John Campbell Saguaro Signature Knife Review

By Jalapeno Gal77 -via APN

Note: I did not get paid any money for this review.

This knife is amazing! I do have to say it is one of the best I have ever owned.


I received this knife directly from Scorpionknives.com and was very excited to see what all it could actually do. I have always been very skeptical about purchasing knives online, because you can never really tell how they will hold up and I am sure that many others feel the same way. This is definitely one worth purchasing.

John Campbell now sells this knife on his website at a much cheaper rate.



When we first received this knife, I couldn’t wait until we went camping to try it, I just had to play with it right away.  We have a lot of trees out behind our house and a lot of very think stemmed weeds and small trees.  My husband has gone out there multiple times with different style machete’s and has never been able to cut through it.  Perhaps we just haven’t found a good machete, I don’t know, but this knife proved itself.  I found a small tree that was a little smaller than my forearm but not by much.  In two whacks I cut it down completely.  With in 5 minutes I had it stripped of all limbs and all the bark shredded for future fire starting tinder.  I shaped the main limb into a base pole with a Y at the top to be used  for cooking over a campfire. (Of course you would need two of these with one stick laying on both the Y poles) I kid you not, all in about 5 minutes.  In my opinion that would save a lot of time if out in the woods.

So then, we finally made it out to the woods to play with this knife a little more and to see if it could do everything we needed WITHOUT having to use other tools.  Once again, this knife came through.  We were able to split bigger pieces of wood for a steady fire very easily using another stick to bang on the end of the blade to split the wood without any damage to the blade or handle what-so-ever.  We were able to notch wood very easily to make tent post for our tarp.  This knife strips wood like your slicing butter!  Again, all of this without any damage to the blade at all.  I was very impressed.  With our other knife, at times we would have to get out our hand saw to cut through bigger pieces of wood, but not with the saguaro knife.  John has out done himself with this one.

 

The weight and balance of the knife are very well made.  It makes all the things I have named into very easy and quick tasks.  There is a thumb bump that makes it very easy to handle and control while in use.  There is an extra hole in the thumb bump to thread your para cord/lanyard through to make a more secure grip.  I have not tried this yet, but according to scorpion knives, at the end of the handle is a tang that makes breaking glass in an automobile very easy when trying to escape.
There was only one downside to the blade that I did not like.  For a woman, the blade is a little heavy and after a while of using  it, it made my hand a little sore.  Not unbearably sore, only a little.  The grip is great and fits the hand perfectly, and I am going to stress one thing about this con *for me.*  This knife is PERFECT for a man, my husband loved it, but for a woman with weaker hands, a lighter blade is worth looking into.  We let several men use this blade and they all agreed it was a very well made and usable knife to have.

The knife comes with a heavy-duty cordura sheath. Cordura is the brand name for a collection of fabrics used in a wide array of products including luggage, backpacks, pants, military wear and performance apparel. Cordura fabrics are known for their durability and resistance to abrasions, tears and scuffs.  It also has molly attachments on the backside.  The front of the sheath has a small pouch for carrying a sharpening stone, and extra mag for your gun, fire starting tools or whatever you decide to use it for.  We decided to use it for a sharpening stone.  There is an added, plastic sheath guard inside the sheath so you can be sure the knife isn’t going to rip through the sheath.  It comes with a stretch fabric guard at the top of the sheath to secure the knife to your sheath at the top of the handle. (An attachment I love by the way)

Although I have not used this knife in combat, and hope I never do, it has also been designed for military personnel.  This is what Scorpion Knives had to say about this topic;

“The additional grind on the spine of the blade makes it an optimal blade for combat situations and the reinforced point makes it ideal for penetrating body armor on an enemy soldier. This blade is not a weapon though, it is a tool to save a life and it is built to handle any task that can be thrown at it. It is designed to handle life and death situations and help you make it home alive.”

That being said, I did find a piece of heavy tin like used to build a shed and the knife went right threw it with no problems.

Here are the specs on this knife:

• Blade: 1075 High Carbon Steel
• Hardness: Rockwell 54-55rc
• Overall length: 12.5″ (31.8cm)
• Blade length: 7.25″ (18.5cm)
• Blade thickness: 1/4″ (6mm)
• Weight: 26.5 ounces (750g)

This high carbon steel blade comes either polished or in black Fluoralon coating.

Here is a video done by John Campbell himself demonstrating some of the things he can do with the knife.

Overall, I give this knife two thumbs up for its ability to be a functioning, well-balanced and put together survival knife.  It gets the job done and is very durable! Although this knife is a little pricy, I would recommend this knife to all my survival buddies any day of the week.  Its better to get something that will last a long time and be reliable than to spend and spend trying to find one that is.

Keepin It Spicy,
Jalapeño Gal