Dissection of the Kershaw/Emerson CQC series, the continuation thereof.
This is part four out of however many of these. Obviously, I like the idea of the "Wave Shaped Feature(r)" opening gimmick, which is why I've got so many knives that have it. And so far, all of the knives of this ilk we've looked at have ostensibly been fighters of some description or another. But what if, like most of us, you don't have a case for using your Wave opener for spearing Daesh insurgents or whoever the hell? What if you have slightly more civilian outdoorsy aims in mind?
This is the Kershaw/Emerson CQC-11K in D2, model 6031D2. Kershaw explicitly bill this as a hunting knife, and its highly upswept tip has a definite dressy-gutty-skinny vibe. It's much less for stabbing and much more for slicing.
And if you're thinking, "Hey, wait a minute. This knife looks exactly like the Emerson Rendezvous," well, you're definitely not wrong. In fact, in their blurb Kershaw goes on to explicitly mention that it's based on the Rendezvous. But there's a critical inescapable difference here, namely that the Rendezvous is $267 and the CQC-11K isn't. Sure, Kershaw claims the 11K is "discontinued" but apparently they manufactured about a million of these and they're still thick on the ground. You can easily score one right now at the time of writing for only $35.
What you lose out on in exchange for the $232 price difference is that the Rendezvous is made of 154CM steel and the CQC-11K is made of cheaper D2. And... uh, that's it. There is no second thing.
The Kershaw version even has the Emerson Knife Designs logo right there on it, just like all the other CQC's.
The remainder of the design elements are singing the same old familiar tune.
We will now recite the hymn of the Emerson CQC knife. It has, yea and verily, the Emerson Wave Shaped Feature(r) pocket-grabbing hook, which snaps the knife open automatically when you draw it. It is assembled, doth and truly, entirely with slotted and Phillips screws. Bear witness, for it has a knurled disk rather than studs for manual thumb opening. The textured G-10 scale, indubitably, is only on one side leaving a smooth steel surface on the other for an easy draw.
There's one other difference, though:
Instead of the injection molded backspacer, the handle halves are instead spaced with threaded diabolo barrels. This doesn't impact functionality any, though. It's just how it is.
Oh, and because thou shalt use this for hunting and not tactical purposes, it is not black. It is brown. Brown makes it outdoorsy, don't you see?
The CQC-11K is also very, very stout. It's much more broad than the other knives in the series we've inspected so far. It's not fat -- it's just big boned.
It's a full 1-3/4" across when closed, and the blade is 1-1/8" tall at the horn at the top of the spine. The entire knife is about 8-1/2" long and the blade is 3-9/16" long from the forwardmost point of the handle to the tip. (Kershaw calls it "3.5.") The blade is 0.120" thick at the spine and the entire thing sports a satin tumbled finish. The bevel is hollow ground as well. Minus the pocket clip it is 0.418" thick not including the heads on the pivot screws, or 0.499" with them. It is 163.1 grams in overall weight or 5.76 ounces -- Neither svelte nor light.
Inside we see few surprises. The construction is very similar to the aforementioned CQC-4K, with the pivot riding on nylon washers. The one major detail is those diabolo spacers:
These are screwed into with stubby little short screws, rather than the hella long ones that pass all the way through the scale and backspacer on the other CQC knives.
Because of this the spacers stay securely attached to one side of the liner or the other, depending on which side you start taking the knife apart from.
The comparison with the CQC-6K says it all, really. If you want a big meaty knife, this one's for you.
It looks like someone took the 6K and stretched it out vertically to make the 11K.
Handling the 11K works about as you'd expect, but there is the notable quirk of the position of the pocket clip, which is pretty far down on the knife and leaves a lot of it sticking up out of your pocket. For the purposes of ease of access that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially out in the woods, but this is about the furthest from a discreet carry you can get without just strutting around in public holding the thing in your teeth.
As before, the clip can be swapped to the other side but it will be much grabbier on your pocket there because it'll interface with the textured G-10 scale rather than the smooth 410 stainless back side of the knife. For what it's worth, Emerson themselves do make a couple of left handed variants of their knives (for big bucks, of course) where the smooth and textured sides are swapped. But Kershaw doesn't make a left handed version of this one.
The Inevitable Conclusion
Since its damage type is slashing rather than piercing, this ought to work better on Unes and Venus Weeds and -- wait, what were we talking about again?
Oh yeah. The CQC-11K. It does what it says on the tin -- It's a CQC knife, but remixed for utility cutting tasks that align neatly with sportsmen's needs. Gutting fish. Dressing game. That sort of thing. In those contexts, I'm not entirely certain the presence of the Wave(r) opening feature is likely to be a make-or-break purchasing decision unless you employ the Jimbo and Ned "he's coming right for us!" hunting strategy. Or, if you absolutely must have something about your person to attach an (r) to at all times. Still and all, it's always nice to have and it transforms what would otherwise be an ordinary frame locking folder into a knife that's a bit special.
The major headline here is that if you were for whatever reason eyeballing something along the lines of the Emerson Rendezvous, it's a no-brainer decision to buy this instead. Lately I've been bringing up the point of undercutting the exorbitant prices of various big brand knife models by exploring their clones, but this is a weird one -- it's a case where a manufacturer has pretty much gone and cloned themselves, undercutting their own product with... their own product. That's pretty strange, and makes this knife well worth a look.
In addition to being a 1 for 1 substitute for the Rendezvous, the CQC-11K is probably a good stand-in for any of Emerson's other upswept tip knives that may have been on your shopping list like the Commander, Skinner, or Horseman.
I don't know about you, but I like saving a dime. That means I can spend that dime on more knives later.
