Do They Still Make These?

I used to have one when they first showed up here for sale. They were not all that well made, and the spring tended to loose its power if left loaded. It used a grenade pin for a safety, and once removed, you needed to keep your thumb on the back of the release. Once that pin was pulled, it was pretty scary from both ends.

It basically had a bayonet type blade attached to an aluminum tube that slid into the handle, which held the spring. It was never as strong as the ads claimed, but it wasnt a toy(well, it was, but..) and at close range could put a hurting on you. At 10 feet, it would bury itself into a sheet rock wall, and sometimes stick into something solid. Trying to hit something across the room was iffy, and getting it to stick even more. I believe they claimed five times the force of a manual stab at 30 feet, but there was no way.

It didnt take them long to restrict them for sale, and the spring was the first part to go. I did see them for sale with just a baton for a little while, and then they seemed to disappear. I got mine out of the Shotgun News back in the mid 80's for about $100.

Its a neat novelty, but your money is actually better spent on something with a little more quality.

hso, nah, just a misdemeanor here. Of course, this session we are going to try to change this.

I played with one at Knob Creek in the '80s when my dad took me down. I always compared it to something Wile E. Coyote would order from ACME. It was less than worthless and had a big "BURRRRANG!" sound to it. I'd rather throw a tomahawk or hatchet.

Or, just not throw it at all: I asked my first praying mantis teacher what the rule of throwing your knife in a fight was. He said, "don't."

The USA mfg "russian spring knife" in the pic has nothing to do with russian special forces or the real spetznaz issue knife that fires a silent round and is a real rare device.

This was all just marketing BS by the florida knife company about the whole russian thing.

I knew a real spetznaz that lived next door to me with his family.

I asked him about a lot of items like this knife and the shovel etc...He knew nothing of the spring type knife what so ever... but told me about their shooting knife and other very cool items .

The shovel is a real item that they used a lot FWIW. In fact he gave me his issue shovel and its cover...the real shovels are nothing like the cold steel copy.

The US made spring fired knives were sold under names like "KGB" or "Spetznaz" knife. Also called "Springblade", "Florida Knife", "Bloody Mary", "Flying Dutchman", "Ballistic knife".

It was offered in three configurations,there was one with a blade, one with a baton/mace, and one with a grappling hook. On all three the implement was under spring pressure and would shoot off of the handle when a lever was pressed. It became illegal to sell the knife version with a spring (called a Pilum knife), but without a spring it IS LEGAL to buy and sell. The baton and grapple version are 100% legal even with a spring.

These knives were MFG by the Florida Knife co, Spye Knife co. They were sold by various catalogs, including Edge Knife co, Phoenix Systems, and Southern Ordnance (SouthOrd). Prices were as low as $60.

They work OK and would auto stab a person no question.I fired one and it went into a beef side about 3 inches... but are very hard to load with the correct spring and quality went way down as time passed until they were just a shadow of their original quality...the lock is very dangerous as its a hair trigger when the pin is not in its place.

As a side note the very first versions sold were very good quality and had a VERY powerful spring that was held in place at the bottom of the handle the later versions got worse in qiality as time went on and had a spring that was at about 75% or less the power and could be pulled free from the handle.

hso, never seen it prosecuted federally. I cannot imagine a USA with nothing else to do but do this as a stand alone (maybe with drugrunning or something). I'll see if I can look this up tomorrow.

Bwahahaha

Never seen those before but now I want one. They might even be legal here. Is the blade bare when it is launched or is it sheathed inside a tube or something? If the former then yes, legal in the UK. If the latter, it would be a switchblade so sadly no

I'm selling one on EBAY
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MESE:IT&viewitem=&item=130115751120&rd=1&rd=1

To be fair, as I recall, Cold Steel never claimed that their "Spetznaz Shovel" is a faithful copy. They say it was inspired by the original, which may be true, though I note a resemblance to a U.S. entrenching tool. Meh.

Remember Executive Edge Knives?

The Cold Steel shovel may or may not be a copy of the soviet original, but I can tell you from personal experience it's good for digging cat holes.

What a joke. Banned because of hyped advertising, and an episode of The Equalizer

Even worse than banning slungshots -- at leastse were used to hurt someone within the last 250 years

I remember that episode

of the Equalizer. Here is a trivia question...... Who did Edward Woodward shoot with the ballista knife in that episode?

It is an odd answer. i will come by later with the answer if no one guesses....

Hint... he is british and was a rock star.

Adam Ant, wasn't it?

we have a winner

It was Adam Ant.