Design
The Sub-Saharan series is one of the best designs to come out of Grayman knives. First, if these seem slightly familiar, like something you may have seen from MercWorx or even a Strider Ajax theres good reason for this. Mike had a large role in designing many of the knives of MercWorx and collaborated on the Ajax and Mantrack. However, unlike Mercworx there are no fine polishes or stainless steels. The handles arent epoxied into place and fixed with tubes (a perfectly solid method). The blades are coated with Duracoat, all are of 1095 steel and the handles are attached via hex screws allowing one to easily remove, modify, or replace them. Personally, Ive become a huge fan of 1095. Its tough, reliable, easy to sharpen and, in my opinion, better for hard use all around than a high end stainless.
Starting at the sharp part, the blade design incorporates the best features of most combat/utility knives. For about the first half of the blade (tip to hilt) the blade is essentially a wide dagger, double edged and symmetrical. From here it transitions to a recurve on the primary edge and dips into an unsharpened portion on the spine. This has two key advantages, The first being that with stabbing and thrusting motions you have a dagger profile, allowing crucial penetration but also a wide wound channel this case. Second, when slashing the blade acts as a phenomenal recurved bowie, pulling material into the curve and using its mass to great effect. The unsharpened portion on the spine is truly a product of real world use and development. First, by the time youve thrust 4inches of nearly 3inch wide dagger into someone, the rest of the blade is going to follow without a hitch. It also prevents you from forgetting its there at the worse time and sticking your thumb or hand on a razor edge. On the same note, I found that it worked will for my support hand when making push cuts and allowed me to maximize its potential as a survival blade. Carefully holding the wood in my lap, I was able to hold the spine with my left hand, the handle with my right and draw the knife towards me to do fine work. Also, this provides a good point for batoning where you arent beating your baton to splinters on the sharpened back edge.
The knives arrive with a coarse edge, allowing the micro serrations to be useful and letting the owner decide how he wants the edge finished. They dont come shaving sharp, but they do everything asked of them and can easily have that sharpness.
There are no traditional guards on this knife, but rather integral hilts. These not only prevent the hand from slipping forward (which would be even more unlikely considering the handle and Gator Grips) but also allow one to choke up around the choil for fine work. Ive grown to prefer this style of guard as it is simply one less thing to break.
The handle is well designed as well. It is comfortable in multiple grips, from further back on the handle to take full advantage of the chopping potential, to in a reverse grip. My 7 and 10 both came with the original Gator Grip, a checkered G10 thats relatively common. While there is nothing wrong with these, the new Gator Grip seen on the 8 is far superior. It truly melts in your hand and provides a very comfortable grip.
Here you can see how the fingers naturally fall in the reverse grip.
The sheath is a kydex liner inserted in a cordura MOLLE compatible sheath. The blade does not snap in and out of the sheath like many production knives but is held secured by a thumb snap. I can see this being an advantage where a tightly fitted sheath may stick and prevent a clean draw in dirty or sandy conditions. As the kydex is a rather simple affair you could easily make your own if you prefer and insert it into the cordura or simply heat the supplied one to get a different fit. One thing I would like to see in the future is the use of MALICE clips rather than the standard MOLLE webbing. I find them to be more robust and secure. I simply ran the MOLLE webbing down the back, secured it, and went with the MALICE clips.
The coating on these knives is an attractive black with a slight gloss finish to it. While this isnt best for those desiring a no glare knife, theres no reason you cant hit it with some dull coat or krylon. Unfortunately it also wears rather easily. Again, its easy to provide an expedient coat of paint if you really need it. Id like to see perhaps Parkerizing offered as it has low reflectivity and wears well or perhaps cerakote. Nothing explicitly wrong with duracoat, but there is something better out there. But the real question is whether or not these coatings are worth it, will they wear just as easily or bit less? Cost/benefit analysis is going to have to come into play here.
The 8
The 8 falls in between the 7 and 10 on the scale of battle blades, not a full on fighter like the 10 but not of a more standard size (and by that I mean the ubiquitous 7 and 12 thats so prevalent, 7inch blade 12 inches overall). This knife is a single bevel and before I go further I should discuss that.
Mike believes the single bevel, or chisel grind, has some important advantages and I cant really disagree. It is easier to sharpen (not that a double bevel is especially difficult by any stretch of the imagination), maintains the full thickness for more of the blade (though this can clearly vary depending on the knife), and has some combative attributes as well. First, it makes an asymmetrical wound channel that is harder to seal and slower to heal. I found that it was also better for using as an expedient shovel. The first thing I noticed about this single bevel was that it was on the right side. Much has been made about the Emerson chisel grind which has the flat on the right side (looking at the spine). Some argue that this should be done in the opposite manner for a right handed person. Personally, for cutting fibrous material and other soft objects, I dont see much of a difference. However, when working on making fuzz sticks, delimbing a branch, or other tasks in a survival/field craft situation, the Grayman single bevel (with the flat on the left side if looking at the spine) is absolutely preferred. The flat of the blade rode on the wood and cut it effortlessly. Luckily, it was easy to see how the knife would perform if ground on the opposite side: I simply flipped it over and used the back edge. One thing I found interesting was that the single bevel seemed to face more resistance when penetrating. I tested this on cardboard (sorry folks, no one would volunteer to take one for the team), and felt that the flat made full contact with the entire blade and thus created more drag. With a double bevel, only the flats are making full contact and thus face less drag. This is merely my impression; neither had any problem and Im sure youd have no problem stabbing someones spine through their chest but I got the feeling that the single bevel wasnt as good as a double for stabs.
Single Bevel seen from the spine
The Sub-Saharan is a phenomenal design and my favorite, period. Its entirely capable in a combat, survival, or field craft role. Luckily, there are four sizes to choose from, the 5 for lighter tasks (something that would go well in a survival kit or on the kit of someone who doesnt want/need a large knife), to the 7 which falls in the classic fighter/utility category, all the way up to the 10 and 8 which are no nonsense large blades perfectly capable of taking down a tree or severing a Jihadists head.
http://graymanknives.com/subs.html
The Sub-Saharan series is one of the best designs to come out of Grayman knives. First, if these seem slightly familiar, like something you may have seen from MercWorx or even a Strider Ajax theres good reason for this. Mike had a large role in designing many of the knives of MercWorx and collaborated on the Ajax and Mantrack. However, unlike Mercworx there are no fine polishes or stainless steels. The handles arent epoxied into place and fixed with tubes (a perfectly solid method). The blades are coated with Duracoat, all are of 1095 steel and the handles are attached via hex screws allowing one to easily remove, modify, or replace them. Personally, Ive become a huge fan of 1095. Its tough, reliable, easy to sharpen and, in my opinion, better for hard use all around than a high end stainless.
Starting at the sharp part, the blade design incorporates the best features of most combat/utility knives. For about the first half of the blade (tip to hilt) the blade is essentially a wide dagger, double edged and symmetrical. From here it transitions to a recurve on the primary edge and dips into an unsharpened portion on the spine. This has two key advantages, The first being that with stabbing and thrusting motions you have a dagger profile, allowing crucial penetration but also a wide wound channel this case. Second, when slashing the blade acts as a phenomenal recurved bowie, pulling material into the curve and using its mass to great effect. The unsharpened portion on the spine is truly a product of real world use and development. First, by the time youve thrust 4inches of nearly 3inch wide dagger into someone, the rest of the blade is going to follow without a hitch. It also prevents you from forgetting its there at the worse time and sticking your thumb or hand on a razor edge. On the same note, I found that it worked will for my support hand when making push cuts and allowed me to maximize its potential as a survival blade. Carefully holding the wood in my lap, I was able to hold the spine with my left hand, the handle with my right and draw the knife towards me to do fine work. Also, this provides a good point for batoning where you arent beating your baton to splinters on the sharpened back edge.
The knives arrive with a coarse edge, allowing the micro serrations to be useful and letting the owner decide how he wants the edge finished. They dont come shaving sharp, but they do everything asked of them and can easily have that sharpness.
There are no traditional guards on this knife, but rather integral hilts. These not only prevent the hand from slipping forward (which would be even more unlikely considering the handle and Gator Grips) but also allow one to choke up around the choil for fine work. Ive grown to prefer this style of guard as it is simply one less thing to break.
The handle is well designed as well. It is comfortable in multiple grips, from further back on the handle to take full advantage of the chopping potential, to in a reverse grip. My 7 and 10 both came with the original Gator Grip, a checkered G10 thats relatively common. While there is nothing wrong with these, the new Gator Grip seen on the 8 is far superior. It truly melts in your hand and provides a very comfortable grip.
Here you can see how the fingers naturally fall in the reverse grip.
The sheath is a kydex liner inserted in a cordura MOLLE compatible sheath. The blade does not snap in and out of the sheath like many production knives but is held secured by a thumb snap. I can see this being an advantage where a tightly fitted sheath may stick and prevent a clean draw in dirty or sandy conditions. As the kydex is a rather simple affair you could easily make your own if you prefer and insert it into the cordura or simply heat the supplied one to get a different fit. One thing I would like to see in the future is the use of MALICE clips rather than the standard MOLLE webbing. I find them to be more robust and secure. I simply ran the MOLLE webbing down the back, secured it, and went with the MALICE clips.
The coating on these knives is an attractive black with a slight gloss finish to it. While this isnt best for those desiring a no glare knife, theres no reason you cant hit it with some dull coat or krylon. Unfortunately it also wears rather easily. Again, its easy to provide an expedient coat of paint if you really need it. Id like to see perhaps Parkerizing offered as it has low reflectivity and wears well or perhaps cerakote. Nothing explicitly wrong with duracoat, but there is something better out there. But the real question is whether or not these coatings are worth it, will they wear just as easily or bit less? Cost/benefit analysis is going to have to come into play here.
The 8
The 8 falls in between the 7 and 10 on the scale of battle blades, not a full on fighter like the 10 but not of a more standard size (and by that I mean the ubiquitous 7 and 12 thats so prevalent, 7inch blade 12 inches overall). This knife is a single bevel and before I go further I should discuss that.
Mike believes the single bevel, or chisel grind, has some important advantages and I cant really disagree. It is easier to sharpen (not that a double bevel is especially difficult by any stretch of the imagination), maintains the full thickness for more of the blade (though this can clearly vary depending on the knife), and has some combative attributes as well. First, it makes an asymmetrical wound channel that is harder to seal and slower to heal. I found that it was also better for using as an expedient shovel. The first thing I noticed about this single bevel was that it was on the right side. Much has been made about the Emerson chisel grind which has the flat on the right side (looking at the spine). Some argue that this should be done in the opposite manner for a right handed person. Personally, for cutting fibrous material and other soft objects, I dont see much of a difference. However, when working on making fuzz sticks, delimbing a branch, or other tasks in a survival/field craft situation, the Grayman single bevel (with the flat on the left side if looking at the spine) is absolutely preferred. The flat of the blade rode on the wood and cut it effortlessly. Luckily, it was easy to see how the knife would perform if ground on the opposite side: I simply flipped it over and used the back edge. One thing I found interesting was that the single bevel seemed to face more resistance when penetrating. I tested this on cardboard (sorry folks, no one would volunteer to take one for the team), and felt that the flat made full contact with the entire blade and thus created more drag. With a double bevel, only the flats are making full contact and thus face less drag. This is merely my impression; neither had any problem and Im sure youd have no problem stabbing someones spine through their chest but I got the feeling that the single bevel wasnt as good as a double for stabs.
Single Bevel seen from the spine
The Sub-Saharan is a phenomenal design and my favorite, period. Its entirely capable in a combat, survival, or field craft role. Luckily, there are four sizes to choose from, the 5 for lighter tasks (something that would go well in a survival kit or on the kit of someone who doesnt want/need a large knife), to the 7 which falls in the classic fighter/utility category, all the way up to the 10 and 8 which are no nonsense large blades perfectly capable of taking down a tree or severing a Jihadists head.
http://graymanknives.com/subs.html
