The Drop + Bradford Guardian 3.5 Fixed Blade Knife is now available on Amazon.
Restock update: All models of the Guardian 3.5" will be re-stocked in July 2021. No delays are expected at this time.
shocktreatmentI escalated this with their customer support team and all I've heard so far is DROP passing the buck to different departments internally. Still no actual dates or timelines.
They always state that I can cancel my order, but the cancel order button is gone from my transaction page (since it was supposed to be shipped June 30), which means I have to go through customer service to cancel my order. Reading other people's accounts of the nightmare of trying to cancel an order with Drop customer service as well as my own crappy experience with Drop makes me very hesitant indeed.
UPDATE FOR MARCH-JULY PURCHASERS
Hi everyone,
We’re reaching out to let you know that, due to a bit of backlog at the warehouse, it’s going to take a little longer to get your Bradford Guardian knives out the door. We’re working on getting them shipped and you can expect to receive tracking soon. Thank you so much for your patience.
UPDATE FOR MARCH 13-JUNE PURCHASERS
Hi everyone,
We’re reaching out to let you know we’re tracking about a week and a half behind on the Bradford Guardian 3.5 Fixed Blade Knives and we now expect to ship in the second week of July. Our apologies for the delay.
If you’d prefer not to wait the additional time, you can cancel your order on your transactions page: https://drop.com/transactions.
Thank you so much for your patience. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our Community Support team at drop.com/support.
That sheath is not going to effectively retain that blade in a sideways orientation over time. Leather is organic, it continues to stretch and move and change with time and use and water and sweat. Good luck when you go to get in a car and the knife falls out and you put it through your car seat or butt. Or if you actually do anything outdoors, you will lose the knife.
(What is it with all of these people designing products in CAD and sending them off to a 3rd party manufacturer while none of them having real world knowledge or sense of how things actually work? )
Look at the positive retention of the Esee Izula II (which is eerily similar, yet superior in every way with a lifetime warranty from a solid company at a much cheaper price) for a way to do this correctly. Also, leather holsters unless very well designed will keep moisture on the blade for a long time when they get wet, leading to corrosion and affecting the edge.
UncleMusketI'm fairly sure Bradford makes all of their knives in shop.
The sheath isn't only leather, it has an insert to increase retention and help keep it's shape and reduce/eliminate some of the problems you mention while not looking like a plastic taco.
The sheath doesn't have any drainage, so I wouldn't use it for kayaking or anything (get a waterway for that)but nitro-v is extremely stain resistant like most nitrogen steels. Even in a leather sheath, you'll probably have less corrosion issues than the 1095 in the esee you mentioned.
You give up some toughness for that corrosion resistance, but nitro-v is very tough for a stainless steel and should be tough enough for a blade this small. It will also hold an edge longer than 1095.
UncleMusketit's pretty easy to slightly modify the sheath to have a snap. but that still requires tools a regular person doesnt have. i do this on all my condors. not pretty, but effective
edit: or use wax harden it, probably easier to do for beginners
How about a Drop for a ‘longer’ blade version, a big brother if you will for the one I already have?? Say, 4” or 4.25” ?
The steel is fine, I think, even for the longer size, otherwise M390 with the proper HRC would be really good :)
jww66It's an exclusive for Drop, if you like the design but want a different steel go to bradfordknives.com, they rock. I've got a full flat M390 G3 and a Vanadis 4E G3 sheepsfoot, both with Armatus Architect sheaths. I need to tighten up the M390's sheath a bit, but the newer one I got for the sheepsfoot is perfect.
Jonas- I have asked this before and have yet to receive an answer. I could not find the data on the Bradford site. I really like this knife and would get one....or two...if it has an appropriately high HRc. I do not own and Nitro-V blades, but virtually everything that I read says that for this steel to behave in a special fashion. It need a high HRc.
Oh. Have they addressed the issue of the hole in the blade peeking thru the scales.
Damn. I just posted a rant about this. I hope the demented folks are OK to carry knives.
14themoneyThese are good points. I’ve read great reviews about Bradford knives, but the mass drop version seems a little spotty with qa/qc based on mild reading and observation. More importantly, I’m also not sold on nitro-v. And if neither massdrop nor Bradford are going to commit to the the specs of the steel, then I’ll pass.