Okay, so I got my Mule in the mail. I opened the shipping box and inside was a full size KA-BAR combat knife box. Not to worry, the Mule and its sheath were inside, though it wouldv'e been just fine if it'd actually been a real KA-BAR fighting knife model.

Anyways, first to the sheath. It is quite a tactical rig for a folder, even one this big. Maybe it is too much. It is chock full of straps with velcro and snaps, and can be worn on the belt either in vertical or horizontal orientation. There is a small problem with closing the cover strap over the knife, I'll expand on that in a moment.

Getting to the knife itself, the first thing I noticed is that for a folder, it is big, meaning longer than I thought. This is attributed to handle moreso than the blade. Something else I notice right off is that this knife feels solid in the hand. There is a belt clip attached to the knife, and it is probably the single biggest drawback about the whole thing. Not that it doesn't belong, but it is mounted from the factory on the wrong side of the handle. Gripping the knife, it is going to bite into the meat of your palm. It is attached using a couple of removable spline head screws, and it is possible to take it off and put it on the opposite side, where it more properly belongs for a right handed grip I think. As soon as I can find a small enough spline driver, or maybe I can get a small allen wrench to work, then I will see if having it on the other side of the grip makes it better. If not, then I will have to consider how else I can carry it without it's sheath for EDC.

The grip is a high density plastic slabs in a khaki tan. Apparently you can get this knife in both olive drab green and black slabs. Spline drive screws are used throughout to hold the knife together. Each slab has a set of little hard rubber inserts running parallel along the center two thirds of the length of each slab, which along with the well profiled indents makes the grip quite ergonomic and secure, with the belt clip the exception. The knife is a standard lockback type that is centered in the top of the handle and detented so that it doesn't really interfere with the ergonomics. The locking mechanism is really solid and secure, and there's no doubt when the blade is deployed it is positively locked in place. Pulling the blade out is easily accomplished due to the pass thru stud atop the spine at the back of the blade. I had no problem extracting the blade with one hand, although the hinge is probably the stiffest I've ever encountered. I am not sure that my wife, who has a weak grip, could do it with one hand. It is a trade-off of having a solid hinge that it will be harder to open I suppose. In time I suspect it will soften up a little as the friction points smooth up, but it will never get super easy. There's just too much metal to metal and the hinge is assembled to a very tight tolerance.

Once deployed, the blade is rock solid. There's no doubt what the engineers had in mind with this knife. Having been in Iraq, I know what I would want in a folding knife, something as rugged as my fixed blade that got used for all sorts of tough prying, poking, and slicing work. I like the way this knife blade looks, it is finished in that satiny smooth, gun blued look that KA-BAR blades have been knowned and recognized for. The blade is two thirds to an inch shorter than the grip it seems. That's okay. Long blades on folders isn't so great in a tactical situation, and if I need more knife than the 3" + blade of this folder, I would opt for carrying one of my fixed blades. Nope, this length seems to be pretty manageable.

Like with the Spyderco Endura knife, this blade comes from the factory "Scary" sharp. That is to say that it is razor sharp, sharp enough to push cut into my skin without much pressure at all. That is what I call scary. The manufacturers must've realized this is a sales point. It convinces me that AUS 8A is still a desirable knife metal that can take an excellent edge, and after testing it, can hold that edge well.

So after shaving half my left arm bare, and push cutting through some old rags, the sole of a boot, some belt leather, and a plastic coat hanger (okay the coat hanger took a little more weight to push cut through, but it went). I took it outside. There's some old seasoned sycamore out back that the landlord needs to get hauled off, but for now I will see what I can do with this knife. Of course, the first big test is to stab the tip into a chunk of wood and see how it penetrates. As expected, the knife tip goes in just as you would expect of any stout knife. No problems with the grip, save for that darned belt clip digging into the palm of my hand, making me feel just a little tentative about having my grip slip on a full power thrust, so I hold back from a full bore stab. I have no doubt that this knife will penetrate tissue just fine, and should go through a door panel about as well as my most popular fixed blad will. The hinge end of the grip has a reverse tape just enough to feel like a guard that keeps my grip from sliding down on the blade.

Next is the throwing. Because the handle is so much larger, the balance point for this knife when opened is well back of the hinge point. Underhanded throws were a little more successful than the overhand trys, but it was hard keeping oriented to the right rotational force applied for a given distance, and most of my tosses ended up boucning off. In fact, the harder I threw, the less often it stuck, but when it did, it was really positive.

After maybe a hundred throws, the handled had a few dents and dings, but the hinge was still quite tight and there was no play in the blade. This was as expected. Because of the balancing point, this knife doesn't lend itself to chopping action very well. I would not be expecting to do a lot of chopping with a folder anyways, prefering instead to either slice, or baton if the knife will take it.

While this knife blade is thick enough to baton with, it is not as robust as any of the fixed blades I baton with. I decided to exercise a little care about impact behind the hinge, which would normally really loosen up a folding knife in short order. Using another piece of wood, I was able to split 2" diameter chunks with work, the blade wanting to rotate out of the split due to the geometry. Once the blade went below the surface of the end of the wood, then I removed it and relocated so that only half the blade penetrated the split, this in order to keep the impact point from the baton still on the blade and not behind the hinge. I wouldn't take on splitting wood chunks that were bigger than maybe 3" diameter with this knife. Too much work, and too much energy applied to the hinge point. I will say that the hinge did take a few incidental blows, and this did not seem to do any harm to it. However, I would still be wary of doing that too often, regardless.

Finally, I drove the end of the knife into the end of a big piece of wood and drove it in about half an inch deep. Then I tried flexing the knife all around to pry it loose. I tried flexing the tip deliberately to see how the blade flexes, and just like KA-BAR fixed blade knives, this blade is also quite rigid and not prone to flexing much at all. It will take a lot of lateral stress, about 130 lbs laterally without incident. Upon final extraction, I noted no apparent tip deflection.

I guess there's more I could say, and pictures would always be nice, but that's not an option at this point. My conclusion is that this is a darned good utility/tactical folder. It may not be the easiest to rapid deploy, and there's little about this knife that I would consider diminutive. However, I wore it clipped into the front right pocket of my slacks all day yesterday, and there's no doubt in my mind I could EDC this thing anytime without feeling burdened or encumbered anymore than any other folding knife with a 3 to 3 1/2 inch blade. I can extract it from my pocket fast enough to use as a blunt instrument, which is recommended in certain self defense circles, and because even folded it extends more than an inch out below my hand. Give me another couple seconds to flip the blade open and regrip it properly, and I am ready to go.

For a wilderness setup, this would be a fine belt/pocket knife to carry. I guess it depends on what you are looking for, but for me, I want to take something that will take loads of abuse and remain reliable. This would be the folding knife I would reach for, and it will be the one I take with me in and out of New York City from now on.