mini pentagon

[generallobster]

when I decided to get the knife from the bladeforum sale, I searched the archives for a review of the mini pentagon. It only turned up a two sentence post about how the sheath sucked. But I ordered anyway, and now for future mini-pentagon buyers I will review it and you will not go to bed disapointed at the lack of information collected at Bladeforums. First off I noticed how perfect the box and the packaging was. This was after spending almost a month in the hands of UPS delivery people--all because the genius receptionist at my dorm couldn't use the computer to match my name to my mailbox and consequently sent my order back to Mike. You know that UPS people don't exactly handle their boxes with uncompromising care, for they sit on the boxes and apparently eat lunch over them as indicated by the state of my package. Anyway the point is I like it when knife manufactures bag every individual item, separating them from possible damage. Needless to say the knife was perfect upon arrival. The second thing I noticed was that the Zytel handle was really fat and wide. It is a scaled up handle of the coldsteel para-edge knives, with a huge bulging handle butt. The knife has a handle heavy balance, and feels heafy although the weight is only 3oz. The handle material is not hard plastic like the zytel I am used to on folding knives, though all advertisments say it is in fact zytel. I swear this stuff is exactly the same as the kraton on some coldsteel knives: soft, pliable and really heavy. Maybe the weight is due to the tang, which by the magnet test, extends all the way down through the lanyard hole. Don't run away just because I said Kraton, for it isn't sticky and I doubt it will absorb liquids and swell. Now the 3.5 inch blade is double edged, and it may look from advertisments like the grinds are too shallow to allow for good cutting ablity, but the knife goes from full thickness at the guard to a needle point at the tip, and remains fairly thin through most of the blade area. I hate small knives with thick edges--they don't do anything a knife should do, and they end up being crappy slabs of steel with good handles and nice sheaths to tote them in. The thinness of the blade on this knife means it is probably only good for targets up to the hardness of a tree. So the knife would be useless against my rock hard abdominal muscles--I'm serious, don't laugh. The plain edge side came extreemly sharp just like I expected. The serrated side however came horribly dull, and I cursed it with the caveman incantations which I learned from my evolutionary outcast of a roommate. I will attempt to fix those dull serrations and probably ruin the knife in the process, but that is beside the point. The point is this knife was well crafted in every respect by all the attentive workers at SOG, all but the drunken one who did the serrations. No, really they are not that bad. The the boot sheath is shiny black leather similar to the top of a policeman's shoe, which I hope I never have the opportunity to examine up close since I live in California. It has a belt clip strong enough to demand the attention of two heavily muscled people when it comes time to put it on. So in summery this seven inch dagger is the perfect knife for thiry bucks. Oh yeah the unimportant stuff: steel is 440a (don't laugh, it's not that sad), 56-58RC, made in Seki, blade is coated with black stuff, no I have not been drinking--I am a moron by nature.