Review: American Kami - Super Colubris knife

I really splurged recently, before I realised I needed to replace my old vehicle (woops) when I saw that DJ Urbanovsky of American Kami was offering a series of his knives that had been dinged up in the grinding process, as <B>eater blades. Basically they had slight cosmetic blemishes, but were fully functional, for a significant discount. Perfect!

I had seen the American Kami blades as a Soldier System sneak peak, following on from an amazing piece on some axes he has made I was thrilled to have this piece arrive, and get to using it.

What really keyed me onto this one was the crossover in design between a chefs knife, and a combat knife. I go-to kitchen knife till now has been my Global 14cm Vegetable knife and their 20cm Chef's knife just for reference. Ok, perhaps its a thin line of reasoning, but this is an awesome addition to my collection in any regards. So, here's what I can tell you about it.

The 15cm (6″) blade is crafted from CPM S35VN (the same company produces the CPMD2 steel in the SAR ODDjob knife). The Super Colubris features a tumble over heat treat finish, which gives a lovely finish as well as a great edge. This model offers a modified droptip and is 27cm (10.5”) in overall length.

The Super Colubris comes with a very nice kydex sheath, with eyelets, and is fitted out with an interesting gutted paracord lanyard system, which DJ covers in this clip of the smaller American Kami Colubris "mid-tech" knife in his safety briefing and preferred carry method video.



 From this angle you can see the two sets of three finger gripping crenelations on the spine, these feel great on the thumb, or the webbing of the hand when holding it by the bolster when being all chefy.

The G10 scales I requested are coyote brown, and feature deeply engraved "American Kami" motifs which acts as a grippy texture, without being rough on the hand. The handle itself features three prominent recessed hollow bolts, as well as a lanyard hole at the butt end, give a number of lashing options.

Being a "beater", my Super Colubris has some misgrinds on the omote side of the blade. This was part of the package of getting one of these blades at a much reduced rate, making it an affordable extravagance. You can see the deep gouges on the back where the spine and false edge meet. There is also some surface scarring on the flat of the blade. None of this has had any affect on the performance of the blade, at least not with the kind of use and abuse I expect to put it through.



With a light hacking, slashing action, I produced a number of deep penetrations in this pumpkin. Stabbing thrusts were equally as effective.



Not wanting to leave the more practical aspects out, here's a few passes of me using the Super Colubris to slice up said pumpkin. One handed and at an oblique angle, this set my dinner up nicely.

With its very well made kydex sheath, lanyard retention system, the Super Colubris is not only a very nice knife in the hand, but gives every impression of being a long lasting, heavy hitting, but controllable tool to have to hand. I am going to see about rigging it to my belts and rigs with one of the RTI G-Code wheels or a Tek Lok system.

Either way this is a really nice piece, and I'm very pleased with it in all its less-than-perfect glory. Now to save up for a Type 14 Bearded ManiAxe ....