Nazarian

The Spyderco Military
is a Tactical Military folding blade. It was designed with the American combat soldier in mind. It is lightweight and super sturdy with the finest of materials. The Military combat knife is made in the USA.

History
the Military Model came about after someone asked Spyderco`s owner Sal Glesser, "If your son were going into the military what folding knife would you send him with?" For certain, it had to meet the requirements of a high-performance, light-weight folder designed for hard use.

General Dimensions and Blade Details
The Spyderco Military has an overall length of 9.5″, a 4″ blade, weighs 4.2 ounces, and is made in the USA. It`s a large knife, but when you pick it up most will very surprised how light it feels. The knife is extremely light for it size, making it practical for both a hard working tool and as a dedicated self defense knife.

The blade on the Military is a modified drop point design. Spyderco started with 1/8″ blade stock, added a nice full belly, and applied a full flat grind. This is quintessential Spyderco blade, simple, elegant and entirely effective. There is no swedge or recurve – just a simple and utilitarian cutting surface. The tip is unreinforced, and is somewhat delicate if you aren`t careful with it, but the blade is overall very well balanced and good at a variety of cutting tasks.

Spyderco selected CPM-S30V stainless steel for the blade. S30V is excellent stuff. It`s best known for holding a great edge, but it`s also fairly easy to sharpen and very corrosion resistant. For a combat knife S30V is a good choice here, provided that you are willing to occasionally sharpen and maintain the edge.

Handle, Ergonomics and Pocket Clip
The Spyderco Military features a large handle, designed for serious use. As far as construction is concerned, Spyderco started out with large pieces of G10 and added nested partial steel liners. This provides a lot of strength and rigidity but is also what keeps this knife at an amazing 4.2 ounces. The steel liners are screwed into an aluminum backspacer. Everything can be taken apart and is extremely easy to clean. This is a simple and very effective handle design.

When discussing the ergonomics of the Military, the first thing to mention is how large this handle actually is. You can almost get a 2 hand grip on it – and you may wear large gloves. This gives you plenty of room for forward or reverse grips with or without gloves. The G10 provides plenty of traction and Spyderco has done a great job of jimping the thumb ramp and choil. This is very aggressive jimping and it works very well. There is also a small choil so you can choke up on the blade. It allows the Military to flex between a defensive (or offensive) tool, and a straight up utility knife. The ergonomics on the Military are outstanding.

The clip is a simple affair, it`s been blackened and is made of tempered steel. One of the biggest complaints peole have with this knife is that the clip is tip down right side carry only. Most people prefer tip up. However, there are no steel liners near the butt of the handle, so there really is no place to add a clip unless you want to significantly increase the weight by adding a larger liner. For people wanting left side carry, Spyderco has a separate left-hand version of the Military.

All in all, the clip is good. It rides decently low, it`s discrete and has good retention. Tip up carry would be nice but it`s not feasible given the overall design.

Deployment and Lockup
The Spyderco Military, utilizes an oversize thumb hole (or a “Spyder hole”) for deployment. Deployment on my knife is pretty fast. The thumb hole is a generous 14mm in diameter, which allows for easy access with bare hands or gloves. I can flick the blade out on my new Military, but it takes a little more force. With time the knife and it`s high quality phosphor bronze washers will break in, and deployment will only get smoother and easier.

After deployment the blade is locked in place with a thick steel liner lock. When the lock engages its sounds sorta like someone stepped into a bear trap – it makes a very crisp and satisfying “SNAP” when it locks in place. Lockup is very secure. There is no blade play at all. The partial liners are bolted together through the aluminum backspacer – this is just a rock solid design and again, the fact that this knife only weighs 4.2 ounces. To have such a big knife with such a strong lock with this weight puts the Military in a class of its own.

Spyderco Military - Workhorse EDC Knife!