- Joined
- Dec 3, 2000
- Messages
- 2,999
About a week ago I was driving along in my car reminiscing about knives I shouldn't have let go of and recalled a Lightfoot Mini Pitbull I'd picked up at the Alaska knife show about this time last summer and how when I'd asked Mr. Lightfoot a little about it he'd basically stated that he wanted to make a knife that could be afforded by the more common individual. I remember at the time thinking that even at the bargain price of $150 I didn't know many "common individual" non-knife enthusiast types who would be willing to pay that much for a small fixed blade. But still liked the idea.
Shifting back to the present I got to thinking "now if that were put into a production knife, that would knock the price down to $50 or so I betcha..damn that would be a must have!"
Well...it seems my wish has been granted. While browsing around my friend Ray's knife shop (http://www.nothernknives.com) and discussing smaller fixed blades he non-chalantly mentioned "oh hey, I just got these in" and showed me the Timberline/Lightfoot Mini-Pitbull. I think I probably started jumping up and down, salivating and babbling incoherently, but the content of my uttered noise boiled down to "GIMME!! GIMME! GIMME!!"
So, a minute and $34.00 later, I was the proud new owner of the forementioned knife.
if your not familliar with the mini pitbull you can view Mr. Lightfoots here: http://www.lightfootknives.com/hoghunt.html
In short this one is the exact same with three exceptions:
First one is that the knife is a plain blead blasted kinda silver, not black or green coated.
Second is that the handles aren't G-10 but the zytel material that looks like G-10 at first glance. (ala CRKT)
Thirdly is the knife isn't Kydex, but plastic. If you've seen the sheathes for the CRKT Carson F-4 or the CRKT Ryan Plan B, you've seen the sheath for this one. black plastic with a black break away chain and the plastic removable boot clip. I don't remember the exact quote, so I'm paraphrasing here, But I once read an article where Jeff Cooper referred to a product as basically being "a wonderful concept that was erroneously executed" and in my perception that pretty much describes these sheaths. For me the plastic boot clip is just too loose and slippery, and it doesn't stay clipped to anything except the same broad leather belt that a Tek Lock does even better on. So, with the help of an 18 volt Dewalt, a spare Tek Lock and a Swiss Army knife I soon had the icky boot clip thingy completely removed, and a Tek Lock in it's place (I know I'm probably spelling that word, sorry!)
Now, the sheath is quite acceptable. I have the handy dandy Tek-Lock on there and the chain and am now able to carry it in my favorite horizontal position in front. The retention of the sheath is excellent.
As for the knife itself, It's available in either a plain edge or semi-serrated configuration. I got the plain edge, my wife got the semi-serrated. Personally while I'm loving the plain edge, I am distinctly UNimpressed with the semi-serrated model.
The semi-serrated has about an inch and a half of very smooth serrations and the plain edge part is a chisel grind. As for my thinking I do not like the chisel grind part, and if I'm gonna have serrations on a knife, I want them to be deep and toothy, not smooth. My wifes has the partial serrations. Pretty much a matter of taste I guess. I have yet to file for a divorce over this difference in opinion.
As fcr the blade material, I'm sorry to say the best info I can give is "purty darn good" If I had to take a guess I'd say it's AUS 6 or AUS 8, but I have no clue, all I do know is I picked the knife up Friday and have "tested" it used it, and resharpened it and it seemed to hold an edge for a pretty reasonable amount of time, and more importantly to me I was able to bring it back to "hair popping sharp" with about two minutes on my Sharpmaker. Incidentally it was shaving sharp out of the box as well, but not the kind of sharpness where the armhairs leap off in fear an inch before the blade reaches them.
As for the testing itself, I wasn't sure how to go about testing a knife for my first review here.
I Thought about booking a three month trip a few hundred miles into a distant third world country for awhile, but...my employer didn't wanna give me the funding or the time off work, and...and..I'm just getting over the flu, and my immune system isn't up to battling strange uncommon diseases, and last of all it took me awhile to remember that I'm ABSOFRIGGINLUTELY TERRIFIED OF SNAKES!!! Mr. Randall can be completely assured that I will NOT be vying for his job. Ever.
I also considered the ever practical test of "pound the knife into asphalt and run over it with a compactor a couple times" test, but...I no longer work in construction I didn't have access to a compactor, so that idea was out too. Too bad, you never know when you could get in a knife fight with a terrorist driving heavy equipment.
So, in short I've carried the knife around and cut every thing I could possibly find that I could really want to cut in my normal, routine, and yes... even boring daily life. here's a list of materials that have been severed by this lovely gem of a cutting utensil.
six pairs of old jeans and three T-shirts that became shop rags
about three foot of nylon rope that I cut into small pieces just for fun.
six marshmallow roasting sticks I whittled out of some willow branches
a trigger for a "rabbit box" style trap devised to catch the neighbors cat that keeps digging in my garbage (I was half tempted to use a wolf trap)
used it to penetrate the side of a can of spray on bug dope that had lost it's pressure and still had half a can of repellent in it (that stuffs gold at this time of year here)
Dug out two old stripped screws and a horse shoe nail from the deck I'm ripping up
three zip ties under the dash of my truck
two pairs of my sons shoe laces
lots of arm hair
and an immaculate job of cleaning my nails, and trimming my cuticles.
one double cheese pepperoni pizza, one Hawaiian Calzone, and one Philly beef sandwich. (issued that horrible plastic cutlery at the restaurant)
It's gone about my day to day cutting without any problems, like I said edge retention was very reasonable, and it was quite easy to resharpen at the end of the day.
The small handle fit my extra large forepaw particularly well I would prefer the G-10 handle of course, but if I had that I wouldn't have gotten the knife for around $35 bucks, so I can hardly complain.
In summary I feel this knife is the very embodiment of what a neck knife/small fieed blade should be. It's small enough to be very handy and unobtrusive, yet large enough to handle about 95% of my normal cutting tasks. a total winner in it's price bracket, and since they're probably gonna be even cheaper on the net here than in the B&M shop I bought mine at it's a knife I'd highly recommend taking a long hard look at.
And last of all...take it easy on me..this is the first knife I'v reviewed here. Most other knives I get two years after they've been tested and reviewed to death, and by then there's not much I can do but add "me too!" posts...
Anyhoo, hope y'all have a good 'un!
Shifting back to the present I got to thinking "now if that were put into a production knife, that would knock the price down to $50 or so I betcha..damn that would be a must have!"
Well...it seems my wish has been granted. While browsing around my friend Ray's knife shop (http://www.nothernknives.com) and discussing smaller fixed blades he non-chalantly mentioned "oh hey, I just got these in" and showed me the Timberline/Lightfoot Mini-Pitbull. I think I probably started jumping up and down, salivating and babbling incoherently, but the content of my uttered noise boiled down to "GIMME!! GIMME! GIMME!!"
So, a minute and $34.00 later, I was the proud new owner of the forementioned knife.
if your not familliar with the mini pitbull you can view Mr. Lightfoots here: http://www.lightfootknives.com/hoghunt.html
In short this one is the exact same with three exceptions:
First one is that the knife is a plain blead blasted kinda silver, not black or green coated.
Second is that the handles aren't G-10 but the zytel material that looks like G-10 at first glance. (ala CRKT)
Thirdly is the knife isn't Kydex, but plastic. If you've seen the sheathes for the CRKT Carson F-4 or the CRKT Ryan Plan B, you've seen the sheath for this one. black plastic with a black break away chain and the plastic removable boot clip. I don't remember the exact quote, so I'm paraphrasing here, But I once read an article where Jeff Cooper referred to a product as basically being "a wonderful concept that was erroneously executed" and in my perception that pretty much describes these sheaths. For me the plastic boot clip is just too loose and slippery, and it doesn't stay clipped to anything except the same broad leather belt that a Tek Lock does even better on. So, with the help of an 18 volt Dewalt, a spare Tek Lock and a Swiss Army knife I soon had the icky boot clip thingy completely removed, and a Tek Lock in it's place (I know I'm probably spelling that word, sorry!)
Now, the sheath is quite acceptable. I have the handy dandy Tek-Lock on there and the chain and am now able to carry it in my favorite horizontal position in front. The retention of the sheath is excellent.
As for the knife itself, It's available in either a plain edge or semi-serrated configuration. I got the plain edge, my wife got the semi-serrated. Personally while I'm loving the plain edge, I am distinctly UNimpressed with the semi-serrated model.
The semi-serrated has about an inch and a half of very smooth serrations and the plain edge part is a chisel grind. As for my thinking I do not like the chisel grind part, and if I'm gonna have serrations on a knife, I want them to be deep and toothy, not smooth. My wifes has the partial serrations. Pretty much a matter of taste I guess. I have yet to file for a divorce over this difference in opinion.
As fcr the blade material, I'm sorry to say the best info I can give is "purty darn good" If I had to take a guess I'd say it's AUS 6 or AUS 8, but I have no clue, all I do know is I picked the knife up Friday and have "tested" it used it, and resharpened it and it seemed to hold an edge for a pretty reasonable amount of time, and more importantly to me I was able to bring it back to "hair popping sharp" with about two minutes on my Sharpmaker. Incidentally it was shaving sharp out of the box as well, but not the kind of sharpness where the armhairs leap off in fear an inch before the blade reaches them.
As for the testing itself, I wasn't sure how to go about testing a knife for my first review here.
I Thought about booking a three month trip a few hundred miles into a distant third world country for awhile, but...my employer didn't wanna give me the funding or the time off work, and...and..I'm just getting over the flu, and my immune system isn't up to battling strange uncommon diseases, and last of all it took me awhile to remember that I'm ABSOFRIGGINLUTELY TERRIFIED OF SNAKES!!! Mr. Randall can be completely assured that I will NOT be vying for his job. Ever.
I also considered the ever practical test of "pound the knife into asphalt and run over it with a compactor a couple times" test, but...I no longer work in construction I didn't have access to a compactor, so that idea was out too. Too bad, you never know when you could get in a knife fight with a terrorist driving heavy equipment.
So, in short I've carried the knife around and cut every thing I could possibly find that I could really want to cut in my normal, routine, and yes... even boring daily life. here's a list of materials that have been severed by this lovely gem of a cutting utensil.
six pairs of old jeans and three T-shirts that became shop rags
about three foot of nylon rope that I cut into small pieces just for fun.
six marshmallow roasting sticks I whittled out of some willow branches
a trigger for a "rabbit box" style trap devised to catch the neighbors cat that keeps digging in my garbage (I was half tempted to use a wolf trap)
used it to penetrate the side of a can of spray on bug dope that had lost it's pressure and still had half a can of repellent in it (that stuffs gold at this time of year here)
Dug out two old stripped screws and a horse shoe nail from the deck I'm ripping up
three zip ties under the dash of my truck
two pairs of my sons shoe laces
lots of arm hair
and an immaculate job of cleaning my nails, and trimming my cuticles.
one double cheese pepperoni pizza, one Hawaiian Calzone, and one Philly beef sandwich. (issued that horrible plastic cutlery at the restaurant)
It's gone about my day to day cutting without any problems, like I said edge retention was very reasonable, and it was quite easy to resharpen at the end of the day.
The small handle fit my extra large forepaw particularly well I would prefer the G-10 handle of course, but if I had that I wouldn't have gotten the knife for around $35 bucks, so I can hardly complain.
In summary I feel this knife is the very embodiment of what a neck knife/small fieed blade should be. It's small enough to be very handy and unobtrusive, yet large enough to handle about 95% of my normal cutting tasks. a total winner in it's price bracket, and since they're probably gonna be even cheaper on the net here than in the B&M shop I bought mine at it's a knife I'd highly recommend taking a long hard look at.
And last of all...take it easy on me..this is the first knife I'v reviewed here. Most other knives I get two years after they've been tested and reviewed to death, and by then there's not much I can do but add "me too!" posts...
Anyhoo, hope y'all have a good 'un!
