Sabertooth?

Rotte

Rotte

Joined
Aug 30, 2008
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A friend showed me his new knife: a Sabertooth knife made by Spivey Knives.

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It's an interesting design and feels fairly comfortable in the hand. Not sure what the steel is. Very secure grip but the ring seems like it might be in the way at times. Blade is 7.5" long. OAL is shy of 13".

This knife was developed by Jeff Spivey for a trip he took riding horseback coast to coast. He claims it was a very useful knife.

Anyone have any experience with this design?
 
I played with one that Deathtakeslast loaned me. Seemed like a solid worker to me. I had sharpened the blade for him and the edge felt a little softer than the current crop of "super steels" but in use(both chopping and sawing) it held it's edge just fine. I felt it was a reasonable answer to what Jeff Spivey wanted as a survival/utility knife. I could see it earning it's way in camp and on the trail. It looks radical but it does work well :)
 
Rotte, so a search for "Sabertooth" and you will find several very good threads on it.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
...you will find several very good threads on it.
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Esav --

Maybe your Google-fu is stronger than mine; I found a minimum of useful threads on the Sabertooth. The search function on this site doesn't work well for me either. I almost always end up using Google advanced. But even this strategy yielded little useful information.

I did see a thread where you had posted that you handled a Sabertooth, but I didn't get the impression you had the opportunity to use one.

Bill --

Thanks for your observations.
 
No, I was very impressed with it, but only waving it around at a knife show, not in the field. :)
 
Hmmm....never handled one, but it looks neat. The ring seems a little extraneous, and the saw back pretty much eliminates batoning, but that's no reason to discount the knife entirely. Bottom line, I wouldn't buy one cause it's just not my style. But if you like that sort of thing, it could be great.
 
It woul be OK if it didn't have the finger ring. What practical purpose does it serve?

On a side not I am heavily biased against finger rings after nearly breaking a finger in one.
 
Looking at the pics, I'd swear those handles are made of Bakelite or Malamine Plastic.

Nothing wrong with it. You just don't see it used much today. Especially in knives.
 
I'd have to say they look pretty ugly, but admittedly, I have very simple tastes when it comes to knives. I'm sure they can be used in the field to good effect.
 
Rupestris said:
Looking at the pics, I'd swear those handles are made of Bakelite or Malamine Plastic.

Nothing wrong with it. You just don't see it used much today. Especially in knives.
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Yup. Some kinda plastic. I too think it would be fine, but it took the owner about 10 seconds to decide to replace the handle slabs with micarta.

It's a little complicated for me, but I still would like to take one camping for the weekend. Sometimes you find these things work better after you use 'em.
 
Knife World did an article on them, it appears that the older handmade ones were very well made, and that new ones are pretty good. Never seen one before, except for a Chinese made copy.
 
Between the ring, the handle, and the spine of the blade, there is just too much going on to attract me to that knife.

Some time spent testing one might change my opinion.
 
kgd said:
I'd have to say they look pretty ugly, but admittedly, I have very simple tastes when it comes to knives. I'm sure they can be used in the field to good effect.
Click to expand...

I'm in total agreeance with you on this. The knife also makes me think of all that crap that is sold latenight on QVC or similar, even though I know that this is a high quality knife, I still can't shake that feeling.
 
cmdionne said:
I'm in total agreeance with you on this. The knife also makes me think of all that crap that is sold latenight on QVC or similar, even though I know that this is a high quality knife, I still can't shake that feeling.
Click to expand...

Ditto.
 
orrey45 said:
It woul be OK if it didn't have the finger ring. What practical purpose does it serve?

On a side not I am heavily biased against finger rings after nearly breaking a finger in one.
Click to expand...

I did a little reading and research on Spivey's blade and yes, it does look more for the mall-ninja crowd than outdoorsmen. The finger hole was developed because he kept busting his knuckles/fingers when breaking brush and hacking his way through thorn bushes and such. Granted, it's often easier and cheaper to develop and practice a new technique instead of a knife, but it worked for Spivey. The design is appealing to most...not necessarily practical looking, but it does draw the attention to most knife lovers. The blade has a great American history to it which is probably the most appealing. Despite the "radical" look, at least it didn't come from a metro-sexual, fantasy-loving geek in a cubical. I would eventually like adding one to the collection, but I too really wonder how useful that knife would be...it goes to show it's more the user than the tool, but it is interesting non-the-less.

ROCK6
 
I remember reading about that knife in the tactical knives issue back when I first got interested in knives, it's been over a year now, wow.

The sabertooth logo does look nice.
 
ROCK6 said:
The finger hole was developed because he kept busting his knuckles/fingers when breaking brush and hacking his way through thorn bushes and such. [ ... ] Despite the "radical" look, at least it didn't come from a metro-sexual, fantasy-loving geek in a cubical.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of the Spyderco principle, designing a knife around the job, whatever the design ends up looking like. One reason this knife looks so different is that specific tasks he had in mind aren't what most of us need a knife for. I can see it as a bulldozer, smashing his way through rough country.
 
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