John D.
from one of those states that begins and ends with a vowel.

Oct 05, 2011

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Handle Material, Blade Material, Overall Quality, Blade Sharpness

Cons: Pocket Clip

Worth the bucks

This is stout enough for just about anything a "pocket knife" can be expected to do. The pocket clip is useless, at least the one that came on this model, so it's gone now. I've seen a longer one that I might try to order. Blade is fine; finish is fine. One BIG plus here is that the knife (when held with your pinkie finger throught the hole) makes an impressive dulo-dulo/pocket stik/yawara! Just wrap your hand around it - rest your thumb flat on your index finger. and you're ready to pound the bad guys. As an aside - carry this badboy in you hand, not your pocket, if you're in the badlands. It fits well, feels good, and is ready to use as an impact weapon and, with a quick thumb flick, is ready to do far more serious stuff. Get one!

Kb

Feb 01, 2013

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Handle Material, Pocket Clip, Blade Material, Overall Quality, Blade Sharpness

Cons: None

Great for the money

I recently recieved mine. First off mine came the more expensive M-VX steel and while it has the red rings at the pivot but not the back spacer as advertised. I actually like it becuase it conceals better with the black backspacer/ring. Lock up is bank vault solid. No up or down or side to side blade play. Lock up was so strong until it broke it it was quite hard to manipulate and unlock. But now after a few days of breaking in I can flick the blade out just fine and fast. and locks up solid. Phonsphor Bronze washers were a surprise since I expected teflon at this price point. The blade and opening is smooth. And mine came razor sharp out of box. Tt has revearsible pocket clip that allows for tip up, left or right carry, standard or revearse grip draws.With this you can also put a zip tie on the opening hole and zip tie wave it in either grip, with practice even allowing for a draw strike. Also the ring is nicely sized and should fit most people. I don't have small hands but find it to have plenty of room and I have no problem performing various karambit tricks.

Bali-Jim
Staten Island, NY

Aug 05, 2010

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Overall Quality, Blade Sharpness

Cons: Pocket Clip

Love it.

This knife is a 5 out of 5, but if the scale were 10, i would give it a 9 for one reason: the clip. I would like to see a version of this knife with an ambidextrous clip. Mantis makes a nice knife though.

Johnny Sac-Town
Sacramento, CA

Jan 29, 2011

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Pocket Clip, Overall Quality

Cons: None

Emer who?

This knife is straight-up AWESOME. For the price that knifecenter offers this knife, i can buy 5 of them for the price of plain looking emerson knife. This is my new EDC and I get asked almost every day i wear it, what the heck it is. It's unique and functional. Nice work knifecenter.

Musha Dojo
Fayetteville, NC

Feb 17, 2010

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Pocket Clip, Overall Quality

Cons: None

Cool Karambit

I had been looking for a good sized and weighted karambit for a while now and this one is it. The only thing I don't like about it is the pink...the picture looks red but it is really a hot pink. And while the guys all think I ordered purposely (since I'm female)I have to assure them that I didn't. Other than that, I am happy with the purchase and plan on using it as the mold for the practice karambits at my school.

Anthony
Denver

Sep 28, 2015

Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Handle Material, Blade Material

Cons: Handle Feel, Pocket Clip

Utility Karambit?

I actually do use this as a utility knife believe it or not. Being a karambit, I like the ability to multitask while keeping the karambit in hand (As was the ring's original purpose). It's not the sharpest knife but I can easily cut clean strokes through cardboard. I've read reviews where the handle's external skeleton is angular enough to cause discomfort in its grip, which is true but I'm always wearing work gloves when I'm using it so it really isn't a problem for me. Throughout the years, I've gone through 3 of these. Under heavy duty cutting, the first one lasted a little over a year. I lost the 2nd one, and am now on my 3rd. The clip isn't very functional so I don't even use it. The blade opening is actually easy. Unless you're sold by assist openers or the flashy quick draw of the emerson wave, I don't see how anyone could struggle so much in opening this. All in all, it's a basic folding karambit that I've found to work well.

James
London

Jul 13, 2014

Pros: Weight, Blade Material

Cons: Handle Feel, Pocket Clip

Good knife for self defense, very dull

The delivery was very fast and the knife is very good quality. There is no blade play and it is comfortable for hold. If the edges of the handle were more rounded it would be perfect. The knife needs to be sharpened a lot as it is very dull out of the box. The blade is a chisel ground so it is only sharp on one side.

Zak
Edmonton, Canada

Nov 06, 2014

Pros: Weight, Pocket Clip, Blade Material, Overall Quality

Cons: None

Good Quality

As an everyday carry, the Mantis performs quite well. It can in perfect condition with one of the best padded boxes I've ever seen with a knife. As a general utility knife it preformed adequately, however, you may find that the steep angle of the blade can make for frustrating box cutting. All in all, the knife exceeds expectations but I would have preferred a sharper blade out of the box (required extensive sharpening out of the box).

Blue650sv
California

Dec 13, 2009

Pros: Ease of Opening, Blade Sharpness, Pocket Clip, Handle Material, Overall Quality

Cons: Weight

Bigger but better than expected

The first thing that I noticed about this knife after I took it out of the box was its sheer size and weight. It is a lot bigger and heavier than you would expect from pictures and from a knife with a 2 inch blade. The next thing I noticed was there was no markings on the blade in terms of what material it was and where it was made (which are markings that are fairly standard nowadays on knives). However, once I got beyond the size, the weight, and the lack of material/production area markings, I realized that this was robust and hardy knife that will probably stand up to some abuse, with a fairly thick, strong liner lock. Plus, the blade was fairly sharp straight out of the box. And, after I got figured out how I could best hold it (I don't use the ring portion of the handle to pass a finger through because it moves the knife into an akward position for my size hands), the knife also turns out to be pretty easy to handle. Deploying the blade was also fairly easy once I figured out it was better for me to use the smaller hole closer to the tip of the blade to open it. I can see why people who take certain types of martial arts prefer the karambit shape as it lends itself to powerful slashing motions. However, more precise work, cutting open small packages, will probably necessitate a change in grip due to the sheer size and weight of the knife. Overall, this is a decent knife for the money for anyone looking for karambit knife but isn't prioritizing concealability, size, and weight.

Supercheese
Colorado

Aug 20, 2013

Pros: Blade Sharpness

Cons: None

Ring a bit small

This is a good blade, I have practiced with it extensively and found it to be durable enough. It is a good deal for the price and I recommend it for everyday carry. I do have a size 11.5 index finger and the ring is extremely tight. Just something to be aware of if you have larger digits.

Blade_Reviewer
Dallas, TX

Jul 20, 2011

Pros: Ease of Opening

Cons: Pocket Clip

Decent for the money

Not a bad knife at this price, steel holds an edge reasonably well. Feels good in the hand with a reverse icepick grip. The only downside is the clip. It's badly designed. The friction area of the clip is right over one of the slots in the handle. What this means is: when you draw, it will bind, it will snag, and in one case, even rip the denim of my jeans yanking on it trying to get it free. Not a feature you want from a knife you might need to use quickly.

Irishman
South Central Indiana

Mar 14, 2010

Pros: None

Cons: Lock Ease of Use

Fun but not high quality

This is an inexpensive knife with good style and a good feel in the hand. Its construction is only fair though. It locks up all the way to the back liner and the blade lock grind angle is way off. Makes releasing the lock a chore. Mine also had thread locker on the handle, which is purely cosmetic but still an issue. A cute toy but not a user.

Andrew E.
Utah

Aug 23, 2011

Pros: Weight, Overall Quality

Cons: Pocket Clip

Love this knife, though it's far from perfect.

I used to think a karambit-style blade was goofy-looking and had no purpose, but the more I used normal knives, the more I realized that optimal cutting came from angling the knife downward. Thinking more about a knife whose blade is already angled downward, I realized the karambit style really is well designed for cutting and slashing. I purchased this knife because it seemed higher quality for the price and not as expensive as other karambits. I personally love it. I use it at work and have it around just to play with when bored. it has a good solid feel to it, it is well constructed, there is no blade play, and of course it is sharp and cuts well. I am considering getting a second one for the price. HOWEVER A couple gripes about it made it far from 'the perfect knife', which is why it lost a couple stars in the rating. The first is the clip. It is on the side where there is a large gap in the holes of the knife, and fabric tends to get very caught in this area. Multiple times I have really had to tug to get it unstuck from my pocket that it was clipped to. The holes in the handle look great but don't work well with the clip. If the clip was more toward the spine of the knife, and didn't overlap onto the holes, I imagine it would cause less problems. The second is the color. As people have said before, the red is a lot lighter than the picture, and right now it is definitely a solid pink. The color itself doesn't bother me too much, as I find the girly color on such a wicked-looking knife to be ironically funny, but I expect the picture they are advertising to match the product. Lastly, the blade isn't very easy to open. It doesn't glide open, and the angling to open it is slightly awkward. However this is the least of my concerns, I didn't expect it to open quickly and had no intention of using it like a quick-opening knife, so it doesn't bother me too much. It stays open very solidly and does a hell of a job. I love it, and it certainly is a quality knife for the price, but I there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Juan C. M.
San Antonio, Tx.

Nov 14, 2011

Pros: Weight, Blade Material, Blade Sharpness

Cons: Lock Ease of Use, Pocket Clip

Mantis MK-1 Cinq

Sharp, solid feeling knife. The black finish is nice. The red anodized pieces show some tiny imperfections in the manufacturing process. The blade is stiff and there is no way to adjust it easily. The frame lock is a bit awkward to use. You can adjust the pocket clip for tip up or tip down carry, I would however not recommend doing so. I loosened the torx screws to reverse the clip and I could not get one of the screws to catch the threads when I changed positions or tried to put it back to the original position. The threads are not stripped because the torx screw tightens without the clip in place. If you buy this knife don't loosen the clip and it should be all good. I also wish I would have bought the all black model.

Jason
Ottawa, Canada

Jan 20, 2015

Pros: None

Cons: Weight, Lock Ease of Use

Good knife for deciding if you really want that Fox or Emerson

Received this knife today. To start off, not at all impressed. lets go through the list. -Not sharp, I mean at all. There was no edge at all. I couldn't cut butter with it, well I could but you get the point, which btw, this has none.(I live in Canada and this was shipped from US, so i don't know if they do this purposely to get through customs or not, but was not pleased) -Handle edges are uncomfortable due to, surprise surprise, they are very angular and sharp...unlike the blade. - The pivot is extremely tight, making it not possible to flick open, which is fine, however it does not feel smooth when opening or closing. It has a lot of friction, and is rough. -The ring is not one piece but two rings with a gap, so when using the karambit as intended it starts feeling like it cuts into your index finger -the lock is a frame lock, which wouldn't be a big problem, but this one is again very rough and small and hard to push open. It also can sometimes get stuck or jammed in and hard to pry open. Minor things. -Blade is very thin and feels fragile. the pivot point feels like it would break with extended use. -Very light, which adds to the 'fragile' feel, but also doesn't lend to the use of centripetal force to help the karambit's twirling techniques. All in all it is an inexpensive karambit, and the product reflects this. I would recommend this if you simply wanted to practice the flicking movements of karambit use for fun, or for training. It is also a great item for deciding if you really wanted to spend the $200 for a Fox or Emerson, which happens to be why I bought it.