After feeling some of the WE and Civivi Knives at Shot Show in January, I became Interested in learning more about their products. I'm a knife guy, not quite the junkie that some are on here and definitely not as well spoken, so bear with me. I own and rotated through a collection of benchmades, spyderco's, zt, microtech, etc. I use them pretty hard at my day job which to make things easy we will just call that job mobile heavy equipment repair. At night I also work in the firearms training world and use them much more as they are intended. Opening packages and such. So enough about me, about the knife. I purchased a Civivi Conspirator button lock knife from Edged Tools to try out. The Knife shipped quickly and came in a nice padded case with plenty of swag
The Conspirator came hair shaving sharp. This was straight out of the box, it shaved a nice patch on my left arm!
The action of the knife is ridiculously smooth. The knife opens easily via the flipper, the fuller/ elongated nail nick works really well for thumb opening similar to the hole on a spyderco or a thumb stud. The opening is so smooth, this knife easily becomes a fidget spinner of sorts that will annoy ones wife to death... Just as smooth as the opening is the lock engagement of the button lock. It locks up nicely and unlike some, there is no grit or weird catches in the lock. It closes just as smoothly as it opens. The next thing that I want to mention is kind of the elephant in the room with this knife, It is sexy looking!!! The damascus pattern looks so good, I thought it was fake. But after looking at it under a magnifying glass, it is true damascus and beautiful. The micarta scales pair up well with it, they have great grip and yet match the damascus in style.
The blade came centered nicely.
I am all about hard use knives during my day gig. I have carried one of the original Benchmade adamas D2 models for about 12 years, it has been back to benchmade for rebuild a couple times. That said, to see how tough the button lock and damascus blade was, I carried the conspirator at work for a couple week trial. I didn't purposely abuse it, but I did use it harder than most will. It surpassed my expectations. This knife won't become my work knife by any means and was never meant to fill that role, I just wanted to test it and see how capable it was. I used this knife for the usual opening of packages it was meant for but also did quite a bit of cutting on plastic banding, heavy card board, rubber hose, and even had to cut a rubber exhaust hanger isolator one day. This knife did all this without fail. The steel is a chinese blend of 9c from the best of what I could find out. I am not familiar with this steel but will say it preformed very well if you think about what it is designed for and what price it is being sold at. It reminded me of Bucks 440 steel. it is sharp, it dulls but is easy to hone right back to a shaving edge. I haven't found any other knives with damascus blades in this price range (around $100) that compare to what this knife offers. There are many great options in that price range knife wise, but very few that have a true damascus blade. Even fewer are ones that look this good and have the fit, finish, and quality feel of the civivi conspirator.
As I said before, I do not intend to use this knife for hard work in the future. But I'm also not chucking it in a drawer to collect dust, it is being added to my rotation of knives I carry for days I'm off work, going out to dinner, church, etc. If I haven't expressed it enough, this is a sexy looking knife. Though far from being expensive, it has a high end look and feel to it and it would really shine as an edc for the average guy who uses it for light to medium cutting chores as it was intended. It would also make a dress carry knife or even a nice distance creator if someone was trying to block your draw stroke, Just saying.
I don't believe in reviewing something with out also pointing out things that could be improved upon. The bad thing I found on this knife was the same thing I've found on the majority of pockets knives out there, The pocket clip. The pocket clip is designed to not wear a hole in your pants while also being easy to clip and unclip. The issue with this is that it is thin and can be bent easily when you catch it on something. The upward sweep at the end of the clip is designed to make it easier to use, but this comes at the cost of it catching on things your bump into. That said, I was able to easily bend it back into shape with pliers and was impressed to see that civivi used blue lock tight on the screws holding this knife together, I wish more companies would do this. I've had multiple screws walk out of knives costing multiple times more than this civivi and it was because they were not lock tighted. So hats off to civivi for doing this small step to help provide a better product This knife is a great edc option or a dress knife for dudes who hard use something else but want a good looking off hours carry. It will dull overtime with use, but can easily be sharpened back to hair shaving sharp. I touch it up when needed on a ceramic rod and it hones right up to sharper than it was when new. I haven't had any issues with edge chipping. The micarta grips will show wear and darken a bit with use but this is a small trade off for how good they feel in the hand. This isn't a fault of the knife in anyway, it is what micarta does no matter the brand. I personally like that as I use my knives and like a little character.
After a few weeks of heavy use, this is how she looks now. I think the blade looks better the more it gets used. The micarta shows a little use, but like scars and tattoos, it's just telling the knifes story.
WE and Civivi are now on my radar of knives to check out. I will definitely try out others they make. I typically give knives as gifts to friends and family, I bet some guys will be getting Civivi's this Christmas. Along with learning of civivi's quality with this purchase, I also found a new knife dealer who I highly recommend and will be giving more business too. Edgedtools.com is a great shop. He is a site supporter here on INGO with competitive pricing along with fast shipping.
The Conspirator came hair shaving sharp. This was straight out of the box, it shaved a nice patch on my left arm!
The action of the knife is ridiculously smooth. The knife opens easily via the flipper, the fuller/ elongated nail nick works really well for thumb opening similar to the hole on a spyderco or a thumb stud. The opening is so smooth, this knife easily becomes a fidget spinner of sorts that will annoy ones wife to death... Just as smooth as the opening is the lock engagement of the button lock. It locks up nicely and unlike some, there is no grit or weird catches in the lock. It closes just as smoothly as it opens. The next thing that I want to mention is kind of the elephant in the room with this knife, It is sexy looking!!! The damascus pattern looks so good, I thought it was fake. But after looking at it under a magnifying glass, it is true damascus and beautiful. The micarta scales pair up well with it, they have great grip and yet match the damascus in style.
The blade came centered nicely.
I am all about hard use knives during my day gig. I have carried one of the original Benchmade adamas D2 models for about 12 years, it has been back to benchmade for rebuild a couple times. That said, to see how tough the button lock and damascus blade was, I carried the conspirator at work for a couple week trial. I didn't purposely abuse it, but I did use it harder than most will. It surpassed my expectations. This knife won't become my work knife by any means and was never meant to fill that role, I just wanted to test it and see how capable it was. I used this knife for the usual opening of packages it was meant for but also did quite a bit of cutting on plastic banding, heavy card board, rubber hose, and even had to cut a rubber exhaust hanger isolator one day. This knife did all this without fail. The steel is a chinese blend of 9c from the best of what I could find out. I am not familiar with this steel but will say it preformed very well if you think about what it is designed for and what price it is being sold at. It reminded me of Bucks 440 steel. it is sharp, it dulls but is easy to hone right back to a shaving edge. I haven't found any other knives with damascus blades in this price range (around $100) that compare to what this knife offers. There are many great options in that price range knife wise, but very few that have a true damascus blade. Even fewer are ones that look this good and have the fit, finish, and quality feel of the civivi conspirator.
As I said before, I do not intend to use this knife for hard work in the future. But I'm also not chucking it in a drawer to collect dust, it is being added to my rotation of knives I carry for days I'm off work, going out to dinner, church, etc. If I haven't expressed it enough, this is a sexy looking knife. Though far from being expensive, it has a high end look and feel to it and it would really shine as an edc for the average guy who uses it for light to medium cutting chores as it was intended. It would also make a dress carry knife or even a nice distance creator if someone was trying to block your draw stroke, Just saying.
I don't believe in reviewing something with out also pointing out things that could be improved upon. The bad thing I found on this knife was the same thing I've found on the majority of pockets knives out there, The pocket clip. The pocket clip is designed to not wear a hole in your pants while also being easy to clip and unclip. The issue with this is that it is thin and can be bent easily when you catch it on something. The upward sweep at the end of the clip is designed to make it easier to use, but this comes at the cost of it catching on things your bump into. That said, I was able to easily bend it back into shape with pliers and was impressed to see that civivi used blue lock tight on the screws holding this knife together, I wish more companies would do this. I've had multiple screws walk out of knives costing multiple times more than this civivi and it was because they were not lock tighted. So hats off to civivi for doing this small step to help provide a better product This knife is a great edc option or a dress knife for dudes who hard use something else but want a good looking off hours carry. It will dull overtime with use, but can easily be sharpened back to hair shaving sharp. I touch it up when needed on a ceramic rod and it hones right up to sharper than it was when new. I haven't had any issues with edge chipping. The micarta grips will show wear and darken a bit with use but this is a small trade off for how good they feel in the hand. This isn't a fault of the knife in anyway, it is what micarta does no matter the brand. I personally like that as I use my knives and like a little character.
After a few weeks of heavy use, this is how she looks now. I think the blade looks better the more it gets used. The micarta shows a little use, but like scars and tattoos, it's just telling the knifes story.
WE and Civivi are now on my radar of knives to check out. I will definitely try out others they make. I typically give knives as gifts to friends and family, I bet some guys will be getting Civivi's this Christmas. Along with learning of civivi's quality with this purchase, I also found a new knife dealer who I highly recommend and will be giving more business too. Edgedtools.com is a great shop. He is a site supporter here on INGO with competitive pricing along with fast shipping.
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