I first went through the “double-edged boot dagger” phase in
college, when the Gerber Mark 1 and inexpensive copies of it were the only
knives I would buy. I amassed quite a few of them before I got over them. I even
managed to stab myself in the arm, once, with a Mark 1 copy. There’s a certain
Zen clarity that goes with the thought, “Should I leave the knife in my arm, or
pull it out?”

I have a small
white scar in the shape of the diamond-cross section of the tip of that
double-edged knife to this day. A decade and a half later, I’m not obsessed with
the design as I was then, but I still appreciate a good double-edged blade. That
brings us to the latest incarnation of what could be considered the “Gerber Mark
1 Genre” — that is, any knife with two edges and a tapered spear-point tip. The
sample that most recently crossed my desk was the Cold Steel Counter Tac
1.

At first glance the Counter Tac 1 is almost sexy in its classic lines
and centered groove (I guess you could consider it a “blood groove” if that
turns you on).

The edges are
hollow-ground and taper to a needle point. The knife shipped as scary-sharp as I
expect from Cold Steel, capable of popping hair off my arm and slicing
effortlessly through the edge of a sheet of paper. On a trip to the dumpsters
behind my office, the knife also penetrated stacked cardboard and heavy plastic
barrels very well, thanks in part to the full-sized handle that affords plenty
of leverage.

When you turn
the knife over, however, you realize just why the knife tends to veer off at a
specific angle when cutting through anything extensive. This is because it’s
deeply hollow-ground on one side only. The opposite side is completely flat.
While this makes the knife cheaper to manufacture and easier to sharpen (the
most compelling reason for any chisel-ground edge on a knife, especially
folders), I felt almost ripped off. No part of the original website description
indicated that this was the case.

“Hollow
ground,” to me, implies hollow-ground edges on both sides that meet in the
middle at a very sharp point. While I can’t fault the sharpness of the blade,
the edge geometry really left me cold. Being sharpened on one side only — and
being deeply contoured on that sharpened side — means the Counter Tac 1 just
doesn’t handle the way it should.

When it cuts even moderately heavy
material (like cardboard) you can feel the difference as the thick blade,
tapering to its single sharp side, drags the edge to one side, like a car with a
bad wheel alignment. This doesn’t change the mechanics of a thrust, nor should
it really make a difference when slashing a human being in a defensive
encounter, but the difference between the look of the knife from its sharpened
side and the performance of the knife in actual handling really drives me
nuts.

The full-tang,
five-inch blade of AUS 8A steel (“vacuum heat treated and sub zero quenched for
strength,” if you care) is attached to a Kraton® handle four and a half inches
long. The handle swells to fill the palm and is grooved and stippled to afford
excellent traction. The integral double guard is more than ample to protect the
hand from sliding onto the blade.

The guard is
also the means of securing the knife in the included Secure-Ex® sheath, as it
forms a friction-fit with the mouth of the sheath. Repeated use ought to loosen
this fit, but out of the box the knife is extremely hard to remove from the
Secure-Ex® sheath. The sheath has holes and mounting slots to which one might
attach straps or other hardware. The plastic boot-belt clip is removable but
attaches quite securely and shouldn’t work its way loose unintentionally (a
common problem with removable clips).

The Counter Tac
1 is an adequate dagger that could have been a great knife. On paper, it has all
the features you’d want in such a knife, despite the tight sheath fit. In
reality, the lopsided blade geometry married to 5mm stock is frustrating and
less than elegant, effectively undercutting the inherently clean design that
embodies any simple, double-edged blade.

It’s not a bad knife, but it
could have been so much better.>>