Good knife or bad knife? It is very interesting question... Good or bad for what?
SOG Pentagon Elite is a very specific knife. It has dagger style blade and handle shape. Relatively narrow (25 mm) and relatively thick (3,5 mm) blade is beveled on both sides what provides pretty thick edge's profile. Dagger point blade is very penetrative and shark-tooth tip is much stronger than conventional dagger tip. In closed position the whole blade hid into the handle, so you can sharpen the first 1/3 of the blade opposite side without any risk to make harm yourself. It could improve blade penetration. Blade has bead blasted non-reflective finish.
Zytel handle is lightweight, comfortably shaped and non-slippery. Single liner is "nested" into the plastic scale, this makes handle reasonable strong. I saw a lot of more flexible handles with two liners. Action is OK. Liner lock provides positive lock up, mine passed spin hack test numerous times. Locking liner has limited access, unintended unlocking is hard to imagine. On the other hand intended unlocking is very easy and comfortable. Thumb stud is ambidextrous, you can also move pocket clip to the handle's opposite side for left hand carry.
Thus, is it a good knife? By all means if you want to use it as self-defense tool and your favorite defensive techniques is fast straight stabbing.
Pentagon Elite can serve you as well if you are intending it for letter opening, pack stripe or seat belt cutting and another kind of shallow cuts.
But if you want to make deep precise cuts like bread or meat slicking - choose another knife with wider blade and thinner edge. For precise wood whittling choose another knife also.
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Sergiusz Mitin
gunwriter
Lodz, Poland
[This message has been edited by Sergiusz Mitin (edited 04-03-2000).]
The problem is I have not found any local stores that carry it, so I've been unable to actually handle one yet.
