carry
Several months ago, I saw a blank Ti Kizer Guru pop up on the used market for a really good price. I didn’t know anything about the Guru, but I generally liked the look of it, and I had been impressed with the Ti Mini-Sheepdog – so I scooped it up. I expected that it would be a quick review piece – I even suspected that I may not really enjoy it, but at least I could make a video and pass it on.
Ok, so that’s essentially what happened. BUT, the flip took much longer than I anticipated because I was very surprised by the Guru. The blade, action, ergo’s – all of it was much better than I anticipated, and really excellent or the price.
Before I found out all of that, though, the knife took a trip across the country to my buddy Josh in Texas for a custom anodization job. I am not a “knife mod” guy – I almost always prefer stock everything, but in this case I found the plain grey Ti to be super, super, SUPER boring on the Guru. While I love it on some knives (Spydiechef, anything CRK), I thought it made this otherwise attractive knife pretty ugly. Josh fixed that (and he can fix it for you – checkout his Instagram).
Anyway, back to the knife. This piece really surprised me. The action, while maybe a tad slow, is glassy smooth and dependable. It falls into the hand thanks to the deep choil – and the ergo’s actually work a bit better to me by choking up and using the forward choil.
I view this as a utility knife – the sheepsfoot-y blade lends itself very nicely to opening packaging, small slicing cuts and general EDC tasks. The blade actually reminds me quite a bit of a poor mans CRK “insingo” blade – a profile I have come to love on my old Large 21, my Nyala and my current small Inkosi.
Very similar to the way I used the Mini Sheepdog, I like to choke up and often use a pinch grip for most tasks on a blade like this. Throughout my weeks of carry, it held up to pretty much every daily task I put it through. For a fancy Ti flipper, it’s actually quite useful.
I could do without the swiss cheese looks – that’s never really appealed to me on any knife. I get it in theory, but in reality I can’t think of a single knife that I have thought looked better with random holes drilled throughout the scales. However, that’s clearly more of an aesthetic critique and doesn’t really sway my overall impression. This is a carry for me – not a long term hold (I already sold it), but I knife I would gladly own and carry regularly. For the price point, it’s hard to beat if you can find one on the used market, and I think it marries form and function very well.
