“One scary knife!”
That was my reaction on opening this package. The knife in question was this one, a clone of the Civilian.
Of course the Civilian is a scary knife, designed as a weapon of last resort for law enforcement agents deprived of their firearms. It has next to no utility value, it is intended purely as a weapon.
I’ve looked at them, and among my collection is the Emerson Waved Matriarch 2, but I’ve never bought one.
However on Aliexpress I found this, a slightly blemished replica of the Civilian for $26. I hemmed and hawed for a few weeks, until I finally decided to buy it.
“One scary knife!”
The package came with the knife, in a red box, with a piece of paper that congratulated me on buying a Para-Military 2. It had been opened and checked by Customs, who had then passed it through.
The Civilian is a big knife, here is a picture of it alongside my XL Cold Steel Vaquero Voyager. It isn’t quite as big as that, but I think it is far more intimidating.
And from the other side.
Build quality was excellent, and as you can see this iteration of the copy is far closer than the previous iteration shown on the dealer’s webpage. It even includes the Boyd dent. The knife has G10 scales, with only one side having a stainless steel liner, and the blade comes very sharp. Just to see if it could I tried push cutting newsprint with some of the serrations. It could. The action was gritty to start with, so I squirted some CRC in and opened and closed the blade until it became smoother. Now it’s okay.
The original had a reputation for tip fragility, and I can see why, the deep serrations closest to the tip would weaken it there, but then if you’re ever in a situation where you’d need a knife like this you won’t care. That said, if that was your intention I would recommend buying the Matriarch 2, or Lil Matriarch if you have smaller hands. Of course the steel is not VG-10, but I’m hopeful it’s one of the decent Chinese steels, even 8Cr13MoV would be fine with a good heat treatment.
The knife is fitted for tip up or tip down carry, right hand only. The techniques I’ve seen demonstrated suggest that tip down is the better way to carry. The G10 is rounded off and comfortable in hand. The ergonomics are fine, as you’d expect given the source. It locked up fairly tight, although there was a little bit of give that I’m not used to with my EDC knives having the Tri-Ad. Although it was described as having a small defect, I haven’t found it yet.
Can I recommend the knife? As long as you treat it as a collectible, not necessarily as something you’d stake your life on, I would recommend it. If you want a dedicated defensive blade I would, as said, grab the Matriarch or Lil Matriarch. They’re the real budget versions of the Civilian.