Reviews

Knife Review- Shadow Tech Knives

This being my first go at reviewing a knife, I was excited when a new local knife maker asked me to check out one of their new knives. The guys at Shadow Tech Knives have been knife dealers for many years now and  they are one of my favorite local vendors for production knives and related gear. It was by frequenting their old store that my knife collecting really started to bloom. As long as I have known them, they had been doing knife repairs and refurbishing and had dabbled in one of a kind hand made knives. As fate would have it, the guys saw a chance to get into the knife making business and jumped at the chance. Shadow Tech Knives was started to provide the knife market with tactical style knives for the military and police market. They have a lot of contacts with law enforcement and military units and do seminars for them on a regular basis. As they continued to grow, they have begun to offer other styles as well and explore different materials too.

The knife I was asked to review is the 10” ­­­­­­­­­Ranger Model. The clip point style blade is evenly ground and is made of fairly thick steel.  I generally like more of a hunting or bush craft style knife but have to admit to liking tactical looking knives even if I don’t own many. It is a fairly big knife made out of 1095 steel and finished with a baked on epoxy coating. I've never been a huge fan of blade coatings having preferred satin or bead blast finishes but theirs seems ok and evenly applied to me. 1095 steel is the standard for the 10 series of steels for cutlery and is also the most popular. This is for a good reason. It performs well and is reasonably tough. I have several knives made from this steel and if you show it a little bit of care, it will treat you well with its performance. The down side is that it can rust fairly easily hence the epoxy baked on finish that came on this knife.

The handled is pinned with brass fasteners and epoxied tan canvas micarta that is finished pretty well. I especially like the tear drop shape of the handle. It feels good in my hand. This knife came really sharp and I only stropped it a few times to get it even sharper. The supplied sheath is of a coyote tan Kydex and is very well made. A really nice touch is the multiple belt clip attachment capabilities afforded by the included belt loop. They make all of their own sheaths in house and their attention to detail shows. A lot of thought went into the making of this sheath.

I was told to basically do whatever I liked to this knife so I had fun just abusing this blade and must say it held up really well. The bowie-esque style of knife would work in several roles. Some of the “tests” I performed was battoning, chopping, and penetration style tests. These are far from scientific but were certainly a lot of fun.

The first chore I did was trying my hand at battoning some seasoned firewood. I must admit that I am by no means practiced in this skill but it turned out pretty good. The knife did a nice job and I managed not to break the blade from incorrect form. The blade style is not ideal for this type of work but it managed anyhow.

My next “test” was to chop an old tree in my back yard. Even though this knife is on the small side for chopping, I felt like it performed ok. It was a blast hacking away at the various limbs.

Last, I tried to puncture some seasoned 2x4’s I had laying around. After driving the knife into the boards as hard as I could, I wasn’t shy about twisting and yanking the knife free to see how the tip held up. After I got tired of this, the edge was still fairly sharp which kind of surprised me. The box states that the steel is hardened to a RC of 57.

Overall, I’d say that this knife is a good deal for the money. Last I checked, these are going for well under a $100 depending on handled material. If you are in the market for a no nonsense, tough knife, you may want to check them out. They also offer a limited lifetime warranty for their knives. I love the idea of another knifemaker so close to home and look forward to checking out some of their other models (The neck knife looks pretty appealing to me). This knife reviewing is fun. I’ll have to try it again!

J.G.