Hinderer XM Slippy Sheepsfoot

I did not own a Hinderer knife until this article, which is very remiss of me as a selfconfessed knife fan. It may be because they are very, very expensive and indeed extremely hard to get hold of here in the UK. Thanks to Heinnie Haynes I had the chance to own one and not just any one. It was one that I could carry legally in the UK. I tend to buy more legal carry knives now than non-legal ones. Just being able to use a knife at home or work but never be able to legally carry it in day to day life is a real downer.

For those who don’t know, Rick Hinderer began his knife making journey in the 1980s; with his real world experience as a Fire Fighter/ EMT he began changing over from old world knife making techniques to modern CNC precision manufacturing. Today, his knives are much sought after. However, he was told by some of my European dealers not to bother coming to Germany if he didn’t bring a more UK and European friendly slipjoint knife to the Nuremberg IWA show. He came up with a brand new, non-locking folder called the XM-Slippy; slipjoint into Slippy – neat.

The knife’s design is a take on his locking folder, the XM-18 model. It opens the new knife up to a worldwide market, as now many countries have restrictive knife carry laws. The 3-inch XM-Slippy is legal to carry in the majority of jurisdictions around the world. Hinderer designed the knife with a removable thumb disk, so the user can operate it as either a one or two-handed opener, depending on local knife laws. This is a very nice feature, the thumb disk rides on an innovative track milled into the blade. The user can adjust the thumb disk and move it into the position that fits their hand the best. Remove the thumb disc and the track functions like a nail nick for two-handed opening.

Colour options

Heinnie Haynes offer the Slippy in four different colours of G10 scales and two different blade shapes. I, of course went for the Orange G10, as orange is my color. The blade shape was also my UK influence, the Sheepsfoot blade I like, but for those who like their knife blades a little pointier, there is aptly named Slicer. It is a drop point design and looks very useable. You can have the G10 scales in Green, Blue and also Black. The scales are 3D textured to flow sweat and liquids off the handle and shaped to give fantastic grip and the back of the handle also has four slots, where the thumb comfortably sits; I also found it worked well to place my thumb on the top of the thumb disc for really difficult cutting operations. The thumb disc is 9.4mm in diameter and it can move along the slot by 30mm. There are six more grooves on the rear under side of the handle and even another two on the very back. The handle is not overly thick at 10mm and it also has a 4mm by 8mm lanyard slot on the top rear, which I will be utilising of course!

Versatile carry options

The steel pocket clip can be positioned in the ‘tip up’ or ‘tip down’ configuration, the unused clip position is blanked off by an oval steel plate, stonewashed to match the clip. I am baffled as to why Hinderer hold the clip and cover plate on with Posi-drive headed screws. This part of the knife doesn’t seem very ‘high end’ to me, why not use an Allen key as the rest of the screws on the knife are? The Slippy of course has a back spring, but it’s only function is to snap the blade into the closed position and this it duly does. The blade steel is 20CV; it’s a crucible particle metallurgy stainless steel, it’s widely regarded as a ‘super steel’ for its properties and performance. As such, it has outstanding edge holding and corrosion resistance, it requires very little maintenance, but on the downside, it can be very difficult to sharpen. The cutting surface on the Sheepsfoot is 67mm long with a 12.7mm long choil as an additional finger position.

The blade is 2.5mm thick and overall 76mm long; it has the distinctive Hinderer horse head and flame logo on the left-hand side, the right-hand side is marked USA 20CV. The thumb stud makes one handed opening easy but there is no 90-degree half lock on the blade opening, it sort of comes to a semi stop at 90 when closing the blade. Is the Slippy worth five pence short of three hundred quid? Oh my yes, it certainly is, and a massive thanks to Heinnie Haynes for bringing them into the UK. A truly quality knife built to carry and last a lifetime.