While not an everyday item for me, the Karambite from Max Venom is a unique little tool I do carry occasionally – it’s intended by the manufacturer as a neck knife, and the included Kydex sheath serves that function admirably, but I carry it a little bit differently – primarily as a backup knife in non-permissive environments (NPEs).
It actually hides beautifully behind the belt buckle on almost any belt – these larger “gunbelt” style belts make it completely disappear. The added benefit … at least hypothetically … is if somebody were to, say, set off a metal detector and then be “wanded” with a handheld detector, the vast majority of wand searchers see a belt buckle and move right along once they see there’s no firearm. Obviously, don’t try this anywhere there are legal repercussions for getting caught – not all security personnel are this lazy.
The big caveat is of course, this needs to be tied off – thus the gutted paracord loop you can see in the photos (if you’ve never gutted paracord, just cut a length and pull out the strings from the inside, you can finish the ends with a lighter). This loop just passes around the belt and retains the sheath on the draw.
It’s not a front-line “fighting knife” by any stretch, but it’s a decent backup to the backup sort of thing, and works a treat for regular tasks like opening packages too! It’s definitely not a tool for everybody, but it has its place, and it’s unique enough that not everybody has heard of it.
I’m a big fan of the stuff over at Max Venom in general, but it’s worth pointing out here that there’s also a titanium version of this tool. As time goes on I might profile more items from Max Venom, but that’s all for now, folks!
-T