I actually didn't know that Kizer's were Chinese. Now that I do its gone down on my list. I'm not necessarily totally against buying Chinese, its just that I'd rather buy American made first. Or at a minimum an American BRAND, even if the model is manufactured overseas. I've looked at the Civivi's and they have some OK models, but none that I like enough to even put on my list. There is one WE model that I do like but it'll probably be a long time before I actually buy it, if ever.
Anyway I just got my Pilar in the mail and first impressions: It is TINY. Way smaller than I expected, especially coming from a PM2, full size BM Barrage and even a Microtech UTX-85. I watched pretty much every youtube video review of the Pilar and none of them prepared me for how small it actually is. But that's not totally a bad thing. It is difficult for me to open with one hand because its so small, but man is it comfortable in the hand when its open. Clearly the Pilar was designed for whittling wood because it is AMAZING for that purpose, like unbelievably good. Even though its tiny the choil allows you to easily get all four fingers on it (and I have big hands) which gives you amazing control over the blade. I actually really like it. Its just going to take me some time to get over how small it is. Its also a little rough around the edges. There is some really bad machining around the edges of the frame lock, for example. Bad enough that I will file them down. But for a knife in this price bracket I can't really complain too much. Cool knife though.
