American Kami / Boker Colubris pass around impressions

[flatblackcapo]

First, I would like to say thank you to DJ for taking the time to let us check out this sweet knife, and congratulations on landing a collaboration deal.
I will start off with a pic of the knife.

[/url] Boker American Kami Colubris by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
Boker put the Colubris in a nice big Boker Plus box.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubris by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
Upon opening the box I felt that the knife and the accessories were packaged well. Nothing was loose or rattling around.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
The first thing that I noticed when I got the knife in my hand was that the handle was well designed and felt great.The texturing on the scales is well done and....well,it looks cool . How could you not like a bunch of little American Kami logos? The texture could be a little more aggressive but over all I think it is a good balance.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
While putting the sheath together my first impression of the belt clip was it was a little flimsy and that it would not work well. It turns out it did just fine. I think upgrading to a large Tek-Lok would make the attachment more secure.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Picture 2 021 by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
The fit of the sheath was very good. It was nice and secure with no rattle and I did not notice any scratching on the blade. The Colubris popped out it to the hand with ease while still keeping a good amount of retention. Esthetically, the sheath had great definition and shape.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
The Colubris has a very nice stonewash finish and the logos are cleanly done.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
Sharpness out of the box was good. I was able to push cut phone book paper without snags or ripping. I did not use the Colubris hard because it was a pass-around and not a test-to-destruction. I did EDC the knife and used it for everything I would use any of my EDC knives for. The Colubris did well with food prep. It is no sushi knife but it cut apples and other every day kitchen foods just fine.

[/url] Boker American Kami Colubris by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
So , like I said, I did not want to beat the knife to death and send the guy next in line a butter knife. However I did do a little cutting to see how Bokers 440c would hold up. I cut a few feet of nylon rope. The Colubris was able to make nice clean push and draw cuts through the nylon rope. I think it was 1/2" nylon rope. If not it is close to 1/2".

[/url] Picture 2 004 by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
After the rope I carved on some pine door jam stock. The Colubris carved some nice curls while also being able to take some nice deep bites.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
I did a bit of light chopping to test edge strength. The Colubris performed this task with zero edge deformation.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
After doing these cutting tasks the Colubris still retained a cutting edge that was able to cut phonebook paper pretty cleanly. I would say that Bokers 440c did pretty well.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
The jimping on the Colubris is pretty aggressive. I think it might be a bit rough on bare hands during prolonged hard use, but with thin gloves I think it provides trouble-free excellent traction.

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Boker/ American Kami Colubr by pokeyoureyeout, on Flickr[/IMG]
After spending a week with the Colubris it left me wanting the real deal, real bad. I will be saving my pennies and hitting you up as soon as I can manage it, DJ. Thanks again for giving me a chance to give this knife a test drive.

 

[manghu67]

Dude, thanks so much for the excellent and detailed review! Glad you enjoyed the knife enough to want one for yourself.

Really appreciate your participation, buddy.

 

[flatblackcapo]

My pleasure.

 

[CapitalizedLiving]

I picked up the American Kami/Boker Colubris on a Sunday morning, giving me some time to play with it before the workweek and the subsequent issues of trying to get good pictures with indoor lighting.

I'm going to review this from a tactical angle. I have trained extensively in Yanagi-ryu tantojutsu and Systema, so my appreciation for knives is pretty deep. One designer I own a lot of stuff by is Laci Szabo, who pointed me in the direction of DJ Urbanovsky shortly before the two collaborated on an insane quantity of bladed weapons. I really liked DJ's work (Riot Lance, baby - that's all I got to say about that) so I kept my eye on him. And here we are now.

Now for the Colubris. I'm going to post pics first, and corresponding text second.

Here it is with some of my other tactical knives.



From left to right…

Laci Szabo/TOPS Knives Felony Stop
Bud Nealy Kwaito 2
American Kami/Boker Colubris
Tom Krein Double Eight
Laci Szabo/David Mosier Express





The Colubris combines a wide blade with a compact handle. Its balance point is directly below the first screw in the handle, making it turn easily in the hand between forward and reverse grips. I'm going to guess, without taking the handles off to verify, that the tang is not skeletonized, as it is much heavier than the blade even though it is fairly short and narrow.





After stabbing the hell out of a wooden target, I found that the large guard and handle texturing was biting me pretty hard. This is good news, because (a) the knife never once slipped, and (b) people, even when heavily clothed, have quite a bit less resistance than wood does. In fact, I leaned very hard into the target to see if my grip would budge, and it didn't move at all. As you can see, the guard is long enough that it extends past both my pinky in reverse grip and index finger in forward grip. That's good news again.





I didn't find the jimping on the handle too uncomfortable - as I mentioned the traction grooves and guard did all the wear and tear. I found the jimping was more useful for identifying the position of the knife without looking.



The jimping is also nice when using the butt. The exposed butt is an added tactical bonus - striking wood with this left deep impressions, and the jimping gave my thumb and index finger a lot of traction. This is the only time I noticed any fatigue or wear from this.



The butt also works well as a leverage point with your thumb in the reverse grip.



Another feature of the handle is a protruded point right where my ring finger rests in the forward grip. I could work around this by canting my fingers, but it was still obviously obtrusive. I don't think it's all that uncomfortable - I imagine people buying his knife for more pragmatic reasons (not that combat isn't pragmatic, but you know what I mean) would have more issues with it than I did.



But for any problem I have with this protrusion in the forward grip, it makes up for in the reverse grip. In this position I can easily get my index, middle, and ring fingers in front of the protrusion and my pinky behind it. I actually like this protrusion for how secure my hand feels in this grip.

To close out the handle, I believe DJ was going for a thin, narrow, and fairly short handle as less protruding material makes it lower profile when carrying it. He incorporated some interesting features which required a bit of play time to figure out, then some reflection to explicitly identify. I like it when a knife takes some time to figure out, which is something I notice frequently with Laci's designs and something DJ obviously applies as well.

Now onto the blade…



As I mentioned, the blade steel is thick, and the tall flat grind with secondary edge bevel serves to both reduce weight and increase slicing efficiency. While I don't think this would excel at wood carving or food prep, it is a very useful combination for cutting up thick cardboard, rope, clothing, and people.



I tried it out on some very thin cardboard, to see if it would shred or rip as opposed to slicing. It did a little of both, which again isn't bad news if you are tactically inclined. You certainly get a lot more effect out of a gaping bloody hole than a very clean, narrow wound that can self-seal and be quickly repaired. To verify this, I really wanted to wrap some pork in canvas and go at it, but alas, chicken is on the menu tonight.



Another thing I learned from this was how the tip, being low of center, tends to strike first and pull the cutting edge through the target.



I found the swedge grind to be a very useful feature. It helped the tip penetrate any target I went after, which is important because of the cutting motion I just described. The constant sweep of the blade plus the down-turned tip make this knife excel at piercing and slashing. I did a bit of prying with the tip (stabbing it into wood and prying it out) and had no issues, which is no surprise given the secondary edge bevel and how there's still a lot of steel at the tip, regardless of the swedge and the tall grinds.



One feature DJ incorporated is the curve on the spine. Laci calls this feature, incorporated into several of his knives, a palasut curve due to its parrying/trapping function. DJ did a video on the Colubris where he spoke of its indexing function, where the thumb rests here and locks the edge into a straight angle for precision cutting. It really works as both, which reminds me a lot of the Felony Stop shown earlier.

I didn't spend much time with the sheath, but I did notice what the previous reviewer pointed out, which is that it is a great fit and provides both good retention and a wide channel for the blade to clear. I have owned the Boker Kwaito (Bud Nealy design) and the Trigonaut (David Mosier design) and have to say that the sheaths were awful to the extent that they were almost unusable. The Colubris doesn't have this issue and I wouldn't bother looking for a custom sheath.

In conclusion…

The Colubris is a fantastic design that would work very well for counter-offense. It's not a small knife, mostly due to its thick steel, so I cant see myself trying to conceal this on my person, but wouldn't be a bad option for LEO or military use, or for exposed carry. I think it works best in the reverse grip, and the combination of the spine curve and downturned swedge would make this knife very difficult to disarm if it was in the hands of a trained individual. A sharpened clip would augment this feature, but that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Do I recommend the American Kami/Boker Colubris? Yes. The custom is nice, but you can't beat this (+/-) $65 production version.

Actually, you can. You can beat it hard.

Thanks for letting me play, DJ.

 

[Stickgunner]

Two very nice reviews. Nicely done gentlemen.

 

[manghu67]

What a fantastic, in depth review. Thanks so much buddy!

 

[flatblackcapo]

Really great review Capitalizedliving.:thumbup:

 

[CapitalizedLiving]

Thanks guys! I look forward to reading more from the next people in line.

 

[flatblackcapo]

Is the pass around over?

 

[manghu67]

I believe we've worked our way through everyone here who signed on to participate, but knives are still rotating via my Facebook group, as well as my other forums. I think I've got six knives flying around our there right now to help speed up the rotation. Anyone who is still interested in participating can still get with me to get in on the action.

 

[flatblackcapo]

Thanks DJ .

 

[245Trioxin]

Boker appears to have done an outstanding job, even the sheath looks like DJ's. I was really worried about the kydex sheath not being up to the makers
standards.

 

[manghu67]

Personally, I like my sheaths with more retention, but because the Bokers are actual Kydex, it's very simple for the end user to pick up a heat gun and carefully tweak the fit to their liking. That's what I did on my personal knives.

Boker appears to have done an outstanding job, even the sheath looks like DJ's. I was really worried about the kydex sheath not being up to the makers
standards.