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Folders, Photos

Sprint Run Spyderco Military C36 with M390 Steel

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Imagine a C36 Military with Carbon Fiber handle instead of G10, dual liners when my old Millie in CPM440V got only one and a black aluminium back spacer… now Imagine the chance to test the best steel in the Sprint Runs manufactured in Golden…
Ah, the C36 is available for little time in a limited edition with M390 steel and peel ply carbon fiber… the Cheetah of military folding knives is back with a vengeance.

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

Lightweight. Incredibly light so you forget it once it’s clipped to your pants.
Lightweight is a luxury. The choice of the materials and the refinements of the design since 1995 has kept the feather weight of this big knife.
Soldiers needs to control how much they carry. The millie is a good friend for them.
And a good friend for the hunter, the bushcrafter and the voyager.

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

Again the C36 offers you a very pointy blade for a strong blade. This is polyvalence. The point of needle with the power of a big bad full flat ground blade in the best steels available.
No surprise this knife is a classic and even if a Military II will be produced one day, Eric Glesser at the last Minimeet in Amsterdam told me the Original Millie will be kept.
In all my Military I only saw one broken tip. It was the very first one in CPM440V (S60V) we reviewed with Fred Perrin and he was able to reground it.

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

The big hole is perfect for Spyderdropping. The knife is open with an elegant movement and close in a breeze with or without gloves.

The quillons, created by the choil and the hump behind the hole, give all power to the blade without to go through an handle “interface”. This gives a lot of control. You are able to cut hard and quick. But also by choking up the blade you can whittle and do some precise works. This is where a Millie shines compared to for example my Lionspy which got heft and strong cutting power and certainly a stronger lock.
This is a question of choice. The nested liners in the carbon fiber handle is such a clever invention to keep an extra flat a incredibly solid tool. The balance point is just

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

All in all, that Sprint Run is a second chance for those who could not pull the trigger on the S90V / Carbon fiber limited edition of the C36 some years ago.
Now S90V is a really strange steel. My Paramillie in S90 V is kept sharp as I don’t want to fight with diamonds to get its razor edge back. S90V do not want to lose any atoms.
One of my C36 Military came with a very keen edge. I think it’s around 20°. I was able to goes to vorpal dangerous sharpness only by stropping it on leather. I would not be able to get the same results with my equipements unless I got a lot of time on my hands.
So IMHO M390 is not S90V but so far it looks like a excellent alloy. Better than S30V in the way it keeps its high sharpness once polished (And I love to polish my edges). More to come later on a longer run. But this steel is going to be a very strong contender in the race to super powder metallurgy steels.

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

What a pleasure to pocket a C36 again.This is an EDC which knows how to be forgotten until you need it and the range of use of this Classic is wider than many knives even many spydies. A long blade. A long handle. A research in excellence for 17 years by Sal Glesser.

Many Spydies are little big knives: short knives with great power. This one is a long knife which knows how to be light like a shorter folder. And looking at it you can be delighted by its exquisite lines in all its unique engineering details. A must.

Spyderco Military with M390 Steel

Folders, Photos

Dirty jobs for a strong folder…

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The Lionspy expresses its design in the woods. The heavy blade and strong lock even make it a light chopping tool for small branches.
But the handle open construction next the pivot is not the most confortable spot for push cutting into hard material like 90% of modern folders the use of working gloves is mandatory for hard cutting. On that, the Gayle Bradley is more ergonomic.

Lionsteel belly cutting

The thick high flat ground blade’s belly gives you a lot of power especially when you need to cut with the first third of the blade (near the point as shown on the picture) when the knife is not perpendicular to the cutting material and the belly acts as a guillotine. Here it works great.
Lionspy in the Wild
With its heavy blade the “need” to chop comes naturally. It helps a lot to clean small branches when making a staff for example. Also I was able to give some lateral pushs and pulls to that wedge blade and everytime the wood gaps with a satisfactory crack. I did not baton it yet, it’s a short blade, but in this case I would certainly not engage the lock.
The open construction makes it very easy to clean but even very dirty all the elements of that big folding knife works perfectly. Sand and dirt do not prevent the blade to lock and unlock perfectly with both systems (RIL and Roto). So far I was not able to noticeably scratch the handle or the blade.
Lionspy in the wild
The Lionspy is really destin for hard user it really remembers me the HEST fixed blade. No surprise the HEST Folder is also made by Lionsteel and got since its second batch so well appreciated.
Both the Lionspy and my good old HEST folder have been used for cutting roots. The Hest is my favorite dirty jobs small knife as I know how solid is it and how easy it’s to restore the convex edge I put on it.
Lionspy and HEST
The Lionspy came with a gently convexed grind and Elmax is surprisingly easy to keep razor sharp with ceramic and leather stropping.
Lionspy in the wild

Folders, Photos

C 157GTIP – Spyderco Lionspy – Pocket Lion King

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“I got a lion in my pocket
And baby he’s ready 2 roar…”

Prince – 1999

The Lionspy is not a big knife. It’s an animal with big paws. Shorter than a Millie, in the same size as a Gayle Bradley this is a compact knife.
Stout would be the term.The extra thickness of the blade is balanced by the almost full wide flat ground convexed edge.
This is not a pointy knife. It’s almost like my beloved small Panama fighter from Sean McWilliams: not pointy but with a strong penetration factor.
So let’s not be fooled by it. The Lionspy got a very sharp tip and it’s perfectly useable for piercing.

The first thing you notice when you handle the Lionspy is how well balanced it is. There is a very good reason to have an half titanium and half G10 handle: balance.
This is a knife which is “alive” in the hand, easy to manipulate and a pleasure to hold. Again, for comparaison it remembers me the DPX HEST fixed blade in the way that thick tool can be very handy for hard works.

Spyderco Lionspy

Shorter than the Millie and in the same size as the Gayle Bradley which is a great hardcore folder with a much thinner blade of of wonderful steel.
The Lionspy is my first Elmax blade. Another exotic powder alloy to test.

Spyderco Lionspy

Eventually the Lionspy is a very compact stout folder as tall as some very familiar object. It doesn’t scare sheeples so far.

Spyderco Lionspy
On a table it’s really a shorty knife for such a relatively wide huge blade. Notice the Rotolock invented and patented by Gianni Pauletta.
This is a very simple way to turn a very strong folder into some mega strong folder. Not a fixed blade. But a mega strong open folding knife.

Spyderco Lionspy

From the thin CPM-M4 to that Millie special edition M390 to the massive Elmax of the Lionspy… The CPM-M4 has proven to be able to amazingly carve into very hard materials.
The convex flat ground Lionspy is absolutely razor sharp right out of the pouch (as there is no box but a great Spyderco pouch with a little stainless steel tool wrench to adjust the pivot and the clip.)

Spyderco Lionspy
Handy and comfy in any grip. See how the grind is even. But the confortable “not square” handle is the first thing I had noticed.
You got a very strong positive grip on hammer or reverse. “Built like a tank” is really the cliché which comes out loud from my mouth.

Spyderco Lionspy

Compared to the Millie’s clip the Lionspy clip is very low profile deep carry alternative. As the knife is short enough to be completly forgotten inside the pocket. Great EDC !
Now it’s not as easy to draw out of the pocket as compared to the Millie “quick draw spyder drop option”. But the Lionspy is a strong tool not a fast cheetah of a knife like the Millie.

Spyderco Lionspy
The cheetah and the lion. Two different kind of animals both very addictive. The Millie is performance oriented, light and fast.
The Lionspy is pure strenght and majesty.

Spyderco Lionspy

Two strong tools. The Gayle Bradley has proven  how useful and reliable it can be. Now it’s up to the Lionspy to prove how it can be too.
So let’s put my beloved GB back in a box and use only the Lionspy for a while…
Let see how the lion can roar on the long run…

Spyderco Lionspy