Spyderco Para-Military
Spyderco Para-Military
Here’s one that should be a classic one day and it really is a winner, except for one major flaw that shouldn’t even be there. What is it? Well, read on and find out, pilgrim!
Spyderco should be a name familiar to anyone who’s ever owned more than one blade. The first so-called ‘tactical’ knife I ever owned was a Spyderco.
(Just a quick aside on this ‘tactical’ business. It’s a term that’s become almost meaningless in the knife (and gun) world and I suspect most military people who might actually really need a tactical knife probably find it pretty funny the way the term is bandied about by every knife-maker under the sun these days. In any event, as I understand it, a tactical blade is one that adheres strictly to the ‘form follows function’ tenet. In other words, there is nothing extra on it that might be construed as design for design sake. People also like to call it a tactical blade if it has some form of coating on the blade to prevent the reflection of light off the steel. However, a blade that doesn’t have a matte black coating or a bead-blasted finish can still be a tactical blade. I know, it's as clear as mud. Basically, I suspect that It is really just another way for people to make money from wannabe martial artists out there who want to carry a blade that looks real scary and mean but don’t want to actually go through the schlep of learning the martial arts. Hey, that’s cool, man. Whatever slices your apple. At the end of the day, a well-made knife, with properly tempered steel, will still slice the bejesus out of someone if it’s used properly, whether it’s ‘tactical’ or not.)
In any event, the Spyderco company were pioneers in this area, particularly with regards to the one-handed opening device which has become their trademark (I’m talking about the Spyder hole of course). One particularly memorable example of this is a scary-looking blade of theirs called the Civilian, which is actually a misnomer, being as the Civilian was originally intended for a certain law enforcement agency who specialised in undercover work (I believe it was the DEA but I might be wrong) and who therefore couldn’t carry firearms but still wanted a weapon that could do the business if necessary but also had a very low profile when carried. The Civilian is certainly that and is obviously a blade designed for one purpose only. Not something that could be misconstrued as a little old pocket knife for whittling the odd stick by any means. Spyderco weren’t the only pioneers of self-defence edged weapons. The Benchmade crew were also there from the get-go with their balisongs and blades like the Leopard from Pat Crawford and the AFCK, but this review concerns Spyderco, sooo….
Where were we? Oh yeah, tactical blades. In this department I would say that Spyderco have the Big Three, being the Civilian, the Police and the Military (I don’t know about the Chinook, but maybe it should in there as well, so OK, the Big Four). Now, the Military was a real eye-opener for a lot of people interested in hard use knives. For those not familiar with it, this is a big ol’ blade, with a lot of handle and a real nice blade with a very practical and aggressive cutting edge. I was one of the first converts and ordered mine hot off the factory floor. Unfortunately, Sal and the boys released the thing a little prematurely and hadn’t ironed out one or two little issues when I got mine. They weren’t major problems, but for a demanding fellow like myself, they were enough to see me give the Military I bought the old heave-ho after a month or two. Now of course I wished I’d kept it because its probably worth quite a bit on the old e-bay collector’s market but hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
In any event, Spyderco kept improving their Military and the latest version features an improved liner lock, stainless steel screws and the awesome cutting abilities of S30V steel.
Which bring us to the subject at hand, the Military’s little brother, the Para-Military. This knife was introduced by Spyderco back in 2004 after several requests for a smaller version of the Military that didn’t sacrifice cutting power. Clearly there are plenty of people out there that enjoy the design of the Military but don’t feel the need to tote such a big blade every day. So Sal did his homework and produced the Para-Military, and a very nice little blade it is too.
The Para-Military resembles the Military in every way, except in a smaller package. The handle is exactly 12 cms long, which amounts to 4,7 inches. The cutting edge of the blade is 7,5cm, which comes to 2,95 inches.
However, there are two significant differences. The first is that it employs a compression lock, as opposed to the spring leaf, or liner lock, that you find on the Military. Now this is the first encounter that I have had with the compression lock and I was a bit nervous about it. To no avail, as it turned out, as the lock has performed well and there are no complaints in that department. Certainly though, I haven’t bashed the crap out of it to test its strength (this is my personal knife after all) but in the kind of tasks it has been expected to perform (cutting twine, rope, cardboard, plastic, sandwiches, etc) it has performed admirably. I doubt it would fail unless it was seriously abused, and I really believe that if you expect to put a knife under that kind of strain, you’d be better off with a fixed blade anyway.
The other major difference is the serration of the blade. It is markedly more ‘aggressive’than the Military. In other words the serrations are deeper and more pronounced than on its bigger brother. This may have been done in order to make up for the reduced cutting edge but I’m not entirely certain about that. Suffice to say that it is a ‘mean-ass’ serration and it cuts like a sonofabitch out of the box.
I ordered mine from the good people at KnifeWorks and after I’d played with it for a while I tested it on the box that the merchandise was shipped in. It made short work of the fairly substantial cardboard and I didn’t sharpen it for some time after that. (In fact, I ended up having to order a Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker from KnifeWorks so that I could sharpen it but that’s another story).
The Para is almost the perfect fit in my hand and for this reason it has become my every day carry knife. Once I had overcome the problem of keeping the blade sharp (and the Tri-Angle Sharpmaker does that perfectly) it quickly became one of my favourite blades. Not only does it fit my hand well but it’s incredibly light (108 grams or 3.75 oz, according to the Spyderco website). And anyone who carries a blade on a daily basis will tell you that this is a major factor when deciding which blade you will be slipping into your pocket.
Apart from that, it just looks great, it’s got a lovely balance and the little Spyderco logo on the blade just to the left of the Spyder hole is totally cool. A word on that Spyder hole – it’s still on the large side, as was the original hole for the Military. This was in order to allow for easy manipulation when wearing gloves. No, not gardening gloves, the black, flame-retardant kind that practioners of the black arts tend to favour. This is, after all, a ‘tactical’ blade.
So you’re probably thinking that I kind of dig my Para. Well, yes, I do. It gets carried more than any of my other knives, including some very fancy custom folders by the likes of Greg Lightfoot and Brian Tighe costing four times as much. I know you’re sensing a ‘but’ in there and unfortunately there is one. More upsettingly though, is that it could have been so easily corrected by Sal and co, and I sincerely hope that this little correspondence of mine goes some way towards helping to ensure that this problem does not re-occur in the future. The problem lies not with the knife, however, but with the clip. Yup, that little-heralded but oh-so important item which can either make or break a good blade.
What’s the big deal, you ask? Surely a clip is a clip is a clip. Well, no. I have about seven folders and each one has a different clip design on it, ranging from highly successful to dismal. Unfortunately the Spyderco one is right near the bottom. The best is probably by Emerson, followed by Cold Steel, then Allen Elishewitz, Brian Tighe, Greg Lightfoot (although I think he’s changed his, based on the most recent pics I’ve seen), Benchmade (although mine – the Leopard - is an early BM, around eight to ten years old) and finally Spyderco.
The problem is the edges are too damn sharp on the thing. I brushed up against a colleague’s car shortly after getting the knife and the thing scraped the hell out of the door. She wasn’t impressed, let me tell you. It’s just uncomfortable to hold, not impressive to look at and sure as hell out of place on a knife that Sal and Co recommend should retail at around $180 (not that I paid that much, but anyway). The black coating on the clip works well and is a good thing for a low profile carry blade but the clip itself feels like a liitle mini-blade attached to the back of the knife. No, Sal... no, no, no, no! The number one criteria of a hand tool is that it should be free of sharp edges (well, not entirely free in this case, but you get my drift). This is something the gun community learnt very early on and you’d think the information would have filtered on down to the folks at Spyderco, whom I feel fairly certain are strong supporters of the 2nd Amendment. Apparently not, though.
Despite that, I like the Para-Military so much I’m actually going to pick up the full size Military at some point, and it will be the knife I plan to tote on most weekends. I’m really hoping that they will have taken care of this clip story by then. If not, you can rest assured I will take this up with Sal himself. There really is no reason for a sub-standard clip to bring down a really cool knife like the Para-Military.
For this reason alone, it has to get a 4/5. Sorry, Sal, but there really is no excuse.
Here’s one that should be a classic one day and it really is a winner, except for one major flaw that shouldn’t even be there. What is it? Well, read on and find out, pilgrim!
Spyderco should be a name familiar to anyone who’s ever owned more than one blade. The first so-called ‘tactical’ knife I ever owned was a Spyderco.
(Just a quick aside on this ‘tactical’ business. It’s a term that’s become almost meaningless in the knife (and gun) world and I suspect most military people who might actually really need a tactical knife probably find it pretty funny the way the term is bandied about by every knife-maker under the sun these days. In any event, as I understand it, a tactical blade is one that adheres strictly to the ‘form follows function’ tenet. In other words, there is nothing extra on it that might be construed as design for design sake. People also like to call it a tactical blade if it has some form of coating on the blade to prevent the reflection of light off the steel. However, a blade that doesn’t have a matte black coating or a bead-blasted finish can still be a tactical blade. I know, it's as clear as mud. Basically, I suspect that It is really just another way for people to make money from wannabe martial artists out there who want to carry a blade that looks real scary and mean but don’t want to actually go through the schlep of learning the martial arts. Hey, that’s cool, man. Whatever slices your apple. At the end of the day, a well-made knife, with properly tempered steel, will still slice the bejesus out of someone if it’s used properly, whether it’s ‘tactical’ or not.)
In any event, the Spyderco company were pioneers in this area, particularly with regards to the one-handed opening device which has become their trademark (I’m talking about the Spyder hole of course). One particularly memorable example of this is a scary-looking blade of theirs called the Civilian, which is actually a misnomer, being as the Civilian was originally intended for a certain law enforcement agency who specialised in undercover work (I believe it was the DEA but I might be wrong) and who therefore couldn’t carry firearms but still wanted a weapon that could do the business if necessary but also had a very low profile when carried. The Civilian is certainly that and is obviously a blade designed for one purpose only. Not something that could be misconstrued as a little old pocket knife for whittling the odd stick by any means. Spyderco weren’t the only pioneers of self-defence edged weapons. The Benchmade crew were also there from the get-go with their balisongs and blades like the Leopard from Pat Crawford and the AFCK, but this review concerns Spyderco, sooo….
Where were we? Oh yeah, tactical blades. In this department I would say that Spyderco have the Big Three, being the Civilian, the Police and the Military (I don’t know about the Chinook, but maybe it should in there as well, so OK, the Big Four). Now, the Military was a real eye-opener for a lot of people interested in hard use knives. For those not familiar with it, this is a big ol’ blade, with a lot of handle and a real nice blade with a very practical and aggressive cutting edge. I was one of the first converts and ordered mine hot off the factory floor. Unfortunately, Sal and the boys released the thing a little prematurely and hadn’t ironed out one or two little issues when I got mine. They weren’t major problems, but for a demanding fellow like myself, they were enough to see me give the Military I bought the old heave-ho after a month or two. Now of course I wished I’d kept it because its probably worth quite a bit on the old e-bay collector’s market but hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
In any event, Spyderco kept improving their Military and the latest version features an improved liner lock, stainless steel screws and the awesome cutting abilities of S30V steel.
Which bring us to the subject at hand, the Military’s little brother, the Para-Military. This knife was introduced by Spyderco back in 2004 after several requests for a smaller version of the Military that didn’t sacrifice cutting power. Clearly there are plenty of people out there that enjoy the design of the Military but don’t feel the need to tote such a big blade every day. So Sal did his homework and produced the Para-Military, and a very nice little blade it is too.
The Para-Military resembles the Military in every way, except in a smaller package. The handle is exactly 12 cms long, which amounts to 4,7 inches. The cutting edge of the blade is 7,5cm, which comes to 2,95 inches.
However, there are two significant differences. The first is that it employs a compression lock, as opposed to the spring leaf, or liner lock, that you find on the Military. Now this is the first encounter that I have had with the compression lock and I was a bit nervous about it. To no avail, as it turned out, as the lock has performed well and there are no complaints in that department. Certainly though, I haven’t bashed the crap out of it to test its strength (this is my personal knife after all) but in the kind of tasks it has been expected to perform (cutting twine, rope, cardboard, plastic, sandwiches, etc) it has performed admirably. I doubt it would fail unless it was seriously abused, and I really believe that if you expect to put a knife under that kind of strain, you’d be better off with a fixed blade anyway.
The other major difference is the serration of the blade. It is markedly more ‘aggressive’than the Military. In other words the serrations are deeper and more pronounced than on its bigger brother. This may have been done in order to make up for the reduced cutting edge but I’m not entirely certain about that. Suffice to say that it is a ‘mean-ass’ serration and it cuts like a sonofabitch out of the box.
I ordered mine from the good people at KnifeWorks and after I’d played with it for a while I tested it on the box that the merchandise was shipped in. It made short work of the fairly substantial cardboard and I didn’t sharpen it for some time after that. (In fact, I ended up having to order a Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker from KnifeWorks so that I could sharpen it but that’s another story).
The Para is almost the perfect fit in my hand and for this reason it has become my every day carry knife. Once I had overcome the problem of keeping the blade sharp (and the Tri-Angle Sharpmaker does that perfectly) it quickly became one of my favourite blades. Not only does it fit my hand well but it’s incredibly light (108 grams or 3.75 oz, according to the Spyderco website). And anyone who carries a blade on a daily basis will tell you that this is a major factor when deciding which blade you will be slipping into your pocket.
Apart from that, it just looks great, it’s got a lovely balance and the little Spyderco logo on the blade just to the left of the Spyder hole is totally cool. A word on that Spyder hole – it’s still on the large side, as was the original hole for the Military. This was in order to allow for easy manipulation when wearing gloves. No, not gardening gloves, the black, flame-retardant kind that practioners of the black arts tend to favour. This is, after all, a ‘tactical’ blade.
So you’re probably thinking that I kind of dig my Para. Well, yes, I do. It gets carried more than any of my other knives, including some very fancy custom folders by the likes of Greg Lightfoot and Brian Tighe costing four times as much. I know you’re sensing a ‘but’ in there and unfortunately there is one. More upsettingly though, is that it could have been so easily corrected by Sal and co, and I sincerely hope that this little correspondence of mine goes some way towards helping to ensure that this problem does not re-occur in the future. The problem lies not with the knife, however, but with the clip. Yup, that little-heralded but oh-so important item which can either make or break a good blade.
What’s the big deal, you ask? Surely a clip is a clip is a clip. Well, no. I have about seven folders and each one has a different clip design on it, ranging from highly successful to dismal. Unfortunately the Spyderco one is right near the bottom. The best is probably by Emerson, followed by Cold Steel, then Allen Elishewitz, Brian Tighe, Greg Lightfoot (although I think he’s changed his, based on the most recent pics I’ve seen), Benchmade (although mine – the Leopard - is an early BM, around eight to ten years old) and finally Spyderco.
The problem is the edges are too damn sharp on the thing. I brushed up against a colleague’s car shortly after getting the knife and the thing scraped the hell out of the door. She wasn’t impressed, let me tell you. It’s just uncomfortable to hold, not impressive to look at and sure as hell out of place on a knife that Sal and Co recommend should retail at around $180 (not that I paid that much, but anyway). The black coating on the clip works well and is a good thing for a low profile carry blade but the clip itself feels like a liitle mini-blade attached to the back of the knife. No, Sal... no, no, no, no! The number one criteria of a hand tool is that it should be free of sharp edges (well, not entirely free in this case, but you get my drift). This is something the gun community learnt very early on and you’d think the information would have filtered on down to the folks at Spyderco, whom I feel fairly certain are strong supporters of the 2nd Amendment. Apparently not, though.
Despite that, I like the Para-Military so much I’m actually going to pick up the full size Military at some point, and it will be the knife I plan to tote on most weekends. I’m really hoping that they will have taken care of this clip story by then. If not, you can rest assured I will take this up with Sal himself. There really is no reason for a sub-standard clip to bring down a really cool knife like the Para-Military.
For this reason alone, it has to get a 4/5. Sorry, Sal, but there really is no excuse.
posted by Mark Crozier at 11:12 AM
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