MONCh Gear Box Product Review
The Spyderco SHAMAN has become my favourite Spyderco lock bladed folding knife. Weighing 147g (5.2oz) and being 210mm (8.25in) long, it is robustly built with premium S30V blade stainless steel (79mm/3.12in long and 3.7mm/0.145in thick) and contoured matte-finished G-10 handle scales, making it suitable for heavy duty use. It incorporates several popular and use-proven Spyderco design features.
The Spyderco SHAMAN takes the wonderful silhouette of the NATIVE, adds a bigger blade and a compression lock and is proportionally thicker, with a wider blade and a beefier handle, essentially a larger version of the NATIVE.
The blade design includes a generous sized trademark round thumb hole, to facilitate one-handed opening with either hand. There is finely cut area on the base of the spine and on the underside of a finger coil that spans the space between the sharpened edge and the handle, feeling secure against the forefinger when one uses a hand forward grip.
The very sturdy blade is a broad spear point pattern with a mostly curved edge, standing up very well under heavy use. Being extremely sharp, the SHAMAN sliced paper, broke down cardboard and cut rope and wood with no problems. I expect the knife to work a long time before sharpening will be needed.
As mentioned earlier, the length and shape of the handle allows for gripping the knife with the forefinger either against the finger coil, or behind the full finger groove on the handle. With either, one may rest the thumb on the blade spine, or close it, for a full-fisted grip. There is a lot of flexibility in how one may securely grip and wield this knife.
This stainless steel knife could be used for a variety of missions, ranging from overt through to clandestine operations. In such a capacity, operators are better off using folding knives over fixed variants which can take up more space and be less manoeuvrable.
The knife features a full-flat grind for edge geometry and acute, utilitarian point, designed to enable swift, reliable, one-handed opening with either hand. The knife also features a Compression Lock mechanism to secure the blade as well as single-hand closing.
The SHAMAN can be stowed and deployed very quickly, providing SOF operators with a low profile solution which also retains enough strength to be used as a defensive weapon if necessary. The knife can be used as a strap slasher to cut through vehicle and aircraft seatbelts. Additional utility could see close protection teams deploying with the folding blade.
A premium cutting tool, the Spyderco SHAMAN is MONCh Gear Box approved.