Compact self-defense is the name of the game with the latest blade out of TOPS Knives’s Idaho Falls workshop. The Upswarm‘s unique blade shape actually emerged from a sharpening test.
TOPS is a company well-known for tapping into the knifemaking talent of its entire team, not just the folks with “designer” in their job description. Case in point, the Upswarm is the brainchild of Eric Moony, who is a grinder at TOPS. Evidently Mooney was inspired by the way paper used in cutting tests would curl after being sliced to draw up a compact trailing point blade with a significant amount of curve relative to its 3-inch length.
The design screams “tactical,” and in fact the Upswarm is one of those TOPS models that can be ordered with a sharpened swedge if your locale permits the ownership of such pieces. Blade steel is 1095 carbon steel – the flagship workhorse recipe over at TOPS HQ, with a long, long history of reliability attested to by many different makers. It’s offered here with either a full DLC coating, or a camo finish for those truly dedicated to the tactical lifestyle.
Mooney gave the Upswarm a handle just as characterful and interesting as the blade. it’s a mid-intensity arc shape with three big finger grooves to calibrate the grip; and, on the butt end, is a karambit-style flourish: not the full finger ring, but a sort of half-ring, providing a lot of the same orientation advantages as the former without the risk of getting tangled up in an actual loop. The scales are black canvas Micarta, the sheath Kydex, and the total weight in-sheath is 6.3 oz.
Knife in Featured Image: TOPS Upswarm
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