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TOPS Knives Mini Scandi 2.5 Fixed Blade Knife

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TOPS Knives Mini Scandi 2.5 Fixed Blade Knife

Name: TOPS Knives Mini Scandi 2.5 Fixed Blade Knife
Brand: TOPS Knives
SKU: tops-knives-mini-scandi
Price: 65 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.415094 (53 reviews)

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Product Description

A handy neck knife or a virtually unnoticeable blade for your bug-out bag, this small and mighty fixed blade is great for slicing, piercing, shaving, and much more. At 3 inches, the 1095 carbon steel blade is big enough to take on many outdoor tasks, and the full-tang construction won’t break down on you in the field Read More

Customer Reviews

4.4

(53 reviews)

(31)

(15)

(6)

(0)

(1)

100% would recommend to a friend

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reswright

3850

Jun 9, 2019

Verified Buyer

I picked up the Rockies edition and I'm a little happier with this than anything I've recently gotten on Drop - even though on paper, this knife is nothing impressive, just a small tool steel fixed blade with a linen micarta handle and a thermoform sheath on a ball steel chain, with eyelets in every other loophole on the sheath. An emergency whistle. No advanced steel, no advanced materials, no CNC. Doesn't sound like there's much to expect, right? Turns out that's a good reminder that there's only so much you can know about a knife just by looking at it on paper. This knife is a small, all purpose camp knife that just happens to have an ace up its sleeve. There are three immediate facts that became clear when I received the knife and started handling it.

The first is that I hadn't appreciated from the photos how careful the sculpting is on the handle. The ergonomics are sublime. The pinch grip and improvised grip give you a tremendous feel for what you're cutting. The way it all works together with the blade is very purposeful. And I have big hands and this is a small knife and I still love how it feels in my hand.
The second is that while it's no major feat for a fixed blade knife to have a decent balance to it, the balance on the Mini Scandi goes past just being decent. It's outstanding. You can dance this knife around on one finger, you can shift from grip to grip with very little effort. There's a spot of jimping for the improvised grip or a choked up pinch.
The third is that while the finish is fairly simple, the build quality is there in spades. This is an old school tool steel -- 1095 -- so you'll need to give it a rub with some oil every once in a while. I believe the non-ground portion of the steel has a thin clear powdercoat on it but the edge and grind will rust if neglected for too long.

So a lot of folks have no love for knives this size, and I get where they're coming from, but I'll tell you something -- there's very little you couldn't get done with this knife if you needed to. The ace it holds? For a small camp knife, the ergonomics of this design are optimized for self defense. That's not really an accident - it's what the company is known for. If you're sitting there going 'watevr' and you've picked this knife up and felt like the grip's too small, do me a favor. Go find your knife. Take it to a place where you can flail around a bit without knocking over or cutting the snot out of someone or something. Now, hold the knife in a pinch grip like this:

Feel how the haft lies along the ball of your thumb and how your index finger wraps around? Give a couple of stabbing strikes, not slashes, with this grip. Under and up, like a Roman centurion with a gladius. Good ergos, don't you think? Think you could stab something with it if you had to? Now, instead of holding the knife in a pinch, or like a saber, blade on the same side of the palm as the thumb, I want you to reverse your grip so the knife is laying on your hand like so:

Right. Roll this up into a fist.

See how that small handle just locks into your palm, no play, no wobble? Feel how the haft rests against your curled index finger? How what was a liability -- a small handle -- becomes a strength -- it enables a very firm grip? Now, whip a hard backhand strike or two, like it's an icepick. The kind of thing you might do if you're scared and full of adrenaline and being attacked by something. See how well the biomechanics work, see how much strength you can get behind your attack this way? Think if you had to, you could get some shit done in a hurry with this knife, even if you aren't trained in knife fighting, and it's a little knife? Yeah. It's there. You just gotta know what it's about first. Me, I was kinda looking for it in advance because I'd heard about TOPS from a number of folks. I just hadn't picked one up. This was the first. It isn't going to be my last. If you wanna school yourself in the art of the small fixed blade, you could do far worse than starting with one of these. Five stars.

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TLemelin

165

Jul 29, 2019

reswrightSimply stellar review.

dzalder

Oct 28, 2018

Verified Buyer

It came razor sharp and is small but fits comfortable in my hand. It's about the perfect size to be carried discreetly and comfortably. I like wearing a fixed blade when I'm doing chores but decent sized ones tended to dig into me when I get in the car or stick out to far for when I'm in public (couldn't wear them horizontal on the front of my belt without looking too excited, if you know what I mean) and I sometimes get nervous if I'm wearing them horizontal in the back for fear I'm going to cut out a kidney while trying to sheath it blindly as often as I use it. But the size of this makes it easier to wear it whatever position or around the neck. I'll be buying more TOPS knives in the future, I'm sure.

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Shok

Mar 7, 2020

Verified Buyer

Great Little Knife! Not Such A Great Deal.

This is an awesome little blade. The fit and finish on mine is excellent. It came fairly sharp, not quite shaving, but close. The handle and little blade have great balance and heft. The sheath is very tight, but better tight rather than loose on a neck knife. Shortly after my purchase I found the same knife in the same (Rockies) configuration for about $10 cheaper. I highly recommend people search for items sold on Drop at other retailers. Quite often you will find the item cheaper, with free shipping, and no wait time. Give us a deal Drop!

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Carm

Aug 16, 2018

Verified Buyer

Smaller than may think (despite description) but good ergonomics and quality sheath (slim, no clip).

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Schuyler

170

Dec 18, 2018

Carm+2 points for mentioning the sheath not having a clip, was annoyed with only getting one side of the sheath in the photos.

Rhenry1369

Dec 20, 2018

Verified Buyer

It's a ok little knife the grind should have been better an the handle even though it feels nice a little more to hold on to would be better or like crkt they have that little lanyard which I'm going to add to mine also a belt mount or a way to mount it would have helped I mean for the price you really get a mediocre knife really I think I like the izula more even just wrapped it's more to hold on to an they take up the same space that's just me I really wish the izula came in m390 then I would have my perfect one

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Darkrex

Aug 20, 2018

Verified Buyer

Would have gotten a 5 star if the grind on my knife were the same but in one side the ground is 18 degrees and on the other is like 20 degrees makes the job when cutting a bit difficult

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BitingSarcasm

May 7, 2020

Verified Buyer

Mine came sharp with nice fit and finish. My only complaint is that the sheath is only good for hanging, in that the grommets are set at an odd distance that won't accept other single clips, or Tek Loks, or really anything else I tried. Not a big deal, but it was a bit of a surprise when punching the hole a half inch off would make it accept a variety of clips. It's just a small gripe, it's a nice little knife.

Recommends this product? Yes

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Runebob

May 4, 2020

Verified Buyer

Nice knife, but the sheath was too tight.

And by too tight I mean as in the ball chain almost drawing blood as I applied enough pressure to extract the knife and then getting smacked it the face by the sheath!. By the time I got the sheath where I wanted it - about 5 heat gun sessions - the left side of the blade (the sheath is flat on that side) was badly scratched. Ok so I'll take care of that and learn to sharpen a Scandi grind. Suffice it to say it is (if it actually started out as one) no longer a Scandi grind. This is because of 2 reasons. First of all I don't really have the right stones to sharpen a Scandi grind. Second the blade had 3 "hollow" ground areas (one on the left tip, and one on each side just beyond the ricasso) which I spent 5 2-3 hour sessions trying to remove. At the end of each session I would try a final sharpen and while the blade would be reasonably sharp at the fine diamond (600) stone, it it would not be very sharp after the final hone with the Sapphire stone. And it still looked like hell. So I finally used wet dry sand paper to get the grind to a polished finish and put a razor sharp secondary bevel on it. Eventually I'll probably remove the coating and brush or polish that area too as I really don't care for non-maintainable finishes on my blades that I use.

Recommends this product? Yes

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