The tactical knife trend reminds me of the vehicle trend. Time was when pick-up trucks were low enough to reach the center of the bed from the side without the use of a step-ladder. Now the damn bed rails are neck-high. I get it if you need to haul two pallets of bricks or tow a horse trailer, but I know people who own the things and only use them to pick-up groceries and drive to the office they work in. Tactical knives are the same way for me. A Randall Model 1 used to be tactical, now in order to be tactical the knife has to be two feet long, have a skull-crusher pommel, sharpened guard extensions, and serrated teeth on the spine that look like shark-fins. I see them up for sale all the time on crudlist and I think "who the hell buys these things and what use do these blades ever see?"
Yeah, it's America and if you want a huge truck and a huge knife just to have them, I'm behind your right to buy what you want and like. But it does bewilder me that so much money is spent on items that will probably never be used for their intended purpose, and which will never excel at the purposes most will use them for.
I don't mean to offend anyone who likes, owns, or makes these knives. I just prefer more useful blades. Although I have never, and hope to never, need a knife for a tactical use, I suspect that there better choices out there than some of the blades that look like props from a B-grade 70's sci-fi movie. I think the knife, in the various forms it takes for the various purposes it serves, reached a pinnacle in the evolution process a few centuries ago (for fixed blades at least). Most of the modernizing the tactical thingies employ to look mean only serve, in my narrow-minded medieval opinion, to screw with perfection. I've always thought a knife is most beautiful, most useful, and most durable when it is simple, uncomplicated and highly practical. I'd love to see some reviews of these knives used for something other than imaginary zombie killing, or hypothetical special-ops missions.
