- Joined
- Oct 26, 2001
- Messages
- 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
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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