CRKT is a super popular knife company. I have to say that they make a ridiculous amount of knife designs. However, I don’t like very many of them. That’s nothing against CRKT, just my personal opinion.
USE: The Swindle is an EDC knife. It has a 3.25 inch elongated wharncliffe blade. I have a thing for wharncliffes. It’s a great blade shape for EDC.
DURABILITY AND STEEL: The blade is .12 inches thick and terminates into a fine point. The steel is 8Cr14MoV. This is a cheap Chinese steel that has Good rust resistance, fair edge retention and fair toughness. It’s made to a budget.
3/5
ERGONOMICS AND TEXTURING: The ergonomics of this knife are fair. The handle is very straight and doesn’t really mold to your hand. It does have effective gimping on the spine that keeps a hold of your thumb when doing work. The handle is smooth and may be slick with sweat on your hands.
3/5
ACTION AND LOCKUP: The action is smooth, but not exceptional and the lockup is tight with no horizontal or vertical play.
4/5
COST: The Swindle can be yours for 40-50 dollars. Other knives that come to mind are the new Cold Steel Voyagers and the Spyderco Tenacious or Resilience. Those are great, foreign produced knives that I would rather have over this knife.
3/5
FINAL THOUGHTS: This isn’t a bad knife, but man… the pocket clip on it is weird and less effective than the normal offering. It makes the knife sit stupid in the pocket. I wonder why they would attempt to change a design that isn’t broken. Sometimes “innovation” is just messing stuff up.
OVERALL SCORE: 3/5 Painfully Average
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