Overview of the SKM Italian made Stiletto knife. (Aka, Switchblade.)

I've always been fascinated by the design of the traditional switchblade. Growing up I saw these in movies all the time which is where I developed this interest. I can remember quite a few movies off the top of my head that feature these knives. Dirty Harry, The Warriors, Sin City, The Godfather, Rebel Without A Cause, The Departed, The Dark Knight, I could go on and on. Although I've always been interested in them, this design has been frowned upon by the general public, however. This stems back all the way to the 1950's when magazines started running stories about how deadly these knives were and the negative association to violence and gangs. This led to a federal and state wide laws banning the carry and even ownership of these knives in certain states. This still is in place even to do this day, so in most places you can't legally carry these knives, sadly. Thankfully in my state private ownership is legal though, so I could score this cool knife! 

Pictured here is the SKM made Stiletto I purchased recently, pictured alongside my beverage cleaver and leather tag. The company SKM teamed up with maker Armando Beltrame to create these knives. I bought this from BladeHQ for $84.95 before shipping and received it in about a week. I chose to go with this model/maker because the price was fair, and the quality seemed to be decent as well where I wouldn't have to worry about it falling apart after a few months. The model I picked up comes with green pearlex handles, which gives the appearance of pearl while actually just being a type of acrylic. The blade is made from stainless steel with a bayonet grind, and has an overall length of 11 inches while having a 5 inches blade. (It came pretty sharp out of the package which surprised me a bit considering the steel used for the blade.) It has nickel silver bolsters with a brass frame and liner, as well as brass pins. The bottom bolster needs a bit of polishing in my opinion though, because it is a bit rough. There's definitely some hotspots there where it can be a bit uncomfortable to hold/touch.  

The knife uses a bolster/swivel type lock which was very new to me. You unlock the knife once the blade is deployed by pressing down on the front swing guard until it goes outwards and then you can push the knife back into the closed position. The first few times I found it to be fairly stiff to close but it sort of break in pretty quickly and is fairly easy to close now. The knife deploys the blade by hitting a simple button on the handle which makes it shoot out like a god damn rocket. I was kinda surprised at how much force it swings out with, honestly. It's not enough where you have to worry about it flying out of your hand or anything, but it does have some force to it. I've noticed the deployment button is a bit finicky at times, though I'm not sure if it might just be mine. Occasionally if you don't push the button in a certain way it will only partially deploy the blade where you have to finish pushing it out by hand. 

The knife also has a locking feature designed into the handle which I feel could use a bit of work. There's a sliding tab that allows you to unlock/lock the knife by moving it up and down. Mine has been very stiff to move to lock when it's closed and kind of a pain in the ass occasionally. I haven't oiled it yet which may prove to help it a bit if I do, but it just seems like it may be something that I have to deal with for the price I paid for the knife. This isn't exactly a huge issue either way though, since I won't be carrying this knife besides around the house since it's illegal to carry. Plus, the steel used for the blade isn't the best for an EDC style knife and is more for a show knife/collection piece. 

Overall my initial impression of the knife is that it's a pretty neat piece for my knife collection, and it fulfills my fascination with switchblades. For $85, you probably can't do much better at all with buying a switchblade. I wouldn't trust this knife to hold up to a lot of abuse or hard tasks due to the steel used for the blade, and don't recommend it for that. If you're in need of an auto knife for EDC, then you may want to look at the Kershaw Launch series of knives that use a better blade steel. However, if you just want a really cool knife to play with at home and add something new/strange to your collection, then I could highly recommend it for that. The only downside really to this knife for me is the locking mechanism being so stiff and that the edges towards the bottom could use some chamfering. Well, that and it's convinced me that I probably will want another switchblade in the future which is a downside for my wallet :) 

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