Well, I've got this obscure inexplicable fascination for
exotic knives. I've already shown
this strange little beast on my channel. If you haven't already seen the video,
link in the description.
And so I thought it would be kind of interesting to make a series about that,
About the weirdest knives I can find and show them off.
This here is a clear candidate.
because of this very
unconventional opening mechanism.
There are certain paratrooper knives
which this probably is inspired by which have a similar
manual out the front mechanism.
but this here is definitely very unique.
So what is this? It's made by Smith & Wesson,
it's called the Powerglide... Somewhat of an
unfortunate name choice in my opinion.
The first thing when I read that is
I think of lube. So... I mean yeah, it does have some in & out action
but ok let's not delve too deeply into this.
But the question is
with an exotic design like that, what's its purpose?
What's it good for? Well, it's obviously a novelty knife.
And novelty is also the reason why I got it.
Because like I mentioned I like weird stuff. But the question is
is it really practical? On one website
Ive seen the primary use indicated as
EDC, every day carry.
I don't necessarily think so. First of all
this is clearly a two-handed opening design.
There is just pretty much no way you can open this with one hand.
And there is a reason for that specifically
namely this locking piece right here.
Which is plastic by the way. I wish it was metal, simply for durability but
that's what it is.
So it snaps into place here
and that's what locks the knife.
So there's no amount of shaking or fiddling or pressing
whatever that will open this, you need to
pull it apart with both hands. There's just...
I don't see any other way. There is
nothing where i could get my fingers into, just...
No. No chance, you have to
open this with two hands. What you could do is
you know, not could lose it completely so that it doesn't snap in place
and then you can try to flick it open and then, you know, push it against
push the handle against your leg or something else in order to close it or
just, you know, push
in with one finger and then you can close it like this.
But of course, you know, if you carry it
like that you might just bump into it and then it might close, so that's
not necessarily an alternative either. At first when you get this
it's very stiff, at least this one was. It took some
breaking in but now that is, as you can see I can actually
open it not necessarily quickly but at least not super slow.
What happens sometimes is what just happened here
that it just, you know, locks into
place here with the bars in horizontal position.
Now when you push against it they just block each other. So sometimes you
have to push against it with a
finger but if you open and close it with this kind of choppy motion
you know, it takes some practice and some getting used to
but you can do it, which probably looks very
very wacky... but you can do it.
But yeah, speed is definitely not the strong side of this thing.
What about ease of carry? Well,
it comes with this clip here.
It doesn't have a belt clip but it has this round piece right there where
it slides in. You have to
hold horizontally, if you do it vertically it doesn't work
and there's a reason behind that.
You push it in horizontally and then when it
swings there vertically it locks.
So you know, I have to applaud their innovation
for coming up with this because its
pretty smart in that if you want to carry a knife
openly and if you are legally allowed to carry a knife openly
this is pretty much one of the most accessible designs you can have.
If this hangs from your belt you don't have to reach into the pocket or anything
you just grab the sucker, turn it and slide it up and there you go.
It's as readily accessible
as an openly carried fixed blade knife in a sheath basically.
If not more. So very, very easy.
But the problem is
you carry this on your belt
it swivels around, it's going to hit your leg...
It's going to be annoying probably, simply because it's
free swiveling right here. So yeah...
And again, the thing with open carry, it depends on your
local laws. And otherwise
just doesn't have a belt clip or anything. You would have to
stuff it in your pocket otherwise, and this thing is long so you have to have deep
pockets. If you have cargo pants, no problem.
Jeans... you might run into problems, to say the least.
Just to show you put more of the construction right here.
There is the blade in there.
The blade by the way is made of 440
stainless steel. Unfortunately they don't say what it is exactly, is it
440C, is it
whatever, A? Who knows?
But it's fairly cheap steel
which at that price range is not really surprising.
Typically this goes for 15, 20 dollars.
Around not so you can't really expect top-notch
steel quality for that.
One thing that I find is kind of wasted potential
is - now come on, focus -
There, right right here, it has
you know, there is some grind here but it's not really sharpened.
you could probably sharpen that yourself but there's not a sharp edge it's just
on the one side.
And that's what I'm kind of not getting... you have this spear point design
this could be a dagger blade and
this is one of the very few folding knife designs
they could get away with that because since it is sliding in and out
the front there is
no contact with any part of the blade whatsoever. It is
always hidden inside the handle.
So why not go with double-edged because but you could
you can't do that with a regular folding knife but with this you could, so
why not do it?
That's kind of what I'm not getting. And
blade shape is also brings me to the next point...
Usability, purpose. EDC...
not so much, I mean come on, this is mostly a
dagger blade even though it only has one edge.
but this is mainly
a blade like this is mainly for combat use. But
a slow opening design like that
is not exactly super "tactical"
So self-defense...
Not so much. So yeah,
that leaves us with the question what exactly is it good for? Cuttings things,
I suppose.
Well, let's see how well it does. This is right out of the box, I haven't cut
with it yet,
I haven't sharpened it, it's just the way it comes.
Ugh... awesome.
Okay...
Yeah, it doesn't even cut.
This is not impressive. So you have to sharpen this, they did not know how to put
a really functional edge on this.
In fact, you know what... Ugh.
Really? Okay, I don't want to sound overly critical here
because I actually do like this thing. It is pretty cool and
it's a lot of fun to play around with. You know, I totally
find myself occasionally just reaching for this thing just to play around with it
just because it's fun.
You know, but practicality, errr...
yeah, not so much. Let me talk a bit about the handle.
The handle is as you can see pretty simple.
Kind of a balisong style
handle. If you like that its fine but
it's just... It doesn't offer anything exceptional.
It's fairly smooth overall and it doesn't have a guard so
yeah, it's not the most secure thing in the hand.
So in terms of functionality and practicality
this doesn't really convince me
to put it like that. I may have sounded a bit more negative in fact
then i feel towards this thing, simply because of a lack of
really down-to-earth
functionality and practicality but like I said, I do like it.
It's cool. Yeah, sounds stupid but
it is, it really is. It's fun to play around with
its novelty, its good for collectors which
you know, I am, I like to collect exotic stuff. So for that it's awesome, especially at
the price, I mean come on,
15 dollars? You can't really complain about that.
Especially since, you know, the construction is good, there's
not really a problem with the mechanism, there's no blade play at all, it just
locks up rock-solid, so no complaints there.
I's just not the quickest or most convenient or most effective
design in the world. But yeah,
sure cool. So as a collector's knife...
yeah, I can recommend it without a problem, at that price.
If you want something for every day carry, for practical use
I would suggest looking elsewhere,
Thanks for watching!