinook for a several weeks [ the s30v version ]. I called him last weekend to see how the chinook was holding up. When I had given him the knife, I told him to not baby it, use it for what it was to him, a tool. He is a fire plug of a guy and can be very aggrsssive with tools and such, always replacing them as he breaks them. The caveat was that if he didn't lose it, I'd be photoing the knife and writing a test review of the knife based on it's performance thusly [ he knows I do these things ].

His response to my question about the chinook was like this [ paraphrasing ].

"I was up on a ladder and needed to pry two pieces of metal apart. Took the chinook out, used it thusly, NO DAMAGE". He said thought it would break the knife, and would have broken the Emerson but that he was very pleased I had given it to him.

He has used it to cut pvc piping, rubber hoses, scrape paint off metal and wood, and says so far it has held up very well and still is sharp enough to cut things but of course not as sharp as when he got it.

He likes the chinook obviously. I'm confident if I gave him the MPC he would have atleast the same results.

In a nutshell, if my contractor hasn't broken the knife in a month and a half, says it is holding up well and he likes it, it is rugged to a fault. The MPC, in my opnion would fare no less as well.

Also remember, these two knives [ the chinook and mpc are both lockbacks ].

Brownie
 
Brownie,

I passed on a Chinook. But I'm curious, how did that goofy upturned snoot work in real life? You said your friend was 'aggressive,' so does that tip lend tself to snapping off?
 
The Tourist:

He said he pryed two pieces of roof steel away from each other to place bolts in holes, aligning the roofing in lieu of going to the ground to get a prybar. He thought the tip would break but remembered I told him to use it hard, that I didn't think he could break it.

He didn't and immediately became impressed with the strength of the knife and blade particularly.

His only experience with a knife had been the Emerson I had given him and he told me that the chinook blade is very rugged, it should have broken as far as he was concerned.

For him to be impressed with the stregth of the blade and blade to handle at the pivot says quite a bit to me. I was half expecting him to bring it to me in two pieces within a few weeks. He's still using it and hasn't brought it to me to sharpen [ which I had told him to do when it got dull ].

I'm sure it is dull right now and he is just abusing the hell out of the edge with his strength to cut things with it.

I'll be getting the knife back to sharpen and photo when I'm ready to write the report. I haven't seen it since he took it 6-7 weeks ago, so it will be interesting to see what it looks like after the abuse he puts it through daily.

I'm thinking I should just give him all the knives I'll review. He's a bull and is impressed with the Chinook, you have to know the guy to know what that means.

To answer your question: He hasn't broken the tip off yet.

Brownie
 
Brownie,

It's good to know. To be honest, that's why I passed on the blade despite that fact that it's made from one of my favorite steels, S30V.

I have a Strider AR and SnG made from S30V.

I wanted a 'good' but lower priced knife to put into my rotation. Something that would come off of the Edge-Pro like a razor, but that wouldnt break my heart if it dulled within a week or chipped.

I chose the SOG Tomcat. Everyone warned me of the AUS-6A steel, and a few wondered why I took a step away from my favorite steel.

I lugged the Tomcat for a few weeks, it kept it's edge and was rock solid, but a tad heavy. I did like the 'horizontal' mounting of the sheath and wore it to work once in a white-collar setting, a chiropractic office. Most didn't notice, and when they did they asked where they could get such a nice 'cell-phone case.'

After this period, I searched for a second Tomcat on the 'net. I found another, and it's salted away as a spare.

Brownie, I would have no question in taking the Tomcat on a varmint shoot in a wilderness area of South Dakota.
 
brownie0486, what happened to the Emerson, the lock gave way or the blade or serrations suffered major damage? Isn't that a thickly sabre ground folder? I would be surprised if the blade snapped in half even though the steel isn't that ductile.

-Cliff
 
Hi Cliff,

The knife suffered from extensive edge chipping [ admittedly under some very hard use by this guy], lack of holding a decent edge at all,
the pivot stretched from prying so that even when it was retightened it still had blade play side to side, and that led to continuous failure to lockup reliably.

The g-10 held up very well [ the handle didn't really suffer much damage after all the "abuse" ]and looked used but was not damaged.

The linerlock bar itself suffered no noticeable damage.

Please keep in mind that my contractor probably put more abuse on this knife than anyone here on the forum would do inadvertently or intentionally in their lifetime. He did not pay for it, I told him to use it hard and not baby it as it was a ruggedly built knife.

He was not impressed at all with it, but has been surprised the Chinook has taken the abuse that it has and still keeps on going.

Brownie
 
brownie,

A word of thanks for finally turning me onto the MPC after months of deliberation.

I just took delivery of mine this AM, and totally love it.

:)

Allen
aka DumboRAT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top