I got a chance to check out the pass around knives over the weekend. I’ve got a few critiques, but overall liked all four knives. Any would be an upgrade from a typical drop point knife. Also worth noting that these thoughts are without “real” use and based on some kitchen work and one turkey (cool that my window aligned with a turkey tag). For those planning to give me crap about skinning a turkey, you do you. I’ve plucked a few and there’s little to no juice in that squeeze. I think skinning the legs isn’t a perfect representation, but as close as I could get without a deer/elk.

Length:
Out of the box I liked the orange and lime handled knives best. The black and dark green blades seemed a bit short when placing my index finger along the spine. I could choke down on the handles of the shorter ones, but that made the grip less comfortable as I was further back on the undercut portion of the grip. Cutting the turkey I didn’t index the spine and none stood out from a length perspective.
Grip:
As soon as I tried a pinch or spine index grip I noticed the sharp edge where the handle meets the blade. I’d like to see some ramping or modification here. Otherwise, I liked the shape and never felt uncomfortable cutting in the kitchen or processing the turkey. Cutting the legs off I held the knife in a strange upside-down contorted position so I could hold the leg, body, and knife at the same time. It speaks to the functionality of the handle design that this felt natural. Like, “of course, this is how you hold three things at the same time with no difficulty”. Kinda wish I had a picture of it, but didn’t have a fourth hand available…
Shape:
I’m not sure what I like best between the blade shapes. I liked the longer lengths of the lime and orange knives, but I’m still on the fence with shape. I felt like the lime blade’s more radiused shape allowed me to use more of the blade and would be better for skinning motions. My only concern there was that it seemed to have more trailing point and had me worried about it digging into the meat during the hide zipping duties. The orange blade seems to address this with a lower drop, but that seemed to come at the expense of sweep and reduction in usable blade for skinning activities. Definitely nitpicking here and could make either work and work well, but really need to do a deer with each to declare a winner.

Balance:
Something else I noticed and not sure I’ve formed an opinion on is the balance between the blade and handle. Immediately after opening the package I noticed that they were all handle heavy. I felt strange at first, but in use I never noticed it. I’d be curious to get some more informed voices on the topic. My current uninformed opinion is that I’d want the balance point around my index finger when in a hammer grip. These knives seem to be a bit rearward of that point.
I’m struggling to pick a winner between the lime and orange knife. If I had to choose one for the rest of time I’d pick the orange and know I wouldn’t have issues zipping a hide, but might be giving up some skinning ability. If I had to use it for a year and could modify if needed I’d get the green and do a few animals and see if that “problem” actually exists.
Thanks again to Hereinaz for getting this together. I’ll be in for whatever the result is and worst case have some informed thoughts for gen 2.