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QSP Swordfish
Quality/Performance - 75%
Value for Money - 77%
76%
- Pros: Double-row ceramic bearings and multiple deployment options for maximum fidget factor, high quality fit and finish, blade shape suited for utility work, excellent ergonomics, deep carry wire clip, solid button lock.
- Cons: Large and bulky in the pocket, micarta absorbs oil and dirt, fragile tip.
When we reviewed our first QSP knife last year, it was really a shot across the bow in terms of quality for a budget knife. The Gannet front flipper blew us away with its high level of finish, immaculate front flipper deployment action, exotic materials and attention to detail for the $80 price point. If you’re into QSP’s USP (the brand is an acronym for Quality, Service, Price after all) the good news is they release new models at a healthy pace. Today we’re dipping our toes back into the pool with the Swordfish folder, an intriguing piece of cutlery with yet another reasonable price tag.
QSP names all their models after animals – the Gannet, for instance, is a large white seabird that hunts for fish by plunge diving, like pelicans or osprey. Gannets probably aren’t attempting to dive-bomb any swordfish, which reach lengths of around 10 feet and 50-200 pounds. Oh, and they can swim at speeds up to 50 miles an hour with their long boney nose that they use to slash and injure their prey. So, a pretty badass animal and a righteous namesake.
Key Specs: QSP Swordfish
The Swordfish is long and thin and fast, whereas the QSP Swordfish is… not particularly long or thin. Still, it can definitely use its long straight edged blade to slash at Amazon boxes and envelopes. Maybe that’s what they meant by the name.
The Blade
The Swordfish’s blade measures 3.625” long with a 3.375” cutting edge and is 0.13” wide across the spine. The shape is a modified Wharncliffe, meaning the sharpened edge is entirely straight and the spine of the blade curves down to meet the tip, below the center point of the handle. In this case, it’s a modified profile because the spine isn’t a constant curve down to the tip, but few modern Wharncliffes meet the strict definition of that blade profile. On the Swordfish, the spine comes out parallel to the edge about two thirds of the length of the blade, then pivots down at a sharp angle with a compound false swedge to thin out the geometry towards the tip. This is done to give the blade better piercing abilities while retaining the blade strength of a cleaver shaped blade.
The grind is a high flat setup with a narrow flat section towards the spine for better slicing geometry, with a nearly vertical plunge line at the rear, which terminates midway through the sharpening choil. That choil is not large or deep enough to be a forward finger choil, by the way. These blade shapes are exceptionally well suited to opening boxes, since they put the position of the tip down relative to the center of the handle making the angled cuts more natural, like a utility blade.
Blade steel on the Swordfish is Alleima (formerly Sandvik) 14c28n, a high-quality entry level stainless steel from Sweden which was co-developed with input from KAI/Kershaw for cutlery use. It’s an evolution of 13c26, designed to improve corrosion resistance, with 14% chromium and 0.62% carbon. In CATRA cut testing, 14c28n (at 415 cuts) places below D2 (500) but above BD1N (405) and Nitro-V (365) which are other steels commonly seen at this price range, with better corrosion resistance than D2 – the typical tradeoff. It also has higher stats for toughness than D2 meaning it’s less prone to chipping, but you’ll have to sharpen it more often. For a budget steel, 14c28n strikes a great balance between the three pillars of performance (edge retention, toughness, and corrosion resistance) that works great at this price point. On our test sample, the blade sports a black stonewash finish, although it’s also available with a regular stonewashed blade at the same price if that’s your thing.
Deployment & Lockup
The Swordfish gives you options for deployment: there’s a finger flipper, a pair of ambidextrous thumb studs, and the lock itself. Since the knife uses a set of caged multi-row ceramic ball bearings in the pivot, it’s ultra-low friction, deploying swiftly via the flipper with a light push-button motion, as well as from the thumb studs. QSP did a good job with the detent on this knife – typically a problem area with button locks which don’t have a dedicated detent ball for tension, instead relying on spring tension in the plunger to create resistance. I think it works better with the thumb studs than the flipper since you can apply more force and leverage with your thumb, opening with a satisfying “thwack” when the lock engages, but both methods work well.
Since the Swordfish uses a button lock, you can also just hold the lock down and flip the blade open with your wrist, although this can lead to the blade not locking in place if you don’t release the lock fast enough. Action is butter smooth when closing, with the blade easily dropping shut under its own weight when you press the lock – since it removes the friction between the blade tang and the plunger. The button lock works in conjunction with an external stop pin anchored to the steel liners for durable lockup.
Features, Fit & Finish
The Gannet blew us away with its high-end finishing and materials, and it’s much the same with the Swordfish. There’s an option between two handle materials and two blade finishes, with either green or brown canvas micarta scales or black and red G10 scales, and a stonewashed or black stonewashed blade. Our test sample came with green micarta and the black stonewashed blade. I generally like the feel of micarta in the hand better than G10, but it does have its downsides which we’ll get into in the field test section. On the Swordfish, these scales are deeply contoured around the edges to make the knife more comfortable in the hand, with a varying radius – wider towards the center, steeper towards the edges – giving you a more secure grip.
Those micarta scales sit on top of nested and skeletonized stainless liners, with a series of holes drilled to save weight – and they’re black coated to match the color of the blade. The Swordfish uses a polymer backspacer for construction, so it’s partially flow-through, with the body screws threading into metal inserts in the backspacer on both sides to tie the knife together. That backspacer also incorporates an oblong shaped lanyard pass-through. The pivot is a Chicago-style screw with the female side anchored to the liners via a D-shaped barrel to prevent it from spinning, with a decorative pivot featuring the QSP logo and a flush-fitting black pivot screw with standard Torx T8 fitting on the opposite side. Body and clip screws are T6 and T8 respectively, making the whole knife relatively easy to maintain.
The pocket clip on the Swordfish is a wire-style deep carry clip, anchored to the scales with two parallel slots and a single screw much like the Spyderco Para3 Lightweight. It’s set up for ambidextrous tip-up carry, and other than the button lock the knife is capable of left-hand use just as easily as right hand thanks to the clip, dual thumb studs and flipper tab.
Fit and finish is impressive for a knife at this price point, which was the same impression we got from the Gannet – it looks and feels much more expensive than it actually is. The micarta scales are very well executed with quite a bit of complex contouring, and the body and pivot screws both sit flush with the surface of the scales. The blade arrived exceptionally sharp, with a clean and even edge grind. It sits perfectly centered in between the scales when closed, and the backspacer is flush with the scales as well – all the hallmarks of careful assembly are there. It’s not as lavishly detailed as the Gannet, with a more working-oriented finish to the blade and less exotic scale materials, but it’s still obvious it was put together by people who care about the products they put out.
Field Test
My usual sweet spot for EDC knives is a good bit smaller and lighter than the Swordfish, which comes in over 4 ounces with an overall length north of 8 inches. The pocket clip is well designed and executed, with a good amount of tension but a smooth entry into your pocket thanks to the small contact patch and low friction micarta surface it’s pressed against. It buries the knife entirely in your pocket but doesn’t get stuck in there like some deep carry clips can. That being said, there’s only so well a knife this heavy and bulky can carry – the unusual shape of the blade means the spine protrudes quite a bit out of the handle when closed, so this takes up a lot of pocket real estate.
Of course, the tradeoff with the bulky nature of the Swordfish in the pocket is the feel in hand. These handles remind me of the Emerson CQC-7, with a flat spine and a double palm swell on the bottom with both a forward finger guard and a tail to keep your fingers from sliding off the grip. The extra effort put into the contouring of the scales hasn’t been wasted, giving the Swordfish a very comfortable and secure feel in hand. There’s a row of jimping along the spine above the thumb stud to locate your thumb, and nowhere else – because that’s the only place it’s really needed. The pocket clip stays out of your way, the micarta doesn’t ever get slick even if your hands are wet, and the flipper tab doubles as an extended finger guard – great ergonomics on this knife. The blade shape is certainly strange to look at, but it works well as a utility knife for opening up and breaking down boxes and packaging. The low-set tip of the blade and totally straight edge make easy work of anything you’re opening, requiring less finesse and articulation to slice open boxes than a drop point does. They’ve also given this knife a killer tip, coming to nearly a needle point, and you’re able to easily slide into thick plastic then pull down to slice. The tip does look quite delicate so you should exercise caution when using it, but overall this blade shape is very useful, and it came very sharp out of the box.
Micarta is a lovely material for a handle, but it’s not without its downsides. Namely, that it absorbs dirt and oil in a way that G10 doesn’t due to the porous nature of the material, quickly darkening in contact spots after a few weeks of carry. QSP does make the Swordfish with G10 scales for the same price if this patina bothers you. Of note: the G10 variant of the Swordfish is slightly heavier (4.41 ounces vs 4.13 for micarta) according to QSP’s website. Disassembly is definitely more difficult than a liner lock or frame lock knife due to the complex nature of the button lock, but the fact that it uses all standard hardware and has a keyed pivot pin that only requires a single wrench to operate makes things simpler, as do the self-contained bearings. Seeing multi-row ceramic bearings is also pretty wild on a $70 knife, which used to be a thing you’d look for in a thousand-dollar Shirogorov. What’s not difficult is sharpening the Swordfish, thanks to several factors: 14c28n is delightfully easy to sharpen, the cutting edge is perfectly straight, and there’s a well-executed sharpening choil and no “beard” on the end of the blade.
Alternatives
All these knives available at BladeHQ.
At $70 retail price, the Swordfish does seem like quite a good deal given the features and quality it presents. Of course, there is some competition. We took a look at other knives in the sub-$100 category with Wharncliffe blade shapes for comparison.
Sencut offers the Watauga for a good chunk of money less than the Swordfish, coming in at $45 retail price. Sencut is WE Knives’ budget-friendly brand below Civivi, so it uses pretty plain materials – a stonewashed blade in D2 with black G10 scales. It sports a 3.5” long blade in a traditional Wharncliffe pattern with a continuously curving spine and a straight edge, and deploys via a finger flipper or a fuller groove in the blade, and like the Swordfish it also uses a button lock setup and a bearing pivot. It has a bent steel deep carry clip, and is available in black or jade green G10 with a stonewashed blade or green micarta and cuibourtia wood with a black coated blade. Sencut knives are high quality but don’t have the same focus on fit and finish as QSP – that’s more the job of Civivi in the WE lineup – but it does offer a lot of value for very little money.
Another brand that offers a lot of knife for a little slice of your wallet is CJRB, the value subsidiary of Artisan. The CJRB Ruffian is a neat choice for $50, featuring a 3.25” long Wharncliffe blade made from Artisan’s proprietary AR-RPM9, a new steel that brings powdered metallurgy goodness to the budget knife segment. We wrote more about this remarkable steel in our review of the CJRB Pyrite folder if you’re curious. The Ruffian features contoured G10 handles and uses a liner lock, and is available in either black or purple scales with a satin finish or black PVD coated blade, and uses a long thumb hole for deployment. It does offer 4-position mounting for it’s deep carry bent steel clip, a rare thing to see these days. The Ruffian is designed by Dirk Pinkerton, and it’s smaller (7” overall) and lighter (3 ounces) than the Swordfish.
Ferrum Forge makes an interesting Wharncliffe in this price range called the Prolix. It features a traditional Wharncliffe with a curved spine that measures in at 2.875” long with a usable forward finger choil. That cuts the usable cutting edge down to 2.375”, making the Prolix a good bit smaller than the Swordfish. It’s also only 2.74 ounces and 6.5” long when open, but it does feature ball bearing deployment via a flipper or thumb hole, flat G10 scales, and Nitro-V stainless steel. Expect good built quality on the Prolix, considering it’s made by WE Knives for Ferrum Forge, like the Civivi Odium we previously reviewed which is a collab with FF.
Want a left-field option? If you like Wharncliffe blades, did you know Spyderco makes a version of the classic Delica folder with a wharny? It features a satin finished VG-10 blade with a full flat grind, the trademark round thumb hole opener, and a 2.875” long wharncliffe blade with a curved spine in place of the Delica’s usual drop point. It keeps the same bi-directional textured FRN scales over nested, skeletonized liners for light weight and a solid grip, and uses the same backlock with a Boye detent to prevent accidental release, and like all Delicas and Enduras it has a spoon-style metal pocket clip that’s set up for four-position carry. The Delica has gotten expensive over the years with this VG10 version ringing in at $88 or an upgraded K390 version at $123, but it’s a cult classic for a reason.
Wrap-Up
The Swordfish might not be my kind of knife, but it does impress pretty much as soon as it drops out of the box and into your hand with it’s clever design, solid ergonomics, and attention to detail that seems to be standard on these mid-range QSP knives. QSP does make more expensive knives with higher-end materials, like the Legatus folder with it’s satin finish M390 blade and titanium handle with carbon fiber inlays, or the $358 Rhino with it’s titanium frame and Mokuti backspacer and clip. But in striking a balance between price and usability, these mid-range QSP blades in the sub-$100 range like the Swordfish and Gannet are really hard to beat, offering crazy details and features for the money. The blade profile takes up a lot of pocket real estate but it is a supremely effective cutter, and the fidget factor is high, so you if you like the Swordfish’s funky looks and don’t mind the bulk, this could be your next daily carry knife.