ESEE4 Fixed Blade Knife, 3D Contoured Handle, 1095 Carbon Steel, Black Ambidextrous Sheath, Made in USA

This is my first esee4 it comes with everything you need; a sheath and removable belt clip with hardware. This is not my first esee I got an Izula in 1095 and one in 440C; also got to purchase an Izula II. All three great small knives really sturdy great for neck knife or pocket carry. I wanted something a bit larger and a full tang fixed blade to carry everyday. I looked at the esee 3 but the handle looked small so I went with the 4 the handle is barely big enough for my hands my pinky barely fits. A lanyard helps with that; it is well made with a nice thick blade stock, it has nice heft to it, the ergonomics are good. It has pretty decent jimping and a finger choil that I think it needs to be a tad bigger, my fat finger barely fits in there. 1095 is a good steel it is easy to maintain and gets a good edge quick. Just apply some kind of lubricant to protect from rust as it is a high carbon steel. I use tuf glide on my carbon knives as it works well and lasts a while. The handles are the textured black/blue G10 they have a swell midway making them more comfortable than flat slabs. Good quality hardware on the scales. The sheath is a polymer material it is sturdy , has a drain hole and has a pretty good retention but I would have preferred kydex but not a deal breaker there are some aftermarket sheaths or I can make my own it’s not that difficult. The pocket clip can be attached in different positions and all hardware is in the package, use some blue loctite. It is not a do it all knife but will cover most tasks. The way it is built it should last a long time. Now price, I purchased this knife for $120 it is not overly expensive but it is not cheap either. The price is justified by the no questions asked warranty, you break it they fix or replace. Warranty won’t cover normal tear and wear, coating, rust, things like that but if the knife snaps in half, the scales break they will cover it. I am very satisfied with the knife and might look into other models for future purchases.

I bought this for my teen son, who is currently into all sorts of camping and bushcrafting activities. He was originally looking at something like a Becker BK-2, but the siKnife arrived quickly and surprisingly hassle free to Israel.Even when taking the knife out of the package, it felt solid and had a good bit of heft to it. Out of the box, the knife was well sharpened and sliced through paper effortlessly. It has a flat thick spine which helps the knife work well in batoning wood (already tested). Of course, with a knife of this size you're not going to be able to splinter logs or very thick branches, but even with a much larger knife you'd be better off doing the initial splitting with an axe. The 4.5" blade (4.1" cutting surface) seems like it'll be a good size for most needs, though, and helps the knife feel more balanced in the hand. The 3D micarta handle also provides a good grip.Potential Downsides:1. Length of the handle - Holding the knife, it feels like the handle could be a bit longer. I'm 1.79m (5' 10") and have proportionally sized hands, and it feels like the handle only just reaches the end of my palm. In practice, though, it doesn't seem like this would actually bruise my hand or affect any of the functionality, and for my son it fits fine.2. Coating on the blade - The blade has a powder coating which may affect the smoothness of slicing. It also means the spine of the knife will not work in striking a ferro rod. This type of slicing is not one of our intended uses, and our ferro rod already has a striker, but someone who wants to do those things with the knife will need to remove the powder coating and then probably also treat the blade somehow to prevent the 1095 carbon steel from rusting.Overall, we're very happy with this purchase, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a decently priced, well built bushcrafting knife.

The look size and feel of this knife are all amazing. In early tests it works well as a survival knife, which means it's not great at anything, but good enough at most everything. The only downside is that the handle might be too small.Call me overly self conscience, but I feel odd welding a big scary knife when camping. It just feels a bit too mucho, like driving a hummer out for ice cream. This seems like a reasonable sized knife that does not make me feel like I'm compensating for something. It would be a bit small for batton wood splitting, but should work for normal campground firewood.I take Large to XL gloves and this knife fits in my hand nicely, but leaving you feeling like it should be longer. If you don't choke up on the choil, the swell fits into my palm nicely, but the end of the knive stops before leaving my hand. With my index finger on the choil the knife feels great. So you could say that it's as small as it can be. And I like that.This is not a cheap knife. You can see and feel its quality. ESEE has a pedigree, and stands behind this knife with a great replacement policy. I'm not the kind of person who uses replacement guarantees. If I abuse and wear out something that I like, I buy it again. I'm not sure under what conditions I would ever request that ESEE replace my knife, but it's good to know they would. I don't intend to use it, but have to assume I'm paying for a potential replacement, so that's just a cost increase for me.Overall I suspect there are cheaper knives that would do what I'm looking for, but I like the this one for the price and features. It's also nice to know I could solve the handle size issue after market for another $50. But that makes this knife very expensive, and it works well for me as it is. It would have made more sense if I could have found the ESEE 4HM model to try. Overall I'm happy with this knife as it is.