My second Chinese knife
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So, a post about my second Chinese knife? I hear you ask: “What was your first? A Reate, Rike, Bestech or WE?” Well, you would be a little bit right. It was a BG Knives District 9 Tanto before Reate officially got involved. We are talking autumn of 2014. I even made a special bead for it myself and had Maprik (on Instagram) pimp it in his ‘nuclear’ style. It was seriously overbuild and quite heavy, so in the end I didn’t use it that much and decided to sell it.
A couple of months later I got my second Chinese knife by way of a larger trade. And again, it was not one of the brands named above, but a Real Steel. The Carson Tech Lab Megalodon Mk1, the one with the big choil.
Although the setup of this knife was simple, as it was just a plain titanium framelock. It was, at least looking back, forshadowing of the quality and tolerances the Chinese would be able to create and achieve. Today we as knife collectors don’t expect anything less from brands like Reate and WE.
But in 2015 this knife was an eyeopener for me. It had a style reminiscent of some of the sleeker Russian knives and an unbelievable action. You could flip it with any finger, including your tumb!!!
At the time I also owned two Grimsmo Norseman/Norsemen. And although the Megalodon couldn’t quite match up with the crazy ‘gravity freefall’ closure of a Norseman, it came very very close.
On top of that it had some cool little details. One of which I don’t think I have ever seen on another knife. Namely slightly sunken sockets for the standoffs. Another interesting thing about this first generation Megalodon was that it had the enclosed pivot/bearing system that was first seen on the Carson Boiling Flipper, albeit in a slightly more discreet design. As a knife enthousiast sometimes these little details make you like a knife even more. But hey… maybe that’s just me.
Although this post is written in the past tense, I still have this Megalodon in my collection. And it is also (still) one of my go-to knives if I just want to flip and play on my couch. If you can find one of these Mk1’s, have a play and you’ll see why.
