Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the KnifeCenter, and today we've
got a new product to unveil for you, from our good friends at Ontario knife company
I got my buddy Matt Catanese here to show it to us How are you, sir.
I'm good, how are you doing great man doing great excited to be able to talk to you so
you're rocking the quarantine haircut over there.
Yeah, got a little bit of length since the last time we talked, January, so, you know,
like I said earlier, it's getting grayer and grayer every, every month, maybe we'll do
the smart alec thing and put it before and after photo, you probably could.
What do you have for us today.
So we wanted to actually talk to you about one of our new products that we have coming
up.
It's called the Besra in line with the Shikra everybody remembers the Shikra from from January
at SHOT Show with the linen micarta scale and the titanium frame lock Aus8 blade so
what we ended up doing is in line with that we decided to create another option for people
with a little bit different.
Blade shapes so this is, this is the new Besra here.
And I know you have one there as well.
You were kind enough to say a sample here which is quite nice.
Yeah.
So we wanted to give people another option give you know give them something a little
bit more robust in terms of like a sheepsfoot blade.
Same internals, basically, basically everything's the same with a little bit difference in the
in the handle profile.
And then obviously the sheepsfoot blade, all the internals are the same.
All the materials are the same pocket clip reversibility.
You know you got the titanium the frame lock the caged bearings Aus8 blade and the linen
micarta scale for a little bit more grip, same price point as the Shikra.
Just like we said, different options something a little bit more in terms of variety.
It's a great utility shape here and for and I have to say thank you for calling it a sheepsfoot
and not a wharncliffe.
Yeah, no problem.
Some folks seem to play fast and loose with with their blade shapes that is definitely
a sheep's foot.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, but you know for the folks out there that that kind of like a pocket cleaver but
not like the big honkin ones this would be a good option.
Well, we'll back up a little bit here I've got the, the Shikra, the new green handled
variants of the shaker here, so folks can kind of see the two next to each other, and
it is like if because I don't carry a Shikra every day is when I saw the Besra, I thought
the handle was actually identical like they're they're a little bit different.
Yeah, definitely family like definitely a family thing there.
Yeah.
The nice thing about the, the two of these is that they're different enough to where
you have two totally different knives right like you're not getting the exact same knife
when you buy a Shikra or you buy a Besra, you know if you have both of them, they're
very different knives they feel similar.
The Besra to me, in particular feels a little bit more slimline, it seems a little bit thinner
I know it's not but for some reason it just feels a little bit different in terms of like
the makeup where the width and the handle is, it might be like centimeters off but it's
it's pretty, pretty close.
Um, the nice thing about these knives, in my opinion, is the durability, and the flipping
mechanisms, you're not going to get the exact same mechanism in terms of the flipper itself
you can tell that there's a little bit of a difference.
The Besra is a little bit more squared off, and the Shikra is a little bit more like contoured.
So I'm finding that the, the difference in the flipping is kind of going towards the
Shikra a little bit and then the Besra takes just a little bit more, more of an aggressive.
Push, but not by much.
Yeah, I think that's probably something you'd only recognize if you were doing a side by
side I mean I my impressions of this Besra have been very good in terms of the action
like both of these knives have had, and do have a very good flipping action it's nice
and crisp.
The detents I think are tuned very nicely.
And even when you close it it has kind of a nice sound right there at the end just a
little snack, just, it's very well tuned very well put together and pretty good prices on
them too I must say, yeah, the nice thing about the pricing is that they're going to
be the same for both so it's it's nice.
it gives you that variation to where you're not going to be spending more for the Besra
if you didn't like theShikra you like the cleaver style or the sheepsfoot style a little
bit more, then you know it's no harm no foul you're going to get the same you know you're
going to get the same price for it.
Yeah.
All the same materials, just the difference in a little bit of difference in the handle
in the in the blade ship which is right on.
I like that you guys did titanium on this line too I know some folks were a little skeptical
that you know you spent the extra money on on that material there but I think it definitely
helps out with the weight.
Overall this is a very lightweight knife, but it doesn't feel.
It doesn't feel like it's going to be shirking its duties anywhere especially this one with
this.
This kind of aggressive cutting blade shape.
I mean this is going to be a great utility knife great work knife.
I could see like cutting carpet with this tearing down a bunch of cardboard.
I like that high flat grind and in fact that's probably going to give you a little bit better
slicing geometry, for efficiency sake over the Shikra which is nice.
Yeah, it's a little bit more of a workmen's knife in our opinion, you know we love the
Shikra of because it's got more detailed point.
Um, but you're higher up you know you're, you end up higher with, you know, with that
spear style, as opposed to being able to get a little bit more ergonomics on coming down
and being flat, all the way across.
It's similar to what we ended up doing with the Carter prime, you know, very much a workman's
knife or even the journeyman two, or excuse me, the, the original journeyman with that
sheepsfoot style blade.
A lot of people really enjoy it because it's easier to use, you get that flat grind a lot
of better, a lot more a lot more knife in terms of, you know, you get a little bit longer
of a belly, sort of, whereas you know this, you got to be a little bit more delicate when
you're cutting this you can just come straight across, and you get a little bit more out
of it.
Yeah.
And I've always felt that like this style blade just feels like it has a little bit
more power, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, for the, you know, for those heavier cuts especially when you're just you're bearing
down and you're, you're just going to town on it.
Yeah, it's definitely not for delicate style work, you know you can go right at it and
it's going to be, you know, it's going to be fine.
whereas the Shikra you have that point to worry about a little bit more with the Besra
you got that flat, you know that flat all the way that line robustly across, but still,
still enough of a usable point I'd say for folks who do like a true wharncliffe for the
piercing capabilities, you still got a good point I think on this for yeah that's gonna
satisfy that although you've probably.
Yeah, I was gonna make a silly statement and say the blade the drop point on this is almost
a modified wharncliffe but maybe that's a little bit of a stretch.
Yeah, I would say maybe not, not, that was a mistake I knew I was wrong as soon as it
entered my head.
I'm not gonna hold it against you.
That's, I think the only other thing like I noticed that I want to bring up.
Well no lanyard hole for one on one, but for, especially useful I think on a knife that
that may wind up in a construction site in kind of an urban center that sort of thing.
Whereas the Shikra'ss blade is a hair over three inches.
This one actually when you measure it from the tip straight back to the scale is just
under that three inch mark.
And yes, you know there's some cities out there where you still have to worry about
the length of your blade.
Right, so I think that, you know, you're kind of opening up to as many people as you can
with this style of blade and that size specifically.
Yeah, it was funny in examining the idea of not having the lanyard hole on this one specifically
the nice thing about this is that there's some openings in the pocket clip in the front,
or excuse me in the back here.
You got a little bit of room back there to play.
So you know you can kind of throw something in there if you wanted more you have the front
of that where you know you have your screw access to put, you know, maybe a small lanyard.
So that's one of the things that we like about this blade is that you, you have some options
to play with even without the lanyard hole, you know, and for most most folks out there
of course our tip up people, but for the tip down people that are always every once in
a while, they'll pop up in our comments say, Man, I wish there was some more tip down options.
There you go.
Yeah, we try to give as many options as possible in terms of clipping, um, I know that with
the RAT, we get a ton of people who are like, Oh, we love it because you can put it on either
side, unfortunately with this one.
And the Shikra you don't have that option but you still can do tip up tip down, which
is nice but it's definitely something that we're keeping in mind moving forward with
a lot of other a lot of other pieces and items that we're putting together in the future.
We're just trying to be as utilitarian as possible when it comes to our thinking so
maybe not on these ones right away, but, you know, in the future, coming up for some new
faces on your within like the next couple of years we're definitely looking at, yeah,
reversibility for sure.
So this one obviously here, these are kind of pre production samples we don't have laser
logos or anything on this right where we are shooting to have these up for pre order by
the time this video goes out.
But, when should folks, estimated at least when should folks expect these to start shipping
out yeah so like an estimated time for us to have them in stock is right around January.
I know a lot of people they kind of knock us because they're like oh well it was supposed
to be in stock in January, and it wasn't well, it's kind of like an estimated.
An estimated lead time so January roughly, it could lead into February, I'm not 100%
sure.
But we're doing our best to get a little bit better on on lead times for people.
Well, especially with the way the you know the manufacturing pipeline and shipping lanes
and everything are acting these days.
Yeah.
Stuff happens.
Yeah, a little, a little bit more patience is recommended.
Yeah, for these times in general, and people have been pretty good.
So we're starting to catch up to our ourselves in our past and trying to be better than we've
ever been.
And we're starting to see some, some good jumps into the future for for us being more
on time.
So, very nice, very nice.
Thank you.
I've got one more question to throw at you.
Yeah.
During our blades show week video interviews a couple of weeks ago, we were asking this
question to, to all the folks we were talking to and since we didn't get a chance to talk
to you then I'm still going to use the question at you guys now.
So, for the folks out there who may have not tried and Ontario knife.
Up to this point.
What makes your stuff special and why should they be checking you guys out now, affordability.
That's usually that's in the in the forefront of what we try to do is we try to make everything
is easily accessible to our audience as humanly possible.
We try not to bombard people with really high price points.
We also try to keep our blades in house as much as we possibly can, in terms of fixed
blades and then importing our importing our, our folding knives, but we hold them to really
really really high standards and I think that's one of the reasons why people always gravitated
towards the RAT folders, is we do a really good job of QC control.
We try to make everything as affordable as possible as strong as possible and live up
to the warranty as best as we possibly can.
Very cool, very cool.
Well, Matt, thank you so much for, for taking the time to show this to us today I really
appreciate it.
Thank you guys for having me, folks make sure down in the comments let us know what you
thought of this new design.
And as I said, we are shooting to have this up for pre orders so we'll have a link in
the description where you can head over to knifecenter.com get your order in.
And again, we're looking at January possibly into February when they should start shipping,
but to get your pre order in now, we won't charge your card until it ships, but you'll
be first in line so you'll be the first people to have them.
So there's some exclusivity there it's kind of nice.
Yeah, definitely.
yeah.
Usually what we try to do is we'll, we'll debut everything that's new at shacho but
because that's kind of sort of up in the air from what we're hearing.
We wanted to get something out, mid year, and that might be that might be a trend that
we follow for for the future.
So, you know, doing stuff like this.
I think we're gonna see a little bit more of it and hopefully we can continue to do
it with you guys there at KnifeCenter and, you know, maybe get some exclusives out to
people and, you know, see a few more items throughout the year, as opposed to just doing
everything right in the beginning of the year in January, for sure, for sure.
Well you've always got an open invitation here and we're gonna be ready to hit the ground
running for a virtual SHOT Show if we need to do it for sure.
Great, that's awesome.
Thank you guys.
Thank you Matt.
All right folks Thanks for checking out this knife with Matt and me, as I said, let us
know what you think down in the comments.
Check out the link to head over get your pre order in, and as I always like to say sign
up for our knife rewards while you're there so you get some free money to spend on on
the future purchase, while you're at it, thanks, everyone, hope you're all staying safe sane
and sanitary out there.