Gerber Profile

My first fixed blade knife review is of the Gerber Profile. I picked up this little gem for about $18 from amazon for two reasons; I heard that it is a very solid reliable knife and it comes with a crappy sheath. Odd reasons I know but more about the second reason in a post that I will make soon so stay tuned!!

The Profile measures in at 8.56" in overall length with a 4" blade (that has a 3.5" cutting surface). It is a full tang construction using Gerber's proprietary un-named high carbon bladesteel that is titanium nitride coated. The handle scales are thick textured rubber  with a lanyard hole at the end. Overall weight checks in at 6.1 oz.

As you can see in the above picture, the blade is hollow ground with an unsharpened swedge. The blade is also very wide which gives it lots of strength for prying and batoning. Out of the box it was moderately sharp but not up to my standards so I sharpened it with a simple pocket sharpener to put a nice edge on it. The Profile holds its edge very well and is easy to sharpen when the time comes. The Ti-Ni finish on the blade keeps reflections to a minimum while at the same time providing corrosion resistance. It should be noted that if you take the rubber handle scales off, the tang is also coated with the same thoroughness.

This brings me to the subject of the handle scales themselves. They are held on by two torx head screws and while very grippy and shaped well for medium to large sized hands, they are way too thick for my liking. In addition to that, they are also adding unnecessary weight to the knife by being so oversized (in my opinion). I should add that as I intend to use this knife as an EDC defensive blade carried inside the waistband, the thickness will need to be addressed soon (as well as the sheath).

 

 

 

 

Also see in the above pictures an aspect of the blade that stands to be improved, the jimping. While it is technically present on this knife, it is severely inadequate, desperately shallow and provides no traction what so ever.

 

The other thing that stands to be improved is the sheath. For $18 I did not expect much (or anything at all for that matter), but this is bad. I have hardly used it and the stitching is already beginning to become undone and the nylon is starting to fray in some spots. I never intended on using the sheath anyway because I am left handed and the sheath is not ambidextrous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bought the Gerber Profile with the knowledge of its "faults" (if you would call them that) in mind with the purpose of customizing it to make it better for my intended use for it. I do plan to make some sore of replacement for the oversized rubber scales using either paracord wrap or textured G-10 and then making a custom IWB Kydex holster for it to be able to rotate it into my EDC so stay tuned for future updates to the blog for some more DIY projects!