It’s less than half a millimetre, right at the very tip. It could probably be sharpened out, or perhaps a light grind on the back of the blade to bring it back into alignment with the edge. I’m not that worried though. I wasn’t going to carry it around anyway, and doing the cutting test was a bit daft considering even the original was regarded as somewhat fragile right at the tip.
As for the steel, I have no idea. I’d guess at something like 8 or 9Cr13MoV, but that’s basically because I’d assume that someone who went to the effort of making a good copy of the knife would have enough pride to ensure the blade wasn’t a bad steel, even though it isn’t VG-10. After all, Sanrenmu will sell you a knife for $5 with 8Cr13MoV, so decent cutlery steel is cheap in China. It seems decently hard, and it does take a very fine edge, newsprint push cutting from the box.
To be honest, if I had to pick a Chinese knife in that SD role I’d be inclined to grab the serrated Navy K633s from FastTech. Navy make a decent enough knife and it is easier to pass off that as “my EDC knife I grabbed in a panic” when facing a jury than the Civilian. Seriously, the prosecutor would only have to open that knife and show it to the jury to convince them all that you were an evil psychopath out there looking for some sweet innocent gang member to gut.
Thanks, after sharpening a couple of these copies, Medford, Brous and Spyderco they do seem to be very like 8Cr13MoV in edge retention and the ability to take an edge easily.
Good call on not carrying your Civilian, a guaranteed hard time if carried and used defensively (unless in a ships chandlers cutting rope).
Good luck with restoring the edge, or leave it as honest working damage.
That’s after some time with a round rod from my Lansky Turnbox, and the corner of the 3000 grit stone that I hone everything on.
It’s not as needle like as it was originally, but it’s still a very narrow cross section and I reckon you could drive it into meat and rip across without any effort.
Perhaps I should send it to Cold Steel for a cutting demonstration?
Edit, for some reason the pic wasn’t showing when I first replied.
That looks like a scary sharp tip again.
I can see why Spyderco would want you to be careful of the blade up to the first serration, it looks a weak spot. I’d hate to think it got twisted while cutting and the tip got embedded in the ERM, steak.
Yes, that first serration is too deep for my liking. If I’d designed it I’d have skipped the deeper serrations at the tip and just relied on it being a very thin, sharp piece of steel at that point.
There’s an (illegally uploaded) video on YouTube of someone demonstrating the techniques for using a Civilian. He himself makes the point that you have to be constantly aware of where the tip is, because it doesn’t care what gets in front of it, it’ll bite you as happily as it’d bite anyone else.
I’m not about to watch a 40+ minute video from a guy I dont like (for other video’s / opinion/s he’s shared) but I did watch about 5 minutes of it and his technique is horrible. When your using a blade for self defense, regardless of the exact MBC technique you use and/or the blade profile, you want to make a single slashing movement, either up, down or across (or especially with a hawkbill you use a pulling cut), I dont know WTF he’s doing but it looks like he’s thrusting and then twisting all around making way to much movement, remember only the sharp side cuts, so I’m not sure what he’s thinking moving the knife all around is going to do better than just making contact and pulling. He’s talking about popping tendons like you have time to perform surgery, if its came down to you having to cut some attacker you dont have tome to pick out what you want to cut, you go for the big areas, the inside of the leg, the arms, the neck. Thinking you’ll be able to aim for and cut a specfic tendon is setting yourself up to fail (and fail means getting killed).
I carry a spyderco P’Kal (yes a real one, I also have a real trainer version) every single day as a SD tool, I dont use it to cut anything so I dont dull it, I’ve got it so sharp if you just gently touch the bevel it cuts skin totally painlessly, sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel! Anyway I’ve taken several different MBC classes from a few different instructors who teach very different techniques yet never have I even been instructed to make the hand movements he’s making. Also in the 5 minutes of it I watched he just stood there with his off hand hanging around doing nothing, because no one fights back or anything…
the point I’m hoping to make here is this- if you carry a knife for SD do yourself a favor and take some MBC classes, its MUCH MORE than picking a knife out, carrying it, deploying it and slashing wildly. Doesnt have to be anything super advanced, they have all sorts of beginner courses, plus it’s [the classes] are fun and may help you save your own life some day and keep you from cutting yourself in the process. Not trying to give a safety lecture to anyone but it can easily make the situation worse if you pull out a knife in a L&D situation and you dont know what your doing with it, it could very easily be taken form you and used against you…
the other thing I feel I should add is that Spyderco only makes its budget line (and Byrd line) in China so that cant simply be an unauthorized copy made at the original factory as the original factory for the Civi is the Seki-city plant. Also pretty much ANY knife with VG-10 is going to be made in Japan as they arent big on exporting that steel, yes some are made other places but as far as I know ALL spyderco’s in VG-10 come out of one of the 2 JAP manufacturers (there are 2 plants in Japan, the one in Seki-City and one other, spyderco marks their blade either “Seki-City” or simply “Japan”).
Yes, this is a clone. I identified it as such right at the top of the page. No it’s not VG-10, I suggested 8Cr13MoV further down.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Could your knife be too sharp for SD? It would seem to me that a knife that is so sharp that you can’t feel the cut will probably lead to carving someone so badly that they’d bleed out before they realise they’re hit. Surely a better edge is one where they do feel the cut and realise that if they don’t run they’re at serious risk of receiving more of them? After all the goal of SD is to survive both the attack and the resultant legal action, and a couple of cuts are easier to get legal sanction for than a corpse.
This fake is a slap in the face to Spyderco, the tip and serrations are done improperly and looks even more fragile than the real thing.
A real civilian is $150 shipped off amazon and I have two. Spyderco is a very honest company with great support and I’d never give money to a counterfeit.
There are other fields that use replica in this way. e.g. A kitcar car can have a completely different chassis and running gear to an older or iconic car make and model but have a correct looking body covering the modern bits, these are called replicas of the original, it depends on the builder whether they put correct or replica badges on.
I have not been fooled by any of these replicas from AliExpress, I have bought several good quality knives for what I consider a fair price. Anyone wanting to buy the correct/original knives would not for one minute be taken in by them as the make/model/specs are all wrong.
All it raises for me is how can the original and genuine manufacturers get away with charging 10 to 15 times the amount for a knife with upgraded steel, S30V is not justifying to me the price hike.
If I could afford the real thing I would buy them, I do wonder though how much better they could be to command such a difference in price.
You only give AliExpress your details not the separate vendors, choose an item, buy it and your money is held by AliExpress until you tell them you got what you wanted. Then the money is released by AliExpress to the vendor. It is (I think) a low risk way of buying from vendors who you might feel are a bit sketchy, they never get your details.
I’ve had several items from AliEzpress over the last two years. Only one, a $6 pair of scissors, didn’t turn up, it was sent to the wrong country, I filed a claim explaining that the tracking number that I was given showed the item out for delivery in Northern Ireland, not the U.K. and I got my money refunded immediately, well, within a day.
I don’t even think about the risk, I feel that there’s more chance of card details going astray in shops and restaurants than on AliExpress.
By the way, the Military I got was in an obviously faked box with no paperwork and no bar-code, the knife itself is a great knife, it’s used around the house and in the kitchen. It’s a very good slicer.
No obvious faults and good quality materials, solid lock-up and smooth to deploy and close. It’s this one, the price has gone down.
Yep, that military looks great for 20$. Yes I know its not S30V, but srs its a knife it had a blade, some scales, a few screws a liner…if China can rep a 250$ knife for 20$ and its 95% the same, more power to them.
I just dont like to actually enter my cc info on sites like these in China. Wish they took PayPal since PayPal already has my CC info and I woudnt have to enter it again here…
You will pay a small premium for prepaid cards, like $6 or so for a $100 card, and you also need to register it before using it online, but it's a very good option in case you're worried about security on the other end, or recurring payments you don't want to deal with.
Buy a visa or mastercard, american express tends to have more issues.
I should have said - it’s not the “disposable” prepaid cards that i use, it is one that i will always have, just like another bank account where you pay for items as normal like with visa electron or such but the only money you put on it is when you’re going to make a purchase, all done online. It does make you think about any purchases you make because you need to transfer the money, keeps me in check somewhat
There is no charge for using it and i have it linked to my paypal account too so i can use the same card to pay for stuff via PP which is always the preferred option, it just gets debited to that card as normal.
I’ve only recently started trying it out and it seems to be fine so far and is good for sites like Ali Ex where a lot of people are hesitant to supply a CC number or debit their main account directly.
