I wanted to treat myself to a few new blades, so I ordered these three from Blade HQ. I figured I'd do a quick post on my initial impressions of each.
So what kind of sparked this whole order was getting an Ontario Rat 1 on loan from a fellow knife YouTube guy, Hydra572HQ. He is letting me borrow his black Rat 1 that you all saw in the last post on here for a project he's doing. I'll be carrying it for a few weeks, give my thoughts on it, and send it on back to him. I was really surprised at how cool of a knife it was when I got it earlier this week. I liked it so much that I immediately bought one for myself and the smaller brother, the Rat 2, to do a comparison of sorts. Boy am I glad I did. The Rats are probably some of my favorite blades I've tried in a little while. I'm so impressed with the quality that you're getting for a $30 knife. Check out my last post if you want to hear my first impressions of the Rat 1. I picked up a pink Rat 1 for myself, and I'll probably end up throwing it in my hiking bag. I've heard these blades can take a bit of a beating, so I figured that'd be a good use for it. The only thing that's different about this Rat 1 is that it isn't as smooth as the black one I'm trying. It may just need to be broken in/lubed up, so that's something I can easily fix.
Onto the Rat 2, holy crap I think I'll like this knife a lot. I'm not sure if getting it after the Rat 1 made a difference, but for some reason, the Rat 2 feels so small to me. That's honestly a good thing since I love my small blades. I think the slimmer design helps a lot too. Something awesome about both Rats is the rounded off edges on the handles. It's a smaller detail, but one that I really appreciate. The Rat line already has killer ergos, and those rounded edges only make them feel like they melts into your hand that much more. This Rat 2 is even smoother than both Rat 1s and is so much fun to open and close. I love the OD green scales as well. I really don't have many complaints about the Rat 2 initially. I can already tell that I'll love carrying it. I'm kind of mad at myself for not picking one up sooner. I thought it'd be yet another overhyped knife, but nope, I do think this one will live up to hype.
I wanted to get one knife that wasn't a Rat, so I decided on the Kershaw GTC Hops. Someone I follow on Instagram really loves this knife, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's an interesting knife. I wasn't expecting to like it all that much since it's spring assisted. Honestly though, I like the action on this knife a lot. I think what's throwing me off is the design. There's nothing wrong with it by any means. It's just so different than what I typically carry. It has good ergos and for the $25, the quality is great too. I also really like the blue accents it has. There's a few minor things I don't like about it, like the weird cutout on the flipper and a jagged spot in the finger groove. I don't necessarily hate it right off the bat, but I definitely don't like it as much as the Rat 2. I think it'll be fun to try out. We'll have to see if it sticks around.
That's about it for this post. Stay tuned for more posts and videos on these blades soon. I'm very excited to carry all of these. Thanks for looking!
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