[Bill Harsey]

Blame some of that design issue on me, I picked an off the shelf item from BHI. They never had the chance to design something for the knife. I will repeat, no one else in the industry could deliver the no.s we needed in the time frame imposed on us. With that statement I'm done talking about who we get the sheath from.

About those grips, The micarta grips better when wet than dry. It also has the highest toughness of any handle material we could put on.
The sandpaper grip panels that are in vogue will tear all the hide off your hand or chew thru a glove if you need to perform a repetitive function, like chopping. The soft rubber panels are prone to being torn out because they are, well, soft.

Shaping of the handle is for control pushing, pulling or twisting, hard.
This handle is designed for "Blind tactical reference". This means when you draw the knife without looking or in complete darkness, the grip tells you exactly where the edge is. This is not a new concept, the championship axemen you see on tv have filed the handles of the axes so a fine ridge line running the length of the front of the handle matches the exact line of the edge of the blade. This is for control and exact placement of the axe while using full speed and power.

All handle shaping including the exposed, rounded edge tang takes into consideration the wearing of gloves. It's one thing to judge a knife in a warm dry room, quite another to use it with frozen gloved hands and still be able to control it. The exposed tang gives great radial grip strength.

I've spoken about the blade steel here before, it's the CPM S-30V. Pay attention to that. The first commercial use of this steel, on the whole planet, was the Yarborough/Green Beret knife project. Chris Reeve is responsible for proposing that steel be made by Crucible Specialty Tool Steels in Syracuse New York.

Since then CPM S-30V has gained an extraordinary following in high quality knife production based purely on performance, not bullshit. Ask Reaper or Ambush Master what they think of that steel.

I hope this information is of some help.