MBK Tusk Review
What if you could go back in time and give Al Mar S90V and fluted titanium when he was making and designing the Ultralight series? That’s what MBK did when they made the Tusk. They are explicit about this—this is an homage to those great compact cutters of the late 80s early 90s. Those knives were spectacular for the time and if you overlook the soft steel, I’d still carry one today if I could find an original micarta version for a reasonable price.
Those knives were really good, but they weren’t perfect. First, they were all pin construction. If you needed to tweak the originals, well, you were out of luck. Second, even at the time AUS-8 was not an ideal steel, but more likely a concession to the country of manufacture. And finally, on the smallest of the knives, the Hawk, there was no clip. That’s venial sin, to borrow from my Catholic upbringing, but if you are doing it over, you’d certainly include a clip. Sanford did all of this when he had the Tusk made. The result is a really excellent, very slim little knife.
How good would a modernized Al Mar Hawk be? Let’s find out.
Here is the product page. There are, thankfully, no variants. There are no written or video reviews. And here is the review sample (purchased with my own money):
Review TLDR: A modernized Al Mar Hawk in every way—right down to the almost perfect score.
Design: 2
For me, these sorts of designs are beguiling—they are slim, pocketable, and proficient slicers. I love this class of knives, which I refer to (in my head) as office knives. The original Al Mar Hawk was a premiere example. This is a great one too. I really feel like these are the knives that most knife owners actually need. Not the hulking slabby TFFs that are everywhere these days.
Fit and Finish: 0
MBK has great designs, but it has been years since one of their knives has slid out of a box without a flaw. The Mini Old Guard was not well made. The Tusk is better, but still it required a lot of work. The pivot needed work. The thumb studs rattle. The clip moved. These are basic things that should not get out of QC. But they consistently do. It is an issue and it is the thing that holds MBK designs back. The hard things—the grind, the fluting on the handle, and the edge, they are great. This is the baseball team with a 50 home run hitter and an ace that strikes out 200, but can’t turn a double play. MBK has the high difficulty stuff down pat, and yet they can’t get knives with tightened screws. The design is so good, it is worth putting the time in, but it is irksome.
Grip: 2
The fluted handle and the size are surprisingly grippy. This is a knife the size of a bigger pencil and yet it stays put in the hand even when wet or greasy.
Carry: 2
One of the reasons you carry a knife this size is because it vanishes in the pocket and the Tusk does just that. Its not exactly the pocket feather that the micarta Hawk was, but it is pretty good.
Steel: 2
S90V is an older steel, debuting in the 1990s, but it is still a great steel. With a higher toughness but equal wear resistance compared to M390, I feel like S90V is among the better steels out there. It is much more common than it used to be, but that shouldn’t matter when evaluating performance. Here with almost no use that would require serious toughness, the S90V is about as close to an ideal application as it can get. Great choice for a slim blade.
Blade Shape: 2
Death spike. Is that a recognized blade shape? This is one place where the Tusk is a smidge different from the Al Mar inspiration. This knife’s blade has significantly less belly than the original, but I am not sure that is a bad thing. It still works well, and I was never powering through a thousand rocking cuts of scallions with the Hawk anyway. Plus it looks a bit more…um…knifey.
Grind: 2
It’s hard to screw up a grind on a knife this slim. I will noted that the stock here is not paper thin, but at a certain point it doesn’t matter with a knife that has such a short blade height. It slices well and the full flat grind is nicely done.
Deployment Method: 2
I am not taking points off here for the rattling thumb studs, but I will noted that this knife is one of the best deploying lockbacks I have used. Generally, lockbacks don’t snap open because the friction of the lock riding on the rear tang of the knife through the bladepath. Only something like the Bestech Tonic solved this problem consistent. Here, thanks to some great tuning, the Tusk is very good.
Retention Method: 2
The clip is great here and a notable improvement on the original Hawk. Note, like with the deployment, I am not docking the Tusk a point here for the loose clip. I took the points off in Fit and Finish.
Lock: 2
The lock, once the pivot was tuned, is quite good for a lockback with no issues with lockup. The advantage of a lockback is that EVERYONE knows how they work so locking and unlocking is pretty easy.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Moderate
With a snappy lock back and decently shaped handle you can actually fiddle with this knife, which is kind of an accomplishment given the size of the blade.
Fett Effect: High
Titanium batters like the original Mandalorian’s armor, especially if you carry the knife every day.
Value: High
At $100, this knife checks a lot of boxes and its something you can carry pretty much everyday.
Overall Score: 18 of 20
The score is quite good and while I think this is a very good knife, I feel like something is a bit lost in translation between the numbers and my sentiments about the knife. It’s not that it is bad, not at all. It’s just the 18 feels a bit high, but I don’t know where I’d take points away. The fit and finish issues are really annoying. More importantly, it answers the question of how well a modern Hawk would do. The original Al Mar designs are timeless and the Tusk proves that. Slap some titanium on the handle, update the blade steel, make a clip and viola you have a modern Al Mar Hawk that is a pretty damn good pocket knife. Easy to carry, slicey knives never go out of style.
Competition
This class of knives, stuff I like to call “office knives” is chocked full of options, but the very best are truly elite. Among them I think of stuff like the current D2 Al Mar Hawk, which is a titanium frame lock. It’s pretty good. I also think of the AG Russell Lightnin’ Bug, which, again, is very good. The Vosteed Mini Labrador is another option. There is, of course, the Chris Reeve Mnandi, which is one of the best knives ever made. Finally, I believe the CRKT CEO Compact is comparable. Of those six knives, the Mnandi is by far my favorite. The CEO is also quite good. It is one of the very best slim, high end carries out there, short of some of the old, less garish William Henrys and the Mnandi. The Tusk is not in the same league as the Mnandi and while it is the same class as the CEO, the website exclusive version with CF handles and S35VN, is better. If the current Hawk got a steel upgrade, given its better finish and classic lines, it would be better, too.
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