Every time I travel I always come home to a stack of mail – mostly bills – and an assortment of packages. Often the packages contain ammunition; after all a gun writer cannot function without ammo. Sometimes the packages contain unsolicited junk and on a rare occasion there is a surprise inside.
Such was this case Saturday morning when I started opening up boxes. Contained in one was a new knife from Southern Grind. I was introduced to Southern Grind about this time last year when a friend gave me a Bad Monkey during our Limpopo safari. I used that knife a lot during that excursion and have carried it almost daily since. My only complaint was that for every day carry it was a bit large.
Well, this new knife from Southern Grind could be called a baby monkey; it’s not, it has an even better name. It’s sized just right for everyday carry. Closed it measures 4.0 inches and open it extends to 7.5 inches. It has a thumb stud on both sides of the blade and the trademark short and wide Southern Grind pocket clip positioned for right side, tip-up carry. The contoured carbon fiber scales feel good in the hand, contain a rock solid liner lock, and there’s a lanyard loop at the rear.
As an added bonus, the blade is ground from S35VN steel. S35VN steel is a martensitic stainless steel designed to offer improved toughness over CPM S30V. Its chemistry has been rebalanced so that it forms some niobium making it about 15-20% tougher than CPM S30V without loss of wear resistance. It has a great resistance to edge chipping and offers improved edge retention over conventional high chromium steels.
The best thing about this knife is that it has arrived just in time to go along with me to Africa. The new Southern Grind Spider Monkey will make a great pocket companion to the fixed blade Southern Grind Jackal I’ll also be taking. I’ll get some blood on the blade and give you an update when I return.
Any real, gun using, outdoor kind of man has to have a good pocket knife and the Spider Monkey looks like it’s configured to serve that purpose admirably. Based on the last 12 months I can say with confidence that there is nothing like having a monkey in your pocket!
