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- Jun 29, 1999
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- 9,767
I recently picked one of these up because I had no knives in CPM S110V, which is reputedly one of the best edge-holding steels available, as well as being a b*tch to sharpen. The guys down at Cutting Edge in Calgary (the best knife shop in town IMHO) commented that they would have just laughed five years ago if someone had walked in and said he wanted to see something in CPM S110V; it was practically unobtanium just a few years ago.
Tip down, right-side-only is the only carry offered, and the Military in CPM S110V comes in no other versions (there is a lefty available, albeit only in S30V), but it nestles into a right jeans hip pocket against the seam. Takes a bit of getting used to if you favor tip-up. The clip is firm, not impossibly tight, like my Recon 1 – I had to remove and bend the clip on that just to get it to slip over the pocket seam. It rides high enough to get a good grip on the blurple G-10 scales. I may make a simple pouch-style belt sheath just to try that out.
The G10 grips provide excellent feel, no slip, even while wearing gloves (it’s still winter here in Oilberta). The long handle would be useful boning out big game. I’d bet the steel would hold up well even field dressing moose or bear, whose gritty hides will take the edge off about any knife.
There’s a nice curving sweep to the blade, like the Para Military 2; that and the flat grind make it an excellent slicer. Fine tip, but still plenty of steel at the end.
It’s surprisingly light for its size, and the 4” blade is substantial. Just a flip of the thumb in the oversized Spydie hole flicks the blade out. The stiff Walker liner lock clicks solidly into place, as opposed to the softer engagement of the Compression Lock on my Para 2. No flex, no wobble when open. The blade isn’t perfectly centered when closed, likely due to the light pressure of the detent in the liner lock, but it doesn’t even come close to contacting the scales and likely only a knife nerd would even notice.
Fit and finish are as close to perfect as the eye can tell. Spyderco has achieved a level of precision that matches my Sebbie 21. Impressive, to say the least.
So, having fondled it a bit, and not bleeding yet, I headed out to the garage to do some whittling on a stack of nicely dried fir. I briefly considered slicing up a couple of miles of cardboard, hacking through some thick wire cable and plastic zip-ties, but that’s already been done (check out Ankerson’s “Spyderco CPM S110V Military Full Review”).
Five minutes of whittling on a hard fir stick did take that factory-fresh hair-popping edge off. However, 30 seconds on the DMT ultra-fine brought it back to hair-whittling sharp. No complaints so far.
Took it on a two-week road trip south, used it for food prep, opening stuff, a bit of whittling, cut some plastic bottles with no discernible dulling.
There’s been a lot posted here about the difficulty of sharpening S110V, but I don’t find it significantly different than any of the high carbide content powder steels (S30V, S35Vn, CTS-XHP). Gave it a touch-up on the DMT bench stone when I got home, using just the regular (red) grit. Slightly coarser seems to work better for these high carbide content steels, and it’s back to scary sharp. Good enough for me.
Tip down, right-side-only is the only carry offered, and the Military in CPM S110V comes in no other versions (there is a lefty available, albeit only in S30V), but it nestles into a right jeans hip pocket against the seam. Takes a bit of getting used to if you favor tip-up. The clip is firm, not impossibly tight, like my Recon 1 – I had to remove and bend the clip on that just to get it to slip over the pocket seam. It rides high enough to get a good grip on the blurple G-10 scales. I may make a simple pouch-style belt sheath just to try that out.
The G10 grips provide excellent feel, no slip, even while wearing gloves (it’s still winter here in Oilberta). The long handle would be useful boning out big game. I’d bet the steel would hold up well even field dressing moose or bear, whose gritty hides will take the edge off about any knife.
There’s a nice curving sweep to the blade, like the Para Military 2; that and the flat grind make it an excellent slicer. Fine tip, but still plenty of steel at the end.
It’s surprisingly light for its size, and the 4” blade is substantial. Just a flip of the thumb in the oversized Spydie hole flicks the blade out. The stiff Walker liner lock clicks solidly into place, as opposed to the softer engagement of the Compression Lock on my Para 2. No flex, no wobble when open. The blade isn’t perfectly centered when closed, likely due to the light pressure of the detent in the liner lock, but it doesn’t even come close to contacting the scales and likely only a knife nerd would even notice.
Fit and finish are as close to perfect as the eye can tell. Spyderco has achieved a level of precision that matches my Sebbie 21. Impressive, to say the least.
So, having fondled it a bit, and not bleeding yet, I headed out to the garage to do some whittling on a stack of nicely dried fir. I briefly considered slicing up a couple of miles of cardboard, hacking through some thick wire cable and plastic zip-ties, but that’s already been done (check out Ankerson’s “Spyderco CPM S110V Military Full Review”).
Five minutes of whittling on a hard fir stick did take that factory-fresh hair-popping edge off. However, 30 seconds on the DMT ultra-fine brought it back to hair-whittling sharp. No complaints so far.
Took it on a two-week road trip south, used it for food prep, opening stuff, a bit of whittling, cut some plastic bottles with no discernible dulling.
There’s been a lot posted here about the difficulty of sharpening S110V, but I don’t find it significantly different than any of the high carbide content powder steels (S30V, S35Vn, CTS-XHP). Gave it a touch-up on the DMT bench stone when I got home, using just the regular (red) grit. Slightly coarser seems to work better for these high carbide content steels, and it’s back to scary sharp. Good enough for me.
