Miguel Nieto Knives FIGHTER Folder

Miguel Nieto SL FIGHTER Lock back Folder

The FIGHTER features KATEX composite scales, developed by Miguel Nieto SL  R & D

Featured Knife: Miguel Nieto SL FIGHTER   Lock back folder. Available with KATEX phenolic composite scales with a compressive strength of approximately 19 MPa (190Kg/cm²), and 12C27 martensitic stainless alloy blade. The Fighter measures 18.5cm in total length and a weight of 123grams or 4.3Oz.

12C27 Alloy blade, a well rounded quality blade steel for folders such as the FIGHTER, which is hardened to give a HRC of 60.

 Simplicity of function, means less things to go wrong, with a proven locking design, Aesthetics are not compromised, from being constrained to “flat surfaces” commonly found on “liner lock designed folders. 

Beautiful but functional spine design

The FIGHTER features a great stainless steel, 12C27, hardened to HRC60. According to Sandvik (the Inventor of this alloy) 12C27 has: "excellent edge performance" characteristics. Sandvik also say that the 12C27 of today has far tighter compositional characteristics than it did when it came out in the early 60's.

Unlike liner locks or Frame-lock folders, a Lock Back knife is truly ambidextrous with regard to opening and closing.  

Lock back knives such as this Miguel Nieto FIGHTER are
basically more resistant to the accidental ingression of mud and or sand jamming the locking mechanism.   Side liners are in full contact with the tang unlike washers on liner locks. There will be less wear on the lock back mechanism over time compared with a liner lock mode of action. 

The blade when closed, is held tightly by the lock spring 

Inside detail of the locking spring

(this may not be the case with other locking systems. This makes it much safer in regards to accidental opening occurring when carrying or if the knife was subjected to a sudden jolt. Lock back knives can not simply be “flicked open” and this might be regarded as better from a legal EDC standpoint. 

The FIGHTER has a comfortable design and comes in a range of cool colours.
Cons???: two handed opening. (Never been an issue!).


Soon to follow my video field review of this large 9.5cm long blade Lock Back Folder, the FIGHTER.

The Miguel Nieto FIGHTER Lock Back Folder at home in the outdoors

Miguel Nieto WARFARE 1 SURVIVAL KNIFE

Warfare 1  fixed blade full tang Katex handle

The Warfare 1 is a 160mm FULL TANG knife marketed under the banner of "survival knives". It's made by Miguel Nieto SL, a Spanish company which has been manufacturing quality knives since 1957. 

NOW when I see the term "survival knife" it really draws my critical attention.

Let's look at this large knife and see if it fits the name of "Survival Knife"

The blade steel is DIN 1.4116 Vanadium Stainless steel otherwise known as X50CrMoV15. In plain English this means a Carbon content of approximately 0.5%, Cr 15%, Mo 0.15% and V 0.5%.

A high hardness can be achieved of: HRC 55-57. In my experience this is more than hard enough for a field knife.

This is great as it means no fancy diamond sharpeners are required to field sharpen this knife. Too high a HRC is not a great idea for a "survival knife". Try sharpening your 62 HRC on a river stone LOL! This means you must definitely take a sharpening device of some sort with you.

The Vanadium makes the alloy tough, exactly what one wants for a knife labeled "survival" as it means the blade should be, all things being equal, be able to take a pounding and that's exactly what I did to this knife of 160mm blade length and 5mm wide.
The Warfare1 has a great pointy business end. Perfect for penetrating cutting. A fuller helps to lighten the blade and there is a swedge. There is an acute angle to the spine and I could easily strike a fire steel anywhere along the blade spine. 

Residual oxides (easily rubbed off with fingers) shown where a fire steel was struck against the upper guard. The two guard holes can also be used to bend wire for all sorts of tasks.

On that note the upper guard is a perfect place to strike a fire steel as this puts the blade facing away from the user.

Wire cutter notch easily handles standard barbed wire

Big thick spine and wire cutter notch

                       

KATEX is being used a the handle material

The R &D department of Miguel Nieto have developed their proprietary type of micarta, which they call KATEX.

It has the following properties: resists temperatures up to 133C, compressive strength of 190Kg/cm² 

Carry System

Multi-carry position scabbard with detachable firesteel pouch. The scabbard can be mounted either vertically or horizontally. The entire scabbard with knife can be removed from the belt mount without removing the belt mount. There is a leather tie down (brown thong) when you are on the RUN!. Shown also is a depression for a bow drill. This is a great idea although I'd like to see it on the other scale so that the blade edge faces away from you when in use.

Cutting Ability

Hollow ground knives by geometry should cut much better than a flat grind, simply because the area behind the cutting edge is thinner and thus poses less drag resistance through materials. Stay tuned for the upcoming field review on BushCampingTools.

Jungle Fighter Knife Legion-14 Blade-Designs Field Test

Jungle Fighter by Legion-14 Blade Designs

Fully handmade in Germany!

FIELD REVIEW!!

Hi all here is the first of a series of field tests using the Jungle Fighter from Legion-14 Blade-Designs in Germany. The Jungle Fighter is fully handmade from Sleipner tools steel, carbon fiber and micarta. I took it into the forest on the mountains for a hard day trip and it was a pleasure to use this big 8 inch knife. Check it out and see what you think.

Legion-14 Blade-Designs Jungle Fighter Knife

Hi all here is a quick video preview from previous blog post of this fantastic knife, the Jungle Fighter, entirely handmade from Legion-14 Blade-Designs in Germany. Check it out!

Jungle Fighter Knife

By Legion-14  Blade-Designs (LEG.XIIII)

A Quick Preview! Initial thoughts 

Legion-14 Blade-Designs are  absolutely great looking knives from an emerging but experienced young knife designer and maker in Germany. They are fully manufactured by hand in Germany from a true craftsman. This model called the Jungle Fighter has been made from Uddeholms AB Sleipner tool steel.  Legion-14 Blade-Designs, or LEG. XIIII as he is also known, performs the  heat treating himself. He says of this knife that his heat treatment regime "gives the blade flexibility along the spine but a HRC of approx 62 at the edge". The Jungle Fighter was also cryogenically treated. It came deadly razor sharp.

LEG. XIIII also makes his own micarta handle material. The micarta scales are fixed on with Carbon fibre pins and glued together "so they will never come off" he tells me.

LEG.XIIII also makes a large range of really nice looking knife designs in various types of steel alloys. See here for more information.

The Jungle Fighter is no small knife at 8 inches for blade length at home in the wilds! 

The Jungle Fighter is NOT a small knife, with the following dimensions. 

Blade length as measured by my trusty Mitutoyo vernier!

Handle length, the scales are permanently fixed to the full tang with Carbon fibre pins.

The Spine is just over 6mm thick.

 Despite it's rather Combat style name, the Jungle fighter is really more suited to serious outdoor adventures, as it is really too heavy (IMHO) to be a knife considered for rapid deployment and movement, these latter two items most associated with knives intended for combat.

It also weighs 17Oz and has an overall length when in the kydex scabbard of 370 mm/14.6 inches from the top of the belt dangler to the bottom of the scabbard.

IN THE MOUNTAINS ON A DAY TRIP

I carried the LEG. XIIII Jungle Fighter into the mountains on a day trip, 

In the Autumn forest a quick 14km trip.

Swinging cuts with the Jungle fighter were a breeze. The balance and ergonomics were very nice and at no time did I feel I needed to attach lanyards, wear gloves or make the handle "grippy" etc. The design was great for the handle. This is what I would expect from a good knife maker's products ie some serious thought into handle design. This latter point so much more important when designing large knives.

The joys of walking in a pristine region, is that if you are paying attention, ie not making lots of noise and looking where you you are walking, then you can see stuff like this Fire Salamander (Salamandra salamandra) in fact we came across others.

with a relatively light pack weight of only 10kg/20 odd pounds as I was hoping to bring the pack back full of good wild stuff.

Just a note here unless one wants to get pulled up by the cops, A note about travelling and carrying large knives-COMMON SENSE: as I travelled by public transport to the vicinity of the trailhead, this knife WAS NOT carried visibly, which meant inside my pack. Now the biggest problem with this, was the "skull crusher" type butt end. Perfect for ripping holes into the sides of my pack and or any other object inside the pack such as dry bags, clothing etc! Personally, I don't like butt ends featuring acute angles, as I feel, whilst they look really cool, they have limited use with the exception of "Rescue Knives" and or "Persuaders" as might be found on a much lighter knife intended for such roles.  So, to avoid damaging my pack I needed to put the knife into a sturdy cardboard box, which was a bit of a pain but not totally inconvenient.

Ok, so I know a knife name means nothing, you can call it the "cosmic blaster" and it of course doesn't have to be a "cosmic blaster" (whatever the heck that may be LOL).

Legion-14's workmanship is excellent in every detail, for this large 8" fixed blade featuring two different cutting edges, slightly reminiscent of the FKMD Trapper and FKMD Tracker Sniper knife, both excellent knife designs too IMHO (see my reviews). 

Starting with 6mm ie 1/4 inch billets from Uddeholms AB, he fashions everything by hand without the use of lasers or CNC equipment. Just look at some of this eye candy below!

His Logo LEG. XIIII and aggressive but comfortable finger/thumb gimping.

THE Blade Geometry

The Blade profile features a tanto style tip, a generous belly and a recurve section which is actually hollow ground, whereas the remaining blade geometry is flat ground. 

Overall knife- almost camouflaged against the forest background here. Careful not to loose it in this boulder strewn terrain! personally I Like unobtrusive knives.

The Legion14 Jungle Fighter and a huge collection of Oyster Mushrooms on a fallen Oak trunk, later to disappear into our belly's!

Legion 14 Jungle Fighter in the Montane forest. Note Uddeholms AB Sleipner IS NOT a stainless steel, although it does contain Chromium.

Note Sleipner IS NOT a stainless steel alloy. It has only 8% Chromium content, much less than D2. However, it does have some great characteristics for a knife steel, of retaining an edge but can still be made very tough through the right heat treatment. See my reviews on the LionSteel M7, also made from Uddeholms AB Sleipner.

Wearing my Garmont Dragontail approach shoes, very reliable shoes 

Upper Blade surfaces are finished  almost raw, whilst the lower blade surface was chemically blackened.

Spine and tang were finished with  highly polished surfaces

I tried some basic tasks such as chopping, cutting food items, cutting plant material and prying wood. It performed very well. The balance is perfect with the fulcrum being at the base of the handle.

The perfect balance with the fulcrum at the base of the handle.

Chopping/swinging ergonomics was great too and the knife despite is weight of 490 gm/17 Oz. never felt like it was going to leave my hands during some chopping of seasoned birch timber.

Chopping into a fallen well seasoned birch trunk, no problems!

I put the Jungle Fighter to use in the kitchen preparing food and despite it weight it was easy to use. Cutting onto knife-edge abusing bamboo chopping boards is a good test of edge holding abilities.

Crushing Garlic!

Bashing Garlic with the broad Spine, you MUST be able to use a knife to prepare food with.

ABOUT SLEIPNER ALLOY TOOL STEEL

As time will tell how the surface of the Sleipner on the Jungle Fighter holds up, as Uddeholm technical department told me (see text in blue print) that for the best corrosion resistance, the surface finish (if not PVDed) should be made as smooth as possible. Now this is of course based on data for tool making, not knife making. Certainly this was the case for my LionSteel M7. My experience with Sleipner as a knife steel is to treat the blade as if it were made of carbon steel, ie wipe it down carefully when possible, don't holster it wet. Remember Sleipner was NOT developed for the sole purpose of making knives for outdoor use, it was developed for cold work tooling applications. That being said, when properly prepared Sleipner alloy performs very well in an abrasive environment.

WHAT'S NEXT?????

 I plan to really test the Legion-14 Blade-Designs Jungle Fighter in the Australian bush and coastal regions later this year on some very serious adventures so stay tuned and I'll let you all know what I think of it after a really long proper workout. So far so good. I like what I see. Those of you who have seen my review on the FKMD Trapper know that I really like this blade that sports two significantly different geometries. Keep watching!

Jaktkit Knv3 GenII Hunting Knife

Ok here I review the smaller version of the Jaktkit's Knv2, the Knv3. made with the same super tough super sharp 99Cr18MoV stainless alloy. It's a nice little knife. Good for hunting as the name suggests. Convex type grind Jaktkit are calling Extreme V edge. Synthetic handle made from TPEE polymer , that's Thermoplastic Polyester ether elastomer, See what you think.


Hardcore knives.

Aitor Knives Oso Blanco Cut Down Version

Hi all here is my review of Aitor Knives Oso Blanco Olivo. I reckon it's a great knife and a top performer for many outdoor tasks.  Who knows what the steel analysis of Mo Va alloy they use but in reality it holds a edge, doesn't chip out and was easy to touch up the edge.

Watch the video and see what you reckon.