Here are some thoughts about another legal carry knife I purchased dead cheap on Solingen "Messer-Gabel-Scheren-Markt" knife expo in November. It is an Otter pruning knife. It comes with a big (85 mm) billhook blade from C 75 high carbon steel with a homogenous temper (not selective, that is).I estimate the hardness to about 56 - 58 HRC. It comes with beautiful cocobolo wood scales, brass bolsters and liners, and a stiff spring out of C 30. Overall craftmanship is meticuous, and i can´t for the death of me figure out why it was sold as second grade... It has a high convex bevel that is nice and thin and nearing a flat grind. Out of the basket (no packaging here) it came razor sharp. The handle is nice and chunky. Often the scales on knives like this look a bit crappy, but this one simply is beautifully finished. There are little to no tolerances. There is no radial or axial play in the blade. The spring is quite stiff, and the blade opens in one fluid motion due to a round base of the blade´s root. This is one thing I would recommend to change, for a rectangular blade root would add some more safety to a slipjoint, even if it is a very safe handler already. The upswept handle allows for powerful cuts when pruning trees, and makes it even suitable for some whittling tasks. A knife of this shape quite naturally is not suited for all tasks ideally, but that´s not to be said that they canot be done! Even cutting sausage is a cinch with the proper technique.Peeling an apple is where the billhook design really shines, and cutting rope and zip - ties also is really easy.
What do I think? This is a very able cutter with a friendly appearance suited for a lot of tasks, not only pruning, harvesting herbs and mushrooms, but also kitchen and whittling tasks, provided it is used with the proper technique. For the price it is a real great bargain. I would add a lanyard hole, for a lanyard comes in real handy when you are pruning trees, and would wish Otter could find it in themselves;-)to add a rectangular blade base. But other than that I would not change a thing!
Buy it, it takes little room on your shelf*ggg*.
