Good morning all,
Cliff: I whacked the hell out of the closed karambit on my workbench in the garage. It left major dents in the hardwood and showed no signs of harming the ring at all. I initially went easy as I did not know if the ring might really crunch the pinky finger, but figured out right away that if you keep your thumb on the top of the knife with pressure, you can "squeeze" the closed karambit between the thumb and pinky and during the smashing on the bench felt no pain at all. The pinky being kept from slamming into the ring upon impacts by using the opposing pressure between the pinky and thumb also keeps the pinky finger knuckles/joints away from the object being smashed.
There are a couple of photos on the recent review which show the way I held it during the workbench trials. I really believe if used this way I could crack a skull, break bones in ones hand/wrist, ribs would be suseptable to damage, even soft targets like the neck would be prone to causing great discomfort and certainly cause some major trauma to forearms if it connected with authority. I did not suffer any trauma to the pinky on the workbench but it is reliant on the thumb/pinky opposing forces holding the knife secure in the hand so it doesn't move while doing this drill/test/.
Cuts/slashes into the cardboard hung from a rafter in the garage showed the blade tip enters as a stab and the curve of the knife then follows it through, ripping out with considerable ease.
I envisioned the following while playing with this after seeing the tip penetrate the way it did on slashes: If you were to slash into a torso, the tip would stab into the target and at least half the blade length would follow into the target as it arched in that motion. If you continued to pull the blade through and finish the slash it would liklely leave a wound one inch or better deep and the tip would continue on leading the slash until you retracted it from the body. The question that popped into my head was " How big a zipper would you like to have?"
A good point on the clothing. It may bind if enough force were not applied, then again, if you set the tip into the target it would have to rip itself out somehow and in so doing, create a hell of a wound channel. I see this blade as an initial stabber during a slashing motion. In the slash movement, you can set the tip into the target first or use the curvature of the blade to slice with the tip following it.
I would likely attempt to catch the tip and lead it into the target. Very nasty wounds will be created thusly and it is how I see it used effectively.
The CQD review will be up in a few months Cliff. Initial impression is that it is a too large to carry clipped to the pocket for civilians in most instances, it is probably better served on the streets in the carry sheaths that come from the factory. I did have Mike Sastre make a duty belt kydex sheath for one a friend owns. That rig setup is the cats meow and if I were to carry this knife it would be with the same rig Mike made for the buddy of mine.
Hotrod: Glad you liked the review of the karambit. I have polished the blades sides with flitz, tried some fp-10 on it as well. It has smoothed out nicely but it will still not "pop" open as I wish.
I have an apprentice coming this week as well and hope that model may be a little easier to open. We'll see.
Brownie
