New Gear Inbound.

Just made an order to BladeHQ today with some Christmas money I was lucky to get. I have a new fixed blade knife and a new flashlight inbound. Looking forward to seeing what sort of service BladeHQ will give me. I'll give you a hint. The brand names begin with F & B.

Improvised Weapons: Millwall Brick

The anti-defense crowd of thugs and rapist wannabes often whine about innocuous knives being weapons. They attempt to ban them for being too big, too small, opening too fast, being too military looking, or just being sharp. However, the world is full of every day objects that can be rendered into something just as potentially dangerous if not far more than your ordinary EDC folding blade. Such an item is the Millwall Brick.


The Brick hails from the disarmed serf-nation of UK. It was used as a soccer hooligan's stealth weapon. It is a mean little improvised weapon, that can be brought anywhere and made on the spot within a few minutes. Such as that, it's not really a bad idea to know how to make one if push comes to shove. The materials to make one are found in your Sunday Edition newspaper. Or rather, the Millwall Brick IS your Sunday paper!

The Millwall Brick is a carefully folded large newspaper. It is folded/rolled long wise, and then folded in half to form a handle and the rounded fold becomes the head of this bludgeon. They are often wettened down to add weight or even feature nails.

To be honest, it would be a more effective weapon than your after Kershaw or Gerber folder. It has more size and reach. It is almost like a sap.

Paper is surprisingly strong in bundles. Folks have made .22lr back stops in their homes using phone books. That paper doesn't have the density of folded either. Each time you fold paper it comes harder to fold until you cannot fold it further with a human's strength.

This simple item could easily put someone into the hospital. Used effectively it could kill someone. But it is just a newspaper. I cannot think of a single place that bans newspapers. Schools, airplanes, courthouses, bars, post offices... It is just one of the countless items that can be used in place of knives or even guns everywhere if your criminal decides to obey the rules...

2012 Kershaws at Blade HQ

Was browsing the 'Coming Soon' section of BladeHQ, when I noticed several different new Kershaws. Notable models include:

Funxion, an flipper style assisted opening knife/multitool in DIY, EMT, and Outdoor configurations.
Outdoor 10, a 10inch bladed carbon steel bolo/kukri hybrid.
Vapor III, a third model in the Vapor series.
Taskmaster, a 7inch folding saw.
Cyro, a very handsome 2.75inch bladed assisted-opening flipper.

There are several others, but please roll over to BladeHQ to see pictures and more information. Looks like Kershaw is going to have a good year. A few of these, especially the Outdoor and Cyro, look very attractive to me.

Tired of Being Civil About Self Defense Rights

That is IT. I'm throwing down the gauntlet. After reading about Amanda Collins, a university student who was disarmed by campus laws and ended up raped at gun point after a night class, I cannot take being civil anymore. The same filth went on to kill and rape others. Thanks to the long standing left's war on self-defense, her firearm was left at home against the threat of expulsion when she needed it. Maybe she would have been killed, maybe she would have killed him. We cannot say, but she was helpless thanks to the work of anti-rights cultists.

I'm tired of being called a murderer-in-waiting. Sick and tired of them trying to prove that I'm sub-human for wanting to see that I and my fellow humans have the tools and rights to protect our lives, families, and properties against the greed and wickedness of others. Guess what? Two can play at that game, motherfuckers!

Anyone actively working and campaigning against our rights to carry weapons and fight back in self-defense is of the worst sort of vermin. They are pro-rape, pro-murder, pro-crime scum. I could care less if they are that was from a sick sexual satisfaction to see others hurt, they're following their programming, or whatever the reason. They are enemies of freedom and liberty. They are less than the worms that fill the diseased feces of a feral dog. I will call you what you are. Accomplices of murder, sexual violence, torture, thievery, and every other crime that innocents have suffered from being they were not permitted to have the necessary tools to defend.

Who are part of this group? Every member of the boards of colleges that vote against self-defense. Every politician everywhere that votes against self-defense. Everyone working for, donating to, or advocating the Brady Campaign, VPC, Million Mom March, and the others. Every cop that gives CCW people a hard time just because. The list goes on. You're not human to me anymore. I wouldn't piss on you to save your lives for 20 bucks.

If I hear someone that wants to tell me to my face, that I'm a coward for carrying, that guns are evil, that carrying guns is awful... I'm going to sneer at them and ask them, "Yeah, watching people get raped and murdered gets you hard/wet right? What do you like about it the most? The fear in their eyes? The blood on the ground? Fucking sick wannabe. Get away from me. I don't associate with vermin."

Update & Final Thoughts on the SOG Spec Elite II

One of my most often read posts is one about my experiences in carrying a truly large folder, specifically the SOG Spec Elite II. It is a 'combat' folder with a monstrous 5inch recurve blade in the excellent VG-10 steel. I have carried it on and off for several years and I have decided to retire this knife from carry permanently.

One of the main reasons for carrying a big folder is for possible self defense use and honestly the only other reason is for woods craft like batoning or chopping. Otherwise a small blade is generally going to be less expensive, less legally problematic, easier to carry, and less likely to scare other folks. But the Spec Elite is simply not strong enough to deal with those things.

From day one, I've have problems with the screws holding the pivot point together. They want to work loose during the operation. The weight of the blade only aggravates the situation. Tightening them enough to stop it, would only keep the blade from smoothly opening via thumbstud, lock manipulation, or just a hard flick of the wrist. Loctite I think will only cause more of the same. The blade has a good amount of wobble when untightened enough to open normally. As already said tightening it doesn't work either. As it stands I do believe under heavy duty use, in an emergency, I do not have faith in the screws not to work out and for the blade to come free. The frame is not strong enough to maintain integrity alone.

In fact, I discovered that two of the small screws had indeed worked out and been lost a few weeks ago when I went to carry it IWB. On the upside, I emailed SOG, and they had two replacement screws in my mailbox within two weeks.

The blade sharpness and sturdiness is excellent, the pocketclip is good enough for IWB, the lock system is secure, and the grip is at least passable. I can only rate this one for medium use on the condition that you are very careful on keeping an eye on the screws. Therefore, the 5inch blade is practically decorative. This one is going into the old knife box. It is retired.

"The Right to Knife" From Straight Forward in a Crooked World

Matthew over at Straight Forward in a Crooked World has an exceptional post about the use of knives for defense and defensive offense. It is less on the knives themselves and more on the reality of having to take a sharp blade to someone and the results of that. This post paints the reality of such action in appropriately grim and brutal fashion. It has really got me thinking of testing the abilities of my knives.

My First Big Bore, the Sig P245

Well, things finally worked out, and I am now the proud owner of a used but still minty, Sig-Sauer P245. This .45 ACP is has a compact 3.9inch barrel but a nearly subcompact grip. It disappears OWB or IWB. It uses 6 round magazines normally, but this one came with three 8rd magazines with grip extensions. I'll be carrying with the 6rd mags but keep the 8rd mags for reload.

This particular Sig is special, as I know and have been friends with the original owner, Alan, from SnarkyBytes for several years now. It has even spend time on the range with the world's most dangerous librarian. It is a most welcome addition to the household arsenal, and I look forward to hitting the range with it.

I picked up a simple Don Hume 721, thumb break holster for CC and OC. It also works well with my Zurich Sig 225. While not fitting as tightly, the thumb break keeps it nicely secure. However, I am considering some nice leather for this one.

Walmart is Testing the Waters with EBRs

I managed to find out from a manager that the Sigs and Bushmasters are not part of our replenishable inventory. They were apparently bought in bulk and are currently going out to stores to test the waters to see if such rifles will generate enough sales to become regular inventory. As such, the stores cannot order additional rifles. Instead, stores can put in a request for the rifles but with no assurance that they can actually get one. If you see one and the price is right, grab it. There's no telling when and if we will see the rifles become a normal item in the inventory. However, my store has sold every Sig m400 and 522 we've had in, though the Bushmaster has been untouched. I think that we will see EBRs as part of the regular inventory. Just can't say when.

Review: Timberline Tactical ECS-4

Originally, I said that I would carry the new Timberline Tactical ECS for a few weeks. It did not work out so. I do not know if I have ever been both so impressed and disappointed in a knife, but that isn't exactly correct. It is a bit of a convoluted situation.

Getting to the negatives first, the knife came unusable as a cutting device. I do know that I've never had a knife come out of the box with a worse edge. After using my Griptilian for nearly two months, did I feel the need to get the edge back into shape. This was done in about ten minutes with a set of Lanskey Croc Sticks. After nearly 20 minutes of work with the same, the improved edge still wouldn't cut the top off a tied plastic Walmart bag. I was warned by the single review on KnifeCenter, but I didn't not take it too seriously. To be perfectly honest, my sharpening skills are poor. That is my fault, but putting edges on metal is not my job. If I wanted to redo an edge into functional status I would be making my own knives and I'd have a RK mk1 subhilt on my hip and be busy selling you guys knives verses reviewing them. I have two fixed blades with not so great edges, however both are styles that are known for this very problem. One is a small double edged spear point, Fallkniven Garm, and the other is a single edged dagger point, Boker Trench. Neither broad enough to have the deep bellies that make for great cutters. The ECS-4 possess a modified spear point making this rather inexcusable when other examples like that on the Kershaw Skyline are excellent. As a result, I did not carry this but a few times just to see how it carried.

The ECS line's featured gimmick is a locking system. By pressing a springy metal bar where your index finger rests, you release the knife from its polymer sheath. I am happy to say that this works very well and I think this is a winning idea. I am very interested to see how this might apply to larger knives. There are two caveats that I cannot bring to call full negatives. The first is that you will not be able to operate this easily in other grip that a pinch between index finger and thumb. I don't see you being able to generate the pressure in a reverse grip or round hold. That may be a deal breaker for many, but I think of this to be like the retention system of a Blackhawk Serpa. Like the Serpa, the ECS is designed to be drawn with a certain grip. Doing so otherwise is impossible. That also makes this acceptable as an open carry knife. The other is that the sheath lock is a two part deal, requiring both the sheath and knife itself to be designed to work in unison. Having to deal with the locking nub, would mean that 3rd party sheaths are going to be difficult and repairs in the field useless.

The ECS does have nice deep jimping on both the spine and the unlocking bar, but the rearward ones were pretty useless, it is too short for a reverse grip. The holes in the grip did help a bit with providing more friction, but I think G10 would have been a better choice than the slicker stock polymer. The cross style guard for this seemed a poor choice for this smaller version due to the style in which the blade must be drawn. To be more in line with that, perhaps a thumb ramp instead of the top guard and then extending the bottom guard would fare better. I found that the grip was simply too short for me. I wish I could handle the larger versions to see if the grip design is only problematic in this shorter neck knife version.

Most sheath systems are the weakest part of a knife. Otherwise we wouldn't have piles of leatherworkers and kydex folders out there making a tidy profit. However, for the ECS the sheath system is a welcome surprise and in my opinion overshadows the locking system.

The polymer sheath itself is well thought out. It is two piece held to together with several screws. A most excellent feature was included by the knife's designer Brian Fellhoelter, was the indent that keeps the knife from rattling in its ABS plastic home. The ECS is mounted either belt or molle via a harness. This harness slips in the four rectangular slots in the sheath and then hook together with alligator hook and loop catches. This ambidextrous design allows for a quick switch to left or right side. The belt loop is simple and effective and very back is a solid MOLLE connection. The MOLLE design has a snap strap that thankfully keeps those hateful MALICE clips out of the equation. The strap also will easily fold back into the harness unobtrusively for belt carry. The larger version of the ECS also include a belt/boot clip. I really wish I had one of those to try out. I really want to know if it measures up to the belt/MOLLE harness.

According to Brain Fellhoelter the ECS stands for Emergency Condiment Spreader. He also comments that it was designed to be a knife for river guides. Sadly, Timberline's production take on his custom is pretty much only good for spreading peanut butter without some initial work. Rereading his site, I wish I could try one of his custom ECS models or the larger production models to compare. Even flawed the Timberline ECS-4 shows that his concept works well. If the larger one have a proper working edge, I think they'll measure up far better.

The knife aside, I find this sheath system to be so excellent that I am tempted to make a kydex sheath with harness slots cut to use it with other knives like my Boker Trench. In fact, I think that once some folks get a hold of these sheaths that folks would buy the harness alone. With wider harnesses, this could take off like the popular Tek Lock.

UPDATE: I emailed the designer, Brain Fellhoelter, and found out that the webbing harness is based on his idea, but resigned and improved by Timberline. I also found one of the custom ECS blades for sale on Arizona Custom Knives. Notice the difference in the cross guard. This one looks more like a thumb ramp. Excellent high-vis G10 scales, too! A bit pricey for my tastes. If it were a subhilt, I'd be tempted to put this bad boy on layaway.

More Intel on Walmart Evil Black Rifles

Talked to the manager over sporting goods. According to him, there is no order catalog for the Sigs and Bushmasters that have been showing up. As they sell, replacements are automatically ordered by the perpetual inventory system and sent to the store. I've asked him about finding out more. However, it being the holiday season, this might take a while.