- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Messages
- 437
I recently got one of these. My main thing for small fixed blades is to use them sometimes as replacements for folders. I finally got a chance today to try this one out and compare it to a couple of others.
The knife in question:
For size comparison, here it is next to a Schrade copy of the Buck 110:
The blade is 3/16" 1095. Im not real sure what the coating is on the blade, but if you remember the old Becker Companion (the original, not the modern Camillus version) it had some type of grey paint, the TOPS seems very similar. Overall its not a bad looking little knife, and the blue g10 handles with red liners looks pretty good on it. I do however despise the "BAGHDAD BULLET" banner on the blade. To me, it cheapens the look, like the old Explorer brand knives that always had to proclaim "Special Forces" in great big letters on their knives. The knife is stuck with it though as it is actually fairly deeply engraved in the blade :barf:
The sheath is pretty basic kydex, nothing special, but well done and holds the knife quite securely but is still easy to remove the knife. Its an easy package to slip in the front pocket of a pair of jeans and forget about it.
My son (15) and I took it, a Victorinox Soldier and his Benchmade mini-grip and got to work. The first thing was slicing strips of cardboard about 18" long and roughly 3/16" thick. Each knife started out easily shaving sharp. The Soldier sliced through the cardboard like hot butter. It did lose its shaving edge after only about 3 slices, but due to its thin grind and edge bevels it continued to slice through 20 slices with very little effort. The next 20 slices were with the mini-grip. It required just a tad more effort than the Soldier, and lost its shaving edge around the 10 slice mark. It continued to cut well until about half-way through the 18th slice where the cardboard started to bunch-up ahead of the edge. The TOPS aint much of a slicer. Its a 3/16" blade with a short grind and thick edge. ALthough it still shaved after laboring through 20 slices, from slice 1 the cardboard was bunching up.
Next was shaving sticks, like you do when you're bored and want to shave the bark off and put points on the ends. The Soldier as usual did this with no problem, even as it slowly loses its edge, the thin edge still keeps it useful. The mini-grip made short work of the sticks, aside from it having lost its shaving edge on the cardboard the edge seemed to remain constant after about 20 minutes on the sticks. The TOPS is just to thick for it. You can either scrape of very thin layers of the stick (like a paint scraper), or if you apply enough effort to bite in and take off a decent amount, it tends to sail right through breaking the stick, no inbetween.
Just for kicks I though I would stab it into a tree to see how far it would go. I dont know anything about trees so I cant tell you what kind, but its ugly and going to come down this fall. A full power stab (holding the knife like an ice-pick drove it in about a half-inch. Seems to be pretty hard wood. I tried with the mini-grip as well, I did not use near as much force (axis lock or not, I dont trust folders for that) and with its thin tip it went nearly a half-inch as well.
To test the finish on the blade, I stabbed it 5 times into an old 55 gallong barrel that has been out back seemingly since the dawn of time. The point and edge survived ok, although not shaving sharp anymore. The finish on the spine came off though near the tip. It did not actually damage the blade, but the thick finish coming off how it did kind of left a ragged look. Afterwards I washed the gunk off the blade so it is easier to see the damage to the finish.
Its to small to be a chopper, to thick to be a cutter, im sure one of these days I will find something its useful for
I do like the knife, it just has a beefy feel and I doubt anything I could do would break it, its just kind of one of those knives that im going to have a hard time finding what its really good at.
Im not much of a review writer, but enjoy it anyways.
The knife in question:
For size comparison, here it is next to a Schrade copy of the Buck 110:
The blade is 3/16" 1095. Im not real sure what the coating is on the blade, but if you remember the old Becker Companion (the original, not the modern Camillus version) it had some type of grey paint, the TOPS seems very similar. Overall its not a bad looking little knife, and the blue g10 handles with red liners looks pretty good on it. I do however despise the "BAGHDAD BULLET" banner on the blade. To me, it cheapens the look, like the old Explorer brand knives that always had to proclaim "Special Forces" in great big letters on their knives. The knife is stuck with it though as it is actually fairly deeply engraved in the blade :barf:
The sheath is pretty basic kydex, nothing special, but well done and holds the knife quite securely but is still easy to remove the knife. Its an easy package to slip in the front pocket of a pair of jeans and forget about it.
My son (15) and I took it, a Victorinox Soldier and his Benchmade mini-grip and got to work. The first thing was slicing strips of cardboard about 18" long and roughly 3/16" thick. Each knife started out easily shaving sharp. The Soldier sliced through the cardboard like hot butter. It did lose its shaving edge after only about 3 slices, but due to its thin grind and edge bevels it continued to slice through 20 slices with very little effort. The next 20 slices were with the mini-grip. It required just a tad more effort than the Soldier, and lost its shaving edge around the 10 slice mark. It continued to cut well until about half-way through the 18th slice where the cardboard started to bunch-up ahead of the edge. The TOPS aint much of a slicer. Its a 3/16" blade with a short grind and thick edge. ALthough it still shaved after laboring through 20 slices, from slice 1 the cardboard was bunching up.
Next was shaving sticks, like you do when you're bored and want to shave the bark off and put points on the ends. The Soldier as usual did this with no problem, even as it slowly loses its edge, the thin edge still keeps it useful. The mini-grip made short work of the sticks, aside from it having lost its shaving edge on the cardboard the edge seemed to remain constant after about 20 minutes on the sticks. The TOPS is just to thick for it. You can either scrape of very thin layers of the stick (like a paint scraper), or if you apply enough effort to bite in and take off a decent amount, it tends to sail right through breaking the stick, no inbetween.
Just for kicks I though I would stab it into a tree to see how far it would go. I dont know anything about trees so I cant tell you what kind, but its ugly and going to come down this fall. A full power stab (holding the knife like an ice-pick drove it in about a half-inch. Seems to be pretty hard wood. I tried with the mini-grip as well, I did not use near as much force (axis lock or not, I dont trust folders for that) and with its thin tip it went nearly a half-inch as well.
To test the finish on the blade, I stabbed it 5 times into an old 55 gallong barrel that has been out back seemingly since the dawn of time. The point and edge survived ok, although not shaving sharp anymore. The finish on the spine came off though near the tip. It did not actually damage the blade, but the thick finish coming off how it did kind of left a ragged look. Afterwards I washed the gunk off the blade so it is easier to see the damage to the finish.
Its to small to be a chopper, to thick to be a cutter, im sure one of these days I will find something its useful for
I do like the knife, it just has a beefy feel and I doubt anything I could do would break it, its just kind of one of those knives that im going to have a hard time finding what its really good at.Im not much of a review writer, but enjoy it anyways.