People, myself included, howl when there is a tiny bit of pokiness to a clip. It was a dumb as it sounds and in this day and age of Practically Perfect Production Knives it is quite comical. At the time there was a huge controversy because the SNG, the middle sized knife in the Strider line up (PT->SNG->SMF), had a lanyard hole that fed the cordage through the blade path. Plus, I was really into choils at the time and while the Hinderer had one, it was the Strider that caught my attention. At the time Hinderers were still around $1,000 and that seemed crazy to me, especially because the reasonable sized Hinderer, the XM-18 3” was exceedingly rare. It was great in that way only a Chris Reeve Knife can be-subtle, clean, and hard to appreciate your first time around. I targeted the Sebenza and after a few years on the Upgrade Tread Mill, one Christmas I bought one. At the time, there was a Holy Trinity of high end production knives-the Sebenza, of course, Strider, and Hinderer. That led to Blade Forums, USN, and a host of review sites. I came into the knife world in earnest through a forum, EDCF. Don’t do what I did (or to borrow from the greatest bit of knife-related humor ever “Don’t Do what Donnie Don’t Does”). This is a story of one such buy and flip that I regretted and worked diligently to fix or more than three years. There are ways to cure this insanity, such as having the piece modified or altering it to better suit your needs, but let’s face it, there is always an element of FOMO, keeping up with the Joneses, or “gotta catch ‘em all” that serves as the impulse for gear purchases. The hunt is almost always more fun than the kill and so, once you score the knife you were pining for, keeping it is less alluring, especially when the piece you were targeting turns out to be less than what you expected. And everyone once in a while I make a mistake and sell something I later regret.Īs gear geeks we all can identify with this experience. Given that dizzying rate I sell old review samples to buy new ones. Writing a review or two a month of new gear means that I have to buy a new knife or light twice a month (I am trying in earnest to pull away from company-donated review samples). Various Strider designs have met and exceeded the requirements in each of these fields.Being a gear reviewer means that I have to churn through gear at pretty ferocious rate. The background of Strider Knives founders enables the company to assess requirements in diverse fields ranging from the average line soldier/marine through special operations, law enforcement and hunting to commercial diving. Others are simply the company's ability to look at a potential work environment and design a prototype to be tested and assessed by the workers of that environment. Many of Striders available edged tools are drawn from customer's specific design requirements. The initial goal having been met, Strider Knives found a ready market for custom-edged weapons and tools with the same component quality requirements as the first highly successful field knives. The initial goal was to provide a field service knife constructed with the finest components available, yet affordable to the average enlisted man and within his maintenance abilities. The company was founded and is currently operated by former military personnel. Strider Knives is a privately owned and operated company devoted solely to the development and construction of edged tools designed to survive use in the harshest of conditions.
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