The Amtac Blades Northman grew out of a need to have a small fixed blade knife in your pocket. I wanted a blade that could handle daily chores of cutting rope (hence the serrated portion of the blade), opening boxes and also be able to handle backcountry jobs like whittling shavings to start a fire. That is its primary purpose.

At the same time I wanted the blade to have an edge geometry that would lend itself to thrusting during combatives. That is it’s secondary purpose. I have now run various Amtac Blades Northman prototypes in my pocket during combative training for the last year.

The more I used it, the more I saw the great combative advantage in being able to quickly deploy a fixed blade from your strong side even when while wearing multiple layers of cold weather clothing.