Tag: knife

Chisel vs Conical: Tip Geometry and Extraction Mechanics

Every penetrating tool ends in a decision. Most of the time that decision is inherited rather than made.

The conical point is what the icepick came with. It arrived from the ice trade already finished, and the men who later found other uses for it were not in a position to be fussy about tip geometry. They wanted something that worked and something that could be explained away if found. The cone did both. What went unasked, for the better part of a century, was whether it was the right shape.

Two things made that question easy to avoid. The cone has structural advantages that invite no complaint: its geometry distributes mass evenly around the axis in the manner of a convex grind — the strongest blade geometry — which makes it resistant to lateral force and difficult to chip or deform under off-axis load. And it is the natural product of a lathe. Taper a round bar, refine the taper, polish. The icepick point was always going to be a cone because that is what a lathe produces without extra decisions. Ease of manufacture and structural robustness together are a strong argument for not asking questions.

I asked. The chisel tip was the answer, and it changed most of what I make.

The Cone Everyone Inherited

A conical point is radially symmetric. It tapers to a single apex. Every cross-section along its length is a circle. That symmetry is the source of both its virtues and its limits — worth being precise about which is which.

Mechanically, a cone penetrates by displacement. It forces material aside radially. In elastic tissue — skin, muscle, fascia — that material is pushed apart rather than parted. The fibres stretch around the advancing shaft. They do not separate. They move.

This matters more than it sounds. Elastic tissue does not stay where you put it. The moment forward pressure stops, it recoils. The displaced fibres close back against the shaft and grip it along its full inserted length. Entry is comparatively easy. Recovery is not.

Anyone who has driven a round punch into dense material and had to work it back out understands this without needing the vocabulary. The tool goes in cleanly. It comes back reluctantly. The reluctance scales with depth. The chisel tip addresses that last property directly.

What Changes When the Point Becomes a Plane

A chisel tip replaces the cone with two converging planes terminating in a straight leading line. The point is no longer a point in the geometric sense. It is a short line.

That line does something the cone cannot: it parts material along a defined axis instead of pushing it outward in every direction at once. The resulting opening is not a round hole stretched into existence. It is a slot.

Entry

At the moment of contact the chisel presents a much smaller initial bearing area than a cone of equivalent diameter — a line rather than a growing circle. Penetration begins at that line and only afterwards becomes a wedging action along the converging planes. In practice this means the tip finds purchase on hard or angled surfaces where a cone would skate.

Extraction

This is where the difference stops being academic.

Because the chisel has parted material rather than displaced it, the tissue surrounding the shaft has been structurally separated. It does not recoil into contact with the same force, because there is less stored elastic tension holding it there. The opening is a slot with parted margins rather than a stretched aperture straining to close.

Extraction resistance drops accordingly. The tool comes back the way it went in.

I want to be careful about the strength of that claim. I am not offering a measured coefficient. What I am offering is the consistent result of making both geometries for fifteen years and listening to people who have used them in conditions I would not choose. The pattern does not vary.

An Additional Capability

There is a secondary behaviour that emerges from the geometry rather than being designed into it. A chisel tip, presented at the correct angle, can scrape and define rather than simply penetrate — in the same way that a wood chisel used laterally in a mortise pares and cleans the surface rather than splitting the grain. This is not the primary purpose of any tool I build. But it is a consequence of having a geometry that produces a defined plane rather than a displaced hole, and it is worth noting as part of what the form makes possible.

Penetration Is Not Cutting

Here is the part that most discussions of this subject get wrong before they begin, and it is worth stating plainly because everything else depends on it.

I do not sharpen these tools. They do not cut. They are not intended to.

On the pry tools I leave between 0.5 and 1 mm of thickness at the tip. That is not a compromise, it is a requirement: the tool has to work as a lever and a driver, and any sharpened apex would roll or chip the first time it took a lateral load. It is measurably blunt, and anyone with a caliper can confirm it.

Classic Ice Pry: deliberately blunt at the tip to function as lever and driver without rolling under load.

On the spikes and the karambits the two chisel planes converge to a line, and on a cylindrical spike it is the intersection of the shaft with the angled cut. I take that convergence as far as it goes and then polish it. I do not hone it. I make no claim that it cuts paper, and I would not make that claim even if it sometimes did, because it would be difficult to demonstrate consistently at fine sections and I am not willing to tell a buyer something I cannot stand behind.

What does the work is not sharpness. It is a convergence that is well defined and well polished, combined with the force a reverse or hammer grip permits you to put behind it.

That distinction is the whole argument. Penetrating and cutting are different mechanical operations. Cutting severs material laterally along an edge. Penetration parts it ahead of an advancing point. A tool can be excellent at the second while being incapable of the first, and designing for the second frees you from every constraint the first imposes — maintenance, fragility, and a good deal of law.

So the range divides into two grinds doing two jobs. The pry tools are blunt by requirement. The spikes carry a polished convergence with no sharpened apex. Neither claims to cut, and neither needs to.

What the Forensic Record Shows

There is independent documentation of this, and it comes from people with no interest in my conclusions.

Forensic pathology has a small but real literature on injuries produced by screwdrivers — a blunt, unsharpened, converged implement, which is to say the closest mass-produced analogue to what I make. Roger Byard’s Patterned injuries from screwdrivers, published in Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology in 2022, sits alongside Croft’s earlier study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences and more recent work by Reyes Albaladejo in the same journal.

Two findings matter here.

The first is that tip geometry is legible after the fact. A cruciform driver leaves a cruciate pattern reproducing its own cross-section, consistently at around five millimetres square. A flat driver leaves something entirely different. The geometry of the tip is recorded so faithfully that a pathologist can work backwards from the pattern to the shape of the implement.

I have a personal observation that confirms this from the making side. Ice Pry models finished with a minimal secondary bevel at the convergence — what I call a microfilo — leave a distinctive H-shaped footprint in cardboard and EVA foam. The vertical bar of the H is the slot the leading line parts; the horizontal bars are the impression of the two faces as the tool advances. The geometry writes itself into the material. The cross-section of the tool is readable in what it leaves behind, which is exactly what Byard’s literature describes from the other end of the process.

I know of no stronger way to state the thesis of this article. Tip geometry is not a styling decision that slightly modifies performance. It is the determining variable, and it is determinative enough to be read off afterwards by someone who was not there.

The second finding is the one that speaks directly to what I build. A flat, slotted tip produces roughly rectangular openings with no tissue bridging, with margins subtly split, classified in that literature as a hybrid of sharp and blunt force.

Tissue bridging is the signature of blunt tearing — the strands that survive when material is ripped rather than parted. Its absence means the material separated cleanly. And it separated cleanly under a tool with no sharpened edge whatsoever.

That is the mechanism I described above, documented by people studying something else entirely. A defined, converged, polished line parts material without needing to cut it.

A separate observation — which I offer as working hypothesis rather than established mechanism — concerns the edges I leave near the tip. I finish them without chamfer, at ninety degrees, so they continue separating material as the tool advances beyond the leading line. My interpretation is that this produces a wound character distinct from a clean incision: the slot is defined, but the margins are worked rather than merely parted. Whether this translates into any practical difference in effect is not something I can demonstrate in a laboratory. I note it because it is part of how I build, and because the forensic literature’s hybrid classification — neither purely sharp nor purely blunt — suggests the mechanism is real, even if its consequences are not fully mapped.

The honest caveat: a hardware screwdriver is not one of my tools. Different steel, different finish, different section, no attention paid to the convergence at all. The analogy is close — far closer than the surgical-needle literature people usually reach for — but it remains an analogy, and I will not pretend it is a test of my work.

Byard also notes, in passing, that screwdrivers are surprisingly rarely used in fatal assaults. The literature exists because the cases are unusual enough to be worth writing up. I mention it because I would rather give you the inconvenient half of a source than have you find it yourself.

There is a second, institutional leg to this. The United States National Institute of Justice publishes Standard-0115.00, governing the stab resistance of personal body armor. It does not treat penetrating threats as one category. It separates edged blade threats from spike threats and tests them under distinct protocols, because a point and an edge defeat protective material by different mechanisms, and armor that stops one does not necessarily stop the other.

An institution charged with keeping people alive reached the same conclusion I did, from the opposite direction. Point and edge are not variations on a theme. They are different problems.

The Argument Nobody Makes

Everything above concerns behaviour at the moment of use, which is the part people enjoy discussing. The advantage that actually determines whether a tool is still worth carrying in a decade is duller than that.

A conical point cannot be restored by hand in any meaningful sense. To bring it back you must remove material evenly around a full circumference while maintaining concentricity and a consistent included angle. That is a task for a fixture and a patient operator. In the field it is not a task at all. What happens instead is that the point degrades — dropped on concrete, corroded, worked against something harder than it — and stays degraded, because restoring it properly is beyond what the owner can do and beneath what they will pay someone else to do.

A converging flat is one plane. Any flat stone brings it back. So does the unglazed base of a ceramic mug, which is what most people actually have to hand. Restoring it requires no fixture, no skill beyond holding a consistent angle, and no decision more complex than which way up to hold the tool. Note what this is not: it is not sharpening. It is returning a polished convergence to its intended shape.

The converged flat tip can be restored on any flat stone. No skill beyond a consistent angle.

A tool that can be maintained is a tool that is still a tool in twenty years. A tool that cannot is an object that used to work. The geometry that makes the difference is not the one that performs best on the first day. It is the one that can be brought back on the four thousandth.

Where the Cone Still Wins

If this reads as though the chisel is simply better, I have written it badly. There are three conditions under which I would still choose a cone.

The cone requires no indexing. It is symmetric, so it behaves identically regardless of how it is held. A converged flat has an orientation, and orientation is one more thing to get right at a moment when fine motor control has already left the building. For a user with no training base and no intention of acquiring one, that symmetry is worth more than any extraction advantage. It is also why several of my designs address indexing directly rather than working around it — the blind-index geometry behind the Blink Grip exists because orientation seemed to me the wrong thing to leave to chance.

That said, this advantage deserves qualification. At the shaft diameters I work with — typically three to ten millimetres in the Voodoo range — the geometric offset between the tool’s centreline and the leading line of a chisel tip is small enough to be practically irrelevant. Under stress, when fine motor control has already degraded, the additional orientation required is a fraction of the variation already present in the grip. I made the same observation when writing about chisel grinds in tactical knives. The indexing advantage of the cone is real at the drawing board. Whether it survives contact with the conditions it is supposed to address is a different question.

The cone resists lateral load equally from all directions. Material is distributed evenly around the axis, so a bending force from any angle meets the same resistance. A converged flat is asymmetric and has a strong plane and a weak one. Against unpredictable off-axis loading, the cone is the more forgiving structure.

And against genuinely hard barriers, the mass sitting immediately behind a conical apex resists deformation better than the thinner section behind a converged line. If the anticipated use involves striking bone or rigid material at unfavourable angles, that difference is not theoretical — it is exactly why the pry tools keep their half millimetre.

The chisel is the better geometry for most of what I design. It is not the better geometry in every case, and I have never claimed otherwise.

A Note on Priority

On 3 October 2011 I published a tool called the Ice Pry, described then in my own words as a lever, a wedge, a screwdriver or a punch. Posts that followed extended that description to include dagger and push dagger — which is exactly how I had conceived the tool’s potential from the start, and how I was already using it. That record remains online and remains dated. It is the first public appearance of a flat converged tip applied to a tool built to penetrate, and it is the origin of a geometry that now runs through the Voodoo series, the Ice Pry family, the Compact Pry Knife, the Goliath Tarantula and the Micro Edge line.

I want to state the claim narrowly, because narrow claims are the only kind worth making.

I did not invent the chisel point. It is older than any of us, and claiming it would be both unprovable and untrue. What I am stating is that its application to dedicated penetrating tools appears in my published, dated work from 2011, and that I was making them before I began publishing.

The geometry has become more common since. I take that as confirmation rather than as grievance — a design nobody copies is usually a design nobody needed.

What travels is the shape. The reasoning stays here.

— A.N. Nash | Bladetricks

August 5, 2026
Nosaf Raal: A Geometry That Hasn’t Stopped Evolving

The Nosaf Raal is a design concept that does not stay still — not because it is unresolved, but because it keeps feeling its own potential and demanding more of itself. It began as a traditional (straight knife), evolved into a refined karambit geometry, and has not stopped expanding since.

What follows is not a catalogue entry. It is an account of why this geometry exists, what it demanded across more than a decade of continuous refinement — subtle adjustments in proportions, angles, grinds, adapted to specific uses, specific budgets, specific customers, and wherever possible pushed forward aesthetically as well as mechanically. The decisions were not purely stylistic, but they were never purely mechanical either. A tool has to earn its appearance as much as its function.

The Foundation: Simple Knives with a Simple Rule

The Nosaf line began as a straightforward proposition. I wanted a series of very simple, compact knives — full hand and two-finger grip formats — utilitarian, versatile, honest in their construction. No rings. No curves. Two rules governed the entire early series: 2mm stock and simplicity. Those constraints were not limitations. They were a discipline. They kept every design honest, stripped of the unnecessary, true to the concept of a tool that disappears until it is needed.

Original Bladetricks Mini Cleaver

Bladetricks Original Nosaf Skin

Bladetricks Original Nosaf Bush Knife

Bladetricks Original Nosaf Combat Tribal Version

Bladetricks Nosaf Light Combat Knives

The Nosaf Wharncliffe emerged at the same time, another expression of the same philosophy applied to a different blade profile. Its flat spine and aggressive yet rugged tip gave it a distinct character within the family: a precise, controlled cutter that complemented the more aggressive profiles that would follow. It remains in the catalogue today, mostly unchanged in its essential purpose.

Bladetricks Original Nosaf Wharn Original Version

From that foundation, a customer request introduced the karambit format to the Nosaf. The result was the first Nosaf Karambit — and with it, an entirely new palette of geometric possibilities opened up.

The Karambit With a Belly

The karambit format traces its origins to the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, where the curved blade began as an agricultural implement before becoming a weapon of last resort. In modern knife making, its most recognizable characteristic is the retention ring — the feature that defines the format more than the blade itself — and the hooked blade is its traditional signature.

The first Nosaf Karambit did something different: it used a traditional blade profile with a belly — a curved, slicing geometry rather than a hook. At the time, that was genuinely uncommon. I had not seen it done elsewhere. It was a deliberate departure from what the market understood a karambit to be, driven by the belief that the ring format was worth more than the hook it was always paired with.

Bladetricks Original Nosaf Karambit Oiginal Version Cord Wrapped

Bladetricks Nosaf Karambit Original Micarta Version

Bladetricks Nosaf Karambit cord wrapped

That first version was made in steel and was built to prove the concept. Multiple versions followed — cord wrapped, micarta — each refining the proportions incrementally. But as I worked with the geometry, a specific limitation became clear. The standard Nosaf Karambit blade profile was capable, but not committed. It was a tool — somewhere between an aggressive EDC utility knife and a fighting blade — that could do many things adequately. I wanted a tool that did one specific thing with complete mechanical authority.

The answer was the Nosaf Raal.

Raal: The Geometry of Commitment

“Raal” is the designation I apply to the most aggressive version of any Bladetricks model. It means the slenderest blade, the sharpest tip, the most uncompromising geometry in the family. Pure poison, literally. On the karambit platform, it meant taking the existing external slicing edge curve and driving the tip geometry further — harder, more defined, built for penetration rather than general utility.

The result was a blade that operated differently from anything I had made before. The angle between the handle axis and the blade — the detail that many karambit makers treat as a stylistic choice — became a calculated mechanical variable. In a standard grip, that geometry drives a forward and downward thrust aligned with the forearm axis. The same grip, with a change of intent but no change of hand position, loads directly into the pulling arc of the pikal system for control and engagement. And from the same hold, the external edge is available for an upward or lateral slash without repositioning the hand.

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Tribal Version Prototype

Three vectors. One grip. The hand barely moves. The geometry does the work.

This is not a feature that was added to the Nosaf Raal. It is what the geometry produced when the proportions were finally correct. The model was subsequently made in steel, titanium, and G10 — each material imposing its own constraints, each version confirming that the geometry held regardless of what it was made from. Subtle refinements continued across versions, each one responding to a specific observation about how the tool performed in real hands.

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Micarta Version

Bladetricks Custom Made Set Nosaf Raal Karambit and Tarantula Push Dagger

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Black G10 Impact Version

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Black G10 Handle Version

The RGEI Question

At some point, the natural next question was obvious: what happens when you invert the edge?

The answer was the first pikal version of the Nosaf Raal — the RGEI configuration that takes the inside edge and turns it into the primary cutting surface. The pulling mechanics of the pikal system generate a kinetic force that is difficult to intercept, engaging the body’s strongest pulling muscles in a motion that is both instinctive and mechanically efficient. The Nosaf Raal’s handle-to-blade angle, already calculated to serve both push and pull mechanics, loaded into the RGEI orientation with a precision that confirmed the geometry had been correct from the beginning.

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Pakal Version

Bladetricks Nosaf Raal Karambit Reverse Grip Edge In RGEI Version

The XL version followed — a blade that nearly doubled the original length, extending reach without altering the fundamental proportions. Same geometry. Different scale. The logic held.

Bladetricks XL Nosaf Raal Karambit

Bladetricks Custom Made Nosaf Raal Karambits

The Knife Version: Removing the Ring Without Losing the Geometry

The ring is the karambit’s defining feature and its most significant constraint. It locks the blade in the hand under extreme stress. It also locks the user — mostly — into a specific carry profile, a specific draw sequence, and a specific deployment geometry.

The Nosaf Raal Knife replaced the ring with a knife handle — same blade, same handle-to-blade angle, same mechanical relationships — but now accessible to users who carry and deploy differently. Not everyone works well with a karambit format in the hand. Some professionals prefer the familiarity of a straight handle, the cleaner pocket profile, the less conspicuous carry, and in some jurisdictions, the more straightforward legal status that a conventional knife profile carries over a ringed blade. The Nosaf Raal Knife answers that preference without asking them to give anything up mechanically. The geometry did not change. The platform did. The knife version performed identically — both as a pikal tool and in edge-out XL configurations.

Custom Nosaf Raal Knife by AN Nash

Bladetricks Pikal Nosaf Raal RGEI Knife Back G10

XL Nosaf Ral Knife Smilodon by AN Nash

The Double Edge: Three Vectors Become More Consequential

Adding a second edge to the Nosaf Raal Karambit was not an aggressive gesture. It was a structural decision with a specific mechanical outcome.

The double edge is wider than the single edge version — a necessary accommodation for structural integrity across both cutting surfaces. What it sacrifices in slenderness it recovers in capability. The same three vectors available in the single edge version — downward thrust, inside pulling arc, outside upward slash — now carry consequence on both sides of the blade. There is no neutral angle. There is no dead side. Every position of the blade in motion is a working position.

The double edge Karambit was the first expression of this. It retained the ring. The geometry it established became the foundation for everything that followed.

Bladetricks double edge Nosaf Raal Pikal Karambit, cord wrapped

The Blink Grip: Solving the Draw

The Blink Grip was created to solve a specific problem: draw speed. In a life-threatening encounter, fumbling a draw and / or failing to establish a secure grip immediately are the real failure points — not technique, not blade geometry. The Blink Grip allows a near-instantaneous, consistent, blind-indexed draw from the Kydex sheath with no mechanical parts and no conscious adjustment required. The index finger reads the geometry, the hand closes, and the result is a fast, secure grip every time — regardless of conditions. It is worth noting that chronologically, no single edge Blink Nosaf Raal was ever produced. The Blink Grip system was introduced directly on the double edge platform — the most mechanically complete version of the geometry — and has remained there.

Bladetricks Blink Nosaf Raal double edge pikal knie karambit

It is worth noting that chronologically, no single edge Blink Nosaf Raal was ever produced. The Blink Grip system was introduced directly on the double edge platform — the most mechanically complete version of the geometry — and has remained there (at least for the moment).

The Blink Nosaf Raal is that platform: the full mechanical capability of the double edge Nosaf Raal, combined with the fastest possible deployment system and a handle built without compromise.

The Kadesh Handle: The Latest Development

The most recent chapter in the Nosaf Raal lineage introduces the adapted Kadesh handle to the double edge Nosaf Raal blade. The Kadesh handle profile — proven across several Bladetricks models for its exceptional grip security and seamless transition between pikal and sabre positions — brings a new ergonomic and flexible dimension to the Nosaf Raal geometry without altering the blade that has defined it. Same blade. New handle language. The geometry continues to find new expressions.

Cardboard prototype for the “Kadesh” Double Edge Nosaf Raal Knife

Bladetricks P-578511 Pikal Nosaf Raal Knife

What the Evolution Confirms

A geometry that survives more than a decade of refinement — across materials, handle formats, blade configurations, and deployment systems — is not one that arrived by accident. It is one that was refined through a consistent discipline: is there room for improvement? Can this angle be optimized? Can this grind be pushed further? Can this version serve a specific user better than the last one did?

The Nosaf Raal has been asked those questions in steel, titanium, G10, single edge, double edge, ringed, knife handle, Blink Grip, and Kadesh handle configurations. The proportions have held across all of them. The geometry works. The evolution is not finished.

Keyword: karambit

The Bladetricks Nosaf Raal — a decade of karambit geometry refined across steel, titanium, double edge, Blink Grip, and Kadesh handle. The full lineage.

A.N. Nash on the Nosaf Raal lineage — how one karambit geometry evolved across a decade into the most complete pikal platform Bladetricks has built.

Explore the full Bladetricks Nosaf Raal family — karambit, knife, double edge, Blink Grip. A pikal geometry refined across more than a decade of refinement.

May 6, 2026
Pikal Knife Fighting: Biomechanics, Anatomy, and the Reality of Edge In

Pikal System: The Best Mechanical Efficiency in Close Combat

It is not an aesthetic. It is beyond a fashion. It is a cold application of biomechanics. Derived from the Visayan term meaning “to rip,” this knife fighting technique uses a Reverse Grip Edge In (RGEI) orientation. While the market is currently saturated with derivatives, the foundation of the modern RGEI movement relies on a rigorous application of physics that I have advocated since founding Bladetricks in 2010.

If you have not met the term before, I have written a plain explanation of what pikal means and what it asks of the knife, including the grip and edge combinations the word covers.

Bladetricks Double edge Zikit Pikal knife

Bladetricks #7 Pikal Knife, Micartca Handle

Bladetricks Mini Krav Pikal Knife, Cord Wrapped

The Physics of the Inward Rip

The primary advantage of a pikal knife or tool is its alignment with the human body’s natural tendency to contract under extreme stress. Standard sabre grips rely on the extension of the tricep, which is prone to failure in a clinch. Conversely, this grip engages the latissimus dorsi and the biceps — the largest pulling muscles in the upper body. By drawing the blade toward the body, the operator generates a kinetic force that is difficult to intercept.

Research on sympathetic nervous system activation under life-threatening stress is unambiguous: above 115 beats per minute, fine motor skills begin to deteriorate; above 175, only gross motor functions remain reliably accessible. The RGEI draw and strike are gross motor movements — contracting, pulling, driving inward. They are built for the body that is already in fight-or-flight. A sabre grip technique requiring wrist rotation, controlled extension, and precise targeting is not.

In many scenarios, this creates a “lose-lose” situation for the opponent — to stop the movement, they must place themselves directly in the path of the edge. This hooking motion turns every RGEI strike into a deep incision by utilizing the torque of the core.

Small double edge pikal reverse grip knife and trainer

Epick Bladetricks Pikal Blade

Bladetricks Fratello Pikal Knife Blade Detail

Mechanical Advantage

Analytically, the RGEI configuration optimizes a kinetic strike by aligning the vector of force with the natural contraction of the arm. Unlike edge-out tools, a reverse grip edge-in knife utilizes the superior torque generated during inward movement. This mechanical advantage ensures the edge maintains contact through the entire arc of the strike, maximizing depth without requiring extra space for acceleration.

Bladetricks Custom Nosaf Raal Pikal Knife

Bladetricks Bribon discreet EDC Pikal Knife

The Withdrawal: The Second Strike Built Into the First

Most discussions of this technique focus on the thrust. This is a mistake, and it reveals a surface-level understanding of what RGEI actually does. The thrust is the entry. The withdrawal is the consequence.

When a pikal blade achieves penetration, the inward pull expands the wound channel using the full force of the back and bicep, transforming a puncture into something that functions mechanically as a plow. Every structure in the blade’s path during that withdrawal — tissue, vessel, fascia — is addressed. The opponent faces a specific problem: to intercept the movement, they must place themselves directly in the path of the edge. There is no neutral option. This is the lose-lose architecture of a correctly executed reverse grip strike.

Bladetricks DOA Triple Edge Pikal Knife, Micarta

Forensic medicine confirms what the mechanics suggest. Tissue compression during a forceful thrust means the wound track is frequently greater in depth than the physical blade length: the chest and abdominal wall compress on impact and decompress on withdrawal, extending effective penetration beyond the blade’s actual measurement. A 3-inch blade, correctly placed, can produce a wound track of 4 to 5 inches. Skin provides the highest resistance to penetration. Once it is breached, underlying tissue and organs offer substantially less opposition to a moving edge. This is why tip geometry on a reverse grip knife is not decorative. It is the tool’s primary mechanical asset.

Bladetricks Custom Krav II Pikal double edge knife

Axial Force and the Reverse Grip Advantage

In a pikal grip, the skeletal structure of the forearm transmits total body force directly to the blade tip. This is mechanically superior to the sabre grip, where the wrist acts as a weak pivot point under heavy impact. In the RGEI orientation, force travels in a straight line from the shoulder through the forearm, making the tool an immovable extension of the arm. Anyone can verify this through a simple, safe test against a dead tree: the amount of pressure one can exert in reverse grip far exceeds what is possible in a standard forward grip.

Bladetricks Gen II Mini Ice Pry icepick

A.N. Nash and the Pikal Lineage (2010–Present)

I have been designing pikal knives and tools that prioritize function. My early work served as a catalyst for the current global interest in reverse grip tools. Many RGEI designs seen worldwide today are clearly influenced by original Bladetricks models from over a decade ago. A connoisseur will observe that the core geometries of modern reverse grip tools — focusing on tip strength and high-retention handles — bear the DNA of my early versions.

Bladetrickds Zikit single edge Pikal knife

Bladetricks custom made double edge Zikit Pikal Knife, Black G10 handle

Handle Ergonomics and Edge Alignment

A pikal knife handle must provide more than just a place to hold — it is the steering wheel of the edge. The width of the handle is a critical factor in edge control, preventing the blade from rolling in the hand during the massive resistance of an inward rip. Adequate traction is not a luxury — it is a requirement to manage the blood, sweat, or moisture common in high-stress environments.

Bladetricks custom made Reverse Grip Edge In Tanto Knife with a wide handle

Bladetricks Pecora RGEI Knife

Bladetricks Custom Krav III YAMAM Pikal Knife

Safety and Hybrid Designs

A proper thumb rest or dedicated index point provides the necessary safety to prevent the hand from sliding onto the blade during high-impact axial thrusts.

Bladetricks Krav III Pikal Knife, thumb rest detail

Bladetricks stainless Pikal knife, cord wrapped

Long ago, I also pioneered the combination of pikal and karambit elements on a single blade, offering a hybrid solution for those who require the retention of a ring with the aggressive geometry of RGEI.

Bladetricks Xikxak Pikal Karambit, Full Metal

Bladetricks Classic Nosaf Raal Karambit edge in Pikal version

Bladetricks DOA and Compact DOA karambits

Bladetricks double edge Nosaf Raal Pikal Karambit, cord wrapped

Bladetricks Subcompact DOA Karambit

Bladetricks Diyuk Double Edge Dagger Karambit, YAMAM Edition

The Blink Grip: Engineering the Instant Draw

The most critical component of this system is not the strike. It is the draw. Research on combat stress is clear: in a life-threatening encounter, fine motor skills are among the first casualties of sympathetic nervous system activation. Hesitation during deployment — fumbling a retention mechanism, misorienting the edge — is the actual failure point. Not technique. Not blade geometry.

To solve this, I developed the Bladetricks Blink Grip: a handle architecture that allows a near-instantaneous, blind-indexed draw from a Kydex sheath with no mechanical parts, no buttons, no conscious thought required. The edge is correctly oriented the moment the tool clears the sheath. It was designed for a body already in fight-or-flight — not for the calm, controlled environment of a training hall.

The Blink Grip has become a global reference point for pikal and self-defense knife design — a fact I note without enthusiasm, given how liberally the concept has been adopted without credit.

Bladetricks Balbala Collection of Pikal Reverse Grip Knives and Karambits

Bladetricks Tarantula Pikal Karambits SD Backup knives

Bladetricks Ice Pry Karambit with Blink Grip Fast Draw Handle

Bladetricks Rascalito Collection of Pikal EDC knives

Epick Blink Grip Pikal Combat Knife in 4340 steel

Bladetricks Custom Made Blink Grip Double Edge Nosaf Raal Karambit, Natural MIcarta scales

Bladetricks Blink Grip Double Edge Subcompact DOA Pikal Karambit, Balck G10

Bladetricks PIkal Ti Fruit Knife Fast Draw

Geometry and Blade Profile: The Shift to Traditional Shapes

While the majority of dedicated RGEI knives feature a hooked or hawkbill profile — often reminiscent of karambit blades — I have shifted my focus toward more traditional shapes. While a hook excels at the rip, it can limit the tool’s versatility and increase the difficulty of sharpening.

Bladetricks Saña Double edge kiridashi pikal knife

Bladetricks Pikal Knife Balbala

Versatility and Maintenance

On models like the Tusk Knife or the discreet Diplomat, I utilize straighter, more traditional geometries. These profiles maintain the pikal advantage in the reverse grip while providing a more robust tip and a cleaner path of entry. They are easier to maintain and offer the professional a more balanced tool that does not sacrifice the catastrophic potential of the inward strike for the sake of a curved aesthetic.

Bladetricks Diplomat Low Profile Pikal Knife, Micarta

Custom Made Bladetricks Diplomat Pikal Knife, Black G10

Bladetricks PRK Pikal Reverse Grip Edge In Karambit

Bladetricks Diyuk Mini DOuble Edge Karambit Dagger, Black G10 & Copper

Bladetricks Progressive grind blade Tusk Pikal Knife

Limits of the Technique

The pikal system is highly specialized. While it dominates in close-quarters confrontations and clinches, it inherently lacks the reach of a sabre grip. It is a tool of commitment, optimized for the ranges where most real-world edged weapon encounters actually occur — not the dueling distances where most knife training takes place. Blade length is generally kept compact, between 50 and 100 mm, to ensure the tool remains concealable, maneuverable, and fast to deploy. Understanding these limits is as important as understanding the advantages. A specialist who does not know where his tool ends is not a specialist.

I have built pikal knives and tools around these principles for over a decade. The geometries developed in those early years are now visible in the work of makers around the world. I take that as confirmation that the mechanical logic was correct — not as a compliment.

April 1, 2026

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