"Karamibt Fever": a review of the Fox 479SW Folding Karambit Flipper

It's all the fault of Zombie Tools. I was perusing their site as I shopped for my Tainto sheath, and saw The Mauler. It fascinated me and next thing I knew, I was reading up on karambit blades.

One thing led to another and then I was on a site looking at the Fox 479SW Folding Karambit Flipper. I actually found it at Knife Center for a pretty penny or two. I had some tax refund money and... well, it's pretty obvious what followed.

The Fox 479SW is first and foremost sharp! It has a single edge, with the cutting bit in the inside of the curved blade. The steel looks to be high quality to my less-than-educated eyes. It's a flipper, so there's an extension you can press when the blade is folded to force it to flip open. It's not a spring-loaded blade, mind you! If you flip it open, you use inertia to flip it.

The blade also has a proprietary catch you can use to force the blade open when pulling it out of your pocket. Kind of a neat, if potentially-nasty, design. The grip has a rough feel to it that doesn't slip but is otherwise-comfortable. The karambit has a ring on the opposite end of the blade. When gripping, either your index finger (for the normal, blade-down grip) or your pinky-finger (for the blade-up grip) gets inserted into that ring, making it difficult for you to drop the blade or be disarmed.

Also makes for an impact tool when punching someone.

I've gone through a few YouTube videos to look at how karambits are used. There's a lot of experts out there with lots of advice. It's clear that carrying this is carrying a weapon and that's got potential consequences. It's potentially risky to one's own health to mess around with it without learning more, so I'm viewing some exercises so I don't cut myself flipping it around.

I'm not sure this is the sort of thing I'd normally carry. I like my main pocketknife fine and am not really the sort of person who ever wants to be in a knife-fight. My fight-or-flight reflexes very much run towards the latter of the two options.

Still, weapons fascinate me and this is the latest of what will doubtless be many more to get my attention. It's a great knife and certainly worth the price in my book.