CRKT Hissatsu

As previously stated by others it requires a load of work to make it nice. I have the polished version it arrived totally blunt, and no original antique Japanese tanto are not blunt, they are literally razor sharp if properly polished and were honed along with the katana or tachi before battle. It took me the best part of a week to re grind and polish it on my Japanese stones mine is now zero ground with a properly cross polished kisaki with yokote. The steel feels and sound's very hard so I am suspicious of the heat treatment it is a lovely thing to look at now but I wouldn't trust it if my life depended on it. If like me you are into Japanese stuff and can sort it out it's a nice addition to the collection but your money is better spent with Cold Steel on something from their Tanto range. Hiennie were outstanding as usual.

As this new model only comes in a black finish it took many careful hours bringing it to a mirror polished satin blade. However, I discovered a major problem not immediately apparent at first as the black covers a multitude of sins. The outside edge is a whole 2mm narrower than the inside leading to a asymmetrical blade, also the grind is shockingly bad, maybe quality control had a day off? Definately preferred my old & sadly lost original. The new grind & black finish is, I assume a cost saving exercise which, clearly has not been passed onto the customer. Disappointed, hence only 3 stars.

One for the collection, I'm only disappointed that the plain satin bladed version is no longer available . Tactical black?! We're not all SF or ninja. Thanks Richard at Heinnie for the usual outstanding service.

This blade works by piercing the substrate like a sewing machine needle it is not a cutting blade. The blade is fashioned three dimensionally to come to the point. The rest of the blade is trimmed to make the movement in and out of the substrate easy. You can imagine using this blade to sample sacks.

I bought my first Hissatsu when they arrived and it had a double flat grind with no actual edge grind. Making it very strong but not really sharp. I bought a new one from HH recently and the new version has an all round smooth edge grind. It is now pretty much perfect, sharp, strong and very pointy. At this price it's a very nice "long knife". PS bought the new one after seeing it demonstrated on the interwebs.

I could not get on with this knife at all. It was blunt when it came, requiring a lot of work. The blade is too light to make effective cuts, even when you have sharpened it.