Good news grandma! With the new Zombie Knife from Browning, we can silently hack and slash our way through the horde of undead corpses shambling our way.
Put that away! That old hunting knife is only good on warm-flesh game animals and has no place in this apocalyptic nightmare. Why would you even think such a plain knife would be useful here?
Gaston (aka Gaston J. Glock Style LP) is now selling two knives that I find a bit odd. One is from tank barrels, while the second is from part of the Nazi war machine.
The Leopard Battle Tank knife is a fixed blade knife made from the steel of German tank barrels. These knives use parts of the barrels of the old Leopard 1 A3 battle tank, and add a maple root handle.
According to Gaston, the blades are made from “LEO-Damast” which they describe as a 320-layer Damascus steel. I’m not an expert on knives (perhaps Randall, M@ and others can chime in), but do tank barrels make for good blades? I hope so; retail price on this knife is $1390.
Another knife introduced by Gaston is the Battleship Tirpitz hunting knife. The blade on this knife is made of steel from the German World War II ship that was destroyed at great cost by the Allied forces.
Always on the lookout for new gear, I spent most of Sunday at the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits looking for the less known vendors and what they have to offer. One of the last booths I stopped by was for Mil-Tac Knives & Tools. Based out of Dallas, Texas Mil-Tac had two knives that caught my attention, and Neal Marx was gracious enough to walk me through their features.
MTF-4 Tanto
The first knife that jumped out at me was the MTF-4 Tanto folding knife. This knife comes with G10 handles, and N690 German stainless steel blade. Although the steel comes from overseas, the shaping, sharpening, and manufacture of the knife is all done in Dallas, with the remaining parts being made in the USA. That blade is also coated in ceramic to increase longevity, strength, and blade sharpness.
The MTF-4 has a really nice look to it, and its opening and closing movements are very smooth. In addition to a traditional locking bar in the middle of the handle that moves into position as the blade opens, the MTF-4 has a locking lever on the top right portion of the handle that will ensure that the blade cannot be accidentally closed.
At the SHOT Show 2012 Zero Tolerance Knives booth, we caught up with Jim McNair, who gave us a run down of the ZT 560/561 line. This is a new knife for 2012 with a 3.75″ stonewashed blade of Swedish ELMAX steel, which is a high chromium-vanadium steel with exceptional wear and corrosion resistance. The locking mechanism is a thick frame lock.
The left side scale is black (560) or brown (561) G-10 over a titanium liner, while the right side is titanium. Both the G-10 and Ti have what ZT calls 3-D machining for added grip. The titanium is relief cut on the blade sides to decrease weight. The overall knife comes in at 5.8 ounces.
Gerber released the LHR fixed blade knife designed for close quarter combat.
The blade on the LHR is just under 7 inches and is made of 420 high-grade carbon steel that has a partially serrated edge. Overall length is about 12.5″ so this is definitely not your simple pocket knife.
The LHR comes with a quick-release sheath that has a unique thumb-activated built-in safety release that can only release the knife by the wearer. The LHR also has a nicely textured TacHide handle that provides the user with a sure grip in wet weather conditions, or for those sweaty palm times.