Just In: Timberline Tactical ECS-4

The brown truck of joy dropped this guy off little more than an hour ago, yet some drama ensued instantly. The problem was that the blade color of it on KnifeCenter was a good bit lighter than as it came.

From the looks of the picture, I expected a bead blasted stainless. Instead, I received an obviously coated blade. I very nearly called them to ask for a return information. I did double check the page and sure enough it say that it was a titanium coated blade in the details. I've decided to keep it, but I am going to contact them to put a darker picture in its' place.

This relatively recent addition to Timberline's knives has a particular gimmick that intrigued me. The knife locks and unlocks itself in it's sheath via the metal bar on the grip. The sheath hook is designed to lock into place by the knife just being normally inserted. To draw, the grip on the knife is simply made tight. While some might decry this motion as impossible in the case of a damaged hand, normal kydex sheaths would be equally hard to draw from in the same situation.

So far, I really like the sheath system. It is MOLLE ready and the mountings can be reversed to a left handed/offhanded use. It is not kydex but rather a hard plastic, but it seems nicely made thus far. I will be putting a keyring on it and using it in carbiner carry this week as well.

The blade itself is a 3inch modified spear point in one of the 440s, probably 440C. After the sheer excellence of my Kershaw's SkyLine's blade, I've gotten quite a lot of love for this style of blade. Sadly, this one was only really sharp on one side, I will be working on it with my sharpener this week.

The grip may be the real weak point here. It's not as grippy as I'd like, and a bit short for the guard style. However, there is jimping under this simple cross guard, allowing solid point control.

The knife set me back about $40 dollars plus shipping. There is a larger version of this spear point coming soon. It will feature a 3.8 inch blade, longer grip, and possibly some orange grips and a grip tool included in its accessories. The grip tool and extra grips are present in the Tanto and Drop Point styles of the 3.8, already out. The drop point is handsome, and might make a solid choice for defensive work.

I'll be replacing my Cold Steel Mini-tac Tanto for now with this. I'll be looking to give an update on it's performance in about 2 weeks.