Spyderco Tatanka C180GP
Folding Knife Review

Spyderco Tatanka C180GP was announced almost a year ago before I got it. At least I saw it first in early winter 2014 or so, when the new lineup pictures were posted on Spyderco's forum and BladeForums. Actually, I was quite excited about that lineup, and I did decide about 4 or 5 knives from it, although eventually I ended up buying only Tatanka. I wanted Rubicon, liked the design, but skipped because of the liner lock, which I dislike. Farid's design K2 folder looked nice, CPM 10V steel is a top notch, but in the end I disliked the handle and I am really tired of framelock handles as well. Tatanka on the other hand, was rather refreshingly "normal" looking blade geometry, in fact I think it looks quite sexy. On top of that it was neither liner lock nor a framelock and the steel was decent. Worth noting, Tatanka is Spyderco's very fist super sized folder, which definitely made it even more interesting. Then there was a real long wait, almost a year in total. Placed an order in late spring 2014 and finally got it in December 2014.

General

Blade

Initial edge was quite good. More on the convex side, approximately 30°-32° inclusive angle. If I had to guess, I'd say final edge was ground with something like 1000 grit belt. The edge was uniform, no uneven bevels. Out of the box sharpness was high, the knife would shave easily in both directions. For initial tests I just stropped the blade on the 0.50µm and 0.25µm diamond charged leather strops, and then on a leather strop. Stropping improves edge aggressiveness noticeably, and sharpness as well.

And to close the blade section, let's mention the steel used in the construction of the said blade. Nothing unusual or exotic there. Tatanka uses Takefu VG-10 steel at 60-61HRC. Spyderco's workhorse steel for high end knives. Solid performer all around, I don't have anything negative to say about it. Works well for wide range of cutting applications. Good steel, but nothing really interesting about it, for me at least. Provides solid performance, but it's been around for a long time now, and I'd much rather have something new or what'd qualify as an exotic. That's not to say you should skip it :) I bought Tatanka after all, even though I didn't have much of an interest in VG-10 steel. What I'm saying is that, it'd be cooler, and a lot more interesting to have better steel in Spyderco's first mega folder. Well, as it is, VG-10 will do, I like the knife well enough, VG-10 has enough toughness, wear resistance, edge stability and stain resistance not to complain about it.

Locking Mechanism

Probably I should've named this section as "my troubles with PowerLock™". Most of the troubles were obviously of my own making, and part of it was construction specifics of the lock itself. To cut to the chase, once I was done with the initial inspection I've started playing with the knife, and I flicked it, quite fast too. Considering the blade and handle length, both of which are long for a folder knife, generated momentum of the blade would be really high. Nothing broke, however the blade got jammed in open position and I couldn't close it. I've tried real hard pushing on the lock release, then I put on the gloves and went with spine whacks, rather brutal whacks, while pushing down the lock release. No success. One thing that came out of all that, the lock is really string. I don't really do spine whack tests on the folders, but at this time it was different.

After 15 minutes of fruitless spine whacking, I've decided to take the knife apart and release stuck blade. Taking the knife apart was fairly easy. Removed handle slabs fasteners. pivot screw and the whole thing came apart with some wiggling. I did know right away that assembling the knife back would be difficult. There is a very stiff spring pin which is supposed to hold the lock release bar in place. It was very difficult to hold the pin in place under tension and at the same time slice handle liners and slabs in place. I've spent well over an hour assembling the knife back, and that's a longest time I've ever spent on any folder.

Needless to say, I am in no mood repeating the experience, as in disassembling and assembling it back. I did flick the knife few more times after putting it back, no issues whatsoever. Then, few days later friend of mine was checking out Tatanka, I was telling the story about that jam, and I've flicked the knife again, and obviously it had to jam again. That was frustrating :) I was about to put the knife away, for later disassembly, but my friend tried to unlock it by using both hands to push on the lock release bar, and it worked. Nice surprise for a change. I've flicked the knife few times since then, no lockups after that last incident. Still, bottomline is, you better don't flick Tatanka, or expect to deal with potential jams. I can't attest to how widespread the issue is, and my own knife seems to be ok after those 2 jams.

Handle

Usage

After cardboard, miscellaneous items from my garage, to imitate every day or occasional cutting, also fairly standard set for my tests: rubber sheet and tubing, assorted wiring(copper, coaxial, steel, aluminum), plastic. Tatanka did manage to get through all that stuff undamaged. Obviously, I was not trying to saw through the steel wire, just using a steady hand and vertical pressure, which is a plenty for small wiring. Rubber sheets were about 6m thick, so cutting through that was no challenge. Edge strength test was done using usual wood whittling test. Wood whittling when done properly doesn't really include very high lateral loads on the edge, but everyone makes mistakes, so the edge will be subjected to higher than necessary lateral loads on occasion, depends on the user skill. To exaggerate the stress I would simply stick the blade into the wood, about 1-2 m deep and then twist it. That's quite brutal on the edge, and shouldn't really be done routinely, but when the goal is to test the edge strength, it's a quite good indicator. Tatanka edge survived all that just fine. Mundane EDC tasks such as opening mailing packages and envelopes was easy, main challenge being the oversized blade actually. All in all, I think I've covered majority of the utility cutting with those tests. If you have something more specific in mind perhaps your own tests will reveal more.

As mentioned above, I've tested Tatanka in the kitchen as well. Having 40+ hi-end kitchen knives in my kitchen knives block, I never have a need to use non specialized knives in the kitchen, but it is a legitimate use and test scenario anyway. After all, camping, hunting and hiking are more likely to be done with a folding knife than 40+ kitchen knives ;) I did some basic tests, imagining average camping trip cooking. Started with 2lbs of stake, proceeded to cut small cubes for a stew. That was alright. Onion was more problematic, 4mm thick knife isn't what I am used to, but manageable, unless you want translucent slices. Bread cutting was alright, but I'd much rather use dedicated bread knives. French baguette is easy, but hard crust bread was far worse. Soft vegetables were fine, and extra length of the Tatanka does help there. Tomatoes were ok, same story as with the onions, few mm thick cuts were ok, no translucent slices. In the end, you can definitely prepare quite an involved meal with Tatanka, if you have to, or feel like that. I wouldn't pick it as my primary kitchen knife, but it'll do the job as needed. In fact, Tatanka will do better than most of the folders due to its greater blade length.

Conclusions