TOPS M1 Midget

Joined
Oct 26, 2001
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1,438
Just before Christmas vacation I received the M1 Midget and Xcest I had ordered from TOPS several weeks earlier. MistWalker has already said about all that needs to be said, IMO about the XCest, so I'll only add that I agree with most everything he said. Great little survival kit. The M1 Midget is another small knife with big performance. I attached a small Pulsar II LED to the sheath so now I have a knife and light combination which is great. The knife itself has a blade which is 3.5 inches in length, with rough serrations on the upper edge. Though short, the blade is incredibly wide.

One of my chores over the holidays was to help mom remove some trees from her new property in New England. My brother would round out the trees with a chainsaw, while I went ahead of him and felled them with an axe. I used the M1 Midget to limb out several oaks and it did an amazing job. Cut through 1" diameter oak limbs in about 15 strokes/90 seconds. After this test it still had enough of an edge to shave slices off the Christmas ham. I took several small (1/2" diameter) scrub pines down with the knife as well.

When it came time to reduce the entire ham to slices the knife really shined, slicing cleanly through bone at times. It worked equally well on bread. After all this use I gave the knife a quick pass on the Spyderco sharpmaker and it was hair popping sharp again. The handle too, though at first glance slightly short, is in point of fact, extremely comfortable.

My only real complaint about this knife is that I cannot for the life of me figure out what the serrations on the top of it are for. They are not sharp enough to cut plastic and make a poor wood saw. They are likewise ill designed for use on fabric. I suspect that they are designed as a bone saw or perhaps for cutting through the aluminum of an aircraft's skin. Otherwise, this is an excellent, small survival knife.

http://www.topsknives.com/popup_image.php?pID=337&image=0

Note: I am not a sales representative or in any way associated with TOPS, Inc. However, I do not have any photos of the knife hereby reviewed so the link above will take you to a popup with several photos of it.

Lagarto
 
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Very well done; thank you for taking the time to review the M1 Midget. It appears to be a winner.

Do you think the serrations on top might be for cutting rope ?

- regards
 
Gramps,

The serrations could be used for rope, but I've tried them and they're not great, at least not against braided nylon. My current working hypothesis is still that they're a bone saw.
 
They'd be great for sparking a ferro rod. Good for shaving tinder and fuzz sticks too, probably.
 
There is a description for using the serrations on the relentless knives website (relentlessknives.com - not sure if a hyperlink to Dan Certo's website is allowed, so just enter the address in yourselves) - that's where the M1 Midget originates from, although my favorite Certo model is the M1 A.C.E. (not that I own one, I just like the design).

The site mentions that this style of serrations is designed primarily for cutting through sheet metal (yes, aircraft-body) without major damage, but it can also be used to scrape-cut (rather than saw) softer materials like wood and wire-sheathing. For saw-cutting, you'd want a longer blade like the M1 A.C.E.

So there you go. Relentless knives by Dan Certo, for those who didn't know it. I hope that's useful info...
 
Hi everyone,
Great description of the Tops Midget! I have the honor of testing Dan's knives and you can read my reviews on his website. I have always liked the Midget model due to the amount of blade you get in a nice compact package. As for the serrations...I actually did an entire report on Dan's serrations because I was having the same questions mentioned in this report. Dan finally explained to me that their original purpose was for a scraping type weapon against an attacker. Think about it...if you scraped those serrations against a bad guy's eyeball...they would feel it! So their original purpose was for offense capabilities...but I was able to find some other uses for them. To really cut with them...use a "scraping" technique like I describe in the report. If I had to cut 550 cord or cut insulation off of wire....I would scrape the knife along the cord/wire/ etc. towards me while applying pressure and the rope/wire would cut with no problem. So not really sawing...more scrapping along individual serrations. I hope this helps! And enjoy the knife!
Redleg 72...aka Ian.
 
Thanks for the enlightenment Redlegs 72. I really enjoy this knife, more so now that I understand everything on it is functional. And yes, scraping someone's eyeballs with that would get their attention. Plus they just look wicked.

Lagarto.
 
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