Hogue Mini Ritter RSK Mk. 1 G2 Review
A cascade injury is one where a small problem one place causes larger problems somewhere else. For example, if you are a pitcher in baseball and you have an injury to your big toe, and to compensate you change your delivery, which, in turn, injures your arm then you have experienced a cascade injury. The Hogue Mini Ritter RSK Mk. 1 G2 is a knife that suffers from the design-equivalent of a cascade injury—one small mistake and the compensation for it causes problems throughout the knife.
These problems wouldn’t be so noticeable if the knife wasn’t so similar to the Benchmade Mini Grip, a knife that has long been one of the best designs in the production world. To quote one of my favorite all time characters on television (Omar from The Wire): “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” If this were a different design the cascade design flaws may not have been as noticeable. When they occur on a knife that is directly challenging the Mini Grip in so many ways they sticks out like a sore thumb.
Here is the product page. This is a Knifeworks exclusive and the knife is made for Ritter by Hogue Knives. There are five variants: a Mini Ritter (in orange or black) and the full sized Ritter (in orange, black, or tan). The Mini costs a very affordable $139.95. These knives are a continuation of the original Ritters which were knives produced by Benchmade. All of the Ritter knives support Doug Ritter’s work at Knife Rights, a knife-owners advocacy group. I met Doug Ritter on a trip to Washington and he is a genuinely passionate advocate for knife owners. The sale of these knives provides Ritter with income so that he can continue to work on knife-related issues. Here is my review sample (purchased with my own money):
Twitter Review Summary: If you come at the king, you best not miss.
Design: 1
Its seems odd to have to write this but: do not make your knife handles abrasive. Don’t make handles abrasive. Don’t make windows opaque. Don’t make wheels square. Right? I get grippy G10, but this knife is not going for that. The sunburst pattern around the pivot makes it clear that this is not a Cold Steel/Emerson grippy G10 handle. And even then they aren’t as abrasive as the Ritter’s handle just under the pocket clip. Why did the design call for this? It is mystifying. As a result, it seems that Hogue backed off on the pocket clip’s spring tension and the result is a massive self-inflicted design wound.
I fixed the flaw by slowly and methodically taking down the peaks of the grippiest part with 600 grit sand paper.
After that, the clip was still a problem. As a result, I went out and purchased an aftermarket clip from MXG (my first, I highly recommend it, though I wish the pictures of the clips had a ruler for scale so you can tell which clips are the big ones and which ones are the small ones visually).
The performance ratios aren’t bad at all. The blade to weight ratio is 1.12, crossing over the magic 1.0 ratio. The blade to handle is .73, which is good but not astounding. If you were looking for a spec beast, keep looking, but really this knife isn’t about the specs, its about the design.
Fit and Finish: 2
Hogue is one of the better production companies in the world with machining that is on par with TRM, the best of Spyderco’s domestic stuff, and Benchmade. Its no surprise then that the Mini Ritter is a knife with no production flaws. The blade centering is great, the pivot is nice the machining on the G10 is clean (albeit poorly designed). The thumb stubs are particularly well crafted.
Grip: 1
The design flaw with the texturing of the G10 carries over to here as well. And this isn’t just double dipping on the flaw—it actually has separate impacts on the grip. Here is how—the over the top pocket clip, in addition to being quite loose, is pretty big and this, in turn, gives rise to hotspots. I am also not a fan of the carved out index notch. I know some people like it, but it is an ergonomic crutch and it impacts the knife in other grips, particularly in the rarely used ice pick grip. Look at the difference between this knife and the Mini Grip. Very similarly designs, but these two differences in the grip of the knife make the Mini Ritter worse. Its not a huge thing, but it is noticeable.
Carry: 1
Again, the texture and the clip present new problems. Over time (and in this case “time” being two days), even with the looser clip, the texture tore up the lip of the pocket on my jeans. As a knife guy I am used to frayed jeans pockets, but I have never seen something work this fast. Even the grippy G10 from my Emersons and Cold Steels didn’t work this fast.
Steel: 2
20CV is in the M390 family and is domestically produced (M390 is made by Boheler Uddeholm, a merger of an Austrian company, Boheler, and a Swedish company, Uddeholm) by Crucible. Its an excellent all around steel and par for the course for enthusiast knives. It is, of course, very good on the Mini Ritter.
Blade Shape: 2
With a tall blade and a kind of clip point/drop point hybrid, the Mini Ritter looks different than the Mini Grip and here, for once, the difference is better. I actually like the blade shape. It also gives a natural home to the thumb stud. Finally, by stretching out the height of the blad,e it makes the knife thinner behind the edge, which is always a good thing. It might have been taken too far here, but that is an issue for the Grind section of this review.
Grind: 1
While I like thin grinds and this knife does have a thin grind, it might have been a bit too thin. The edge dinged pretty badly through very light use. I ended up backing the edge down a bit by shrinking the cutting bevel. It is no longer quite as sharp, but it hasn’t dinged since even with heavier use. The problem, I think, was the width of the cutting bevel. Wide cutting bevels are a way to boost your knife’s cutting performance, but there is a cost. In some of my thicker knives, the cutting bevel’s width is good as it decreases the angle of the edge and it gets a longer runway to do so. In a knife with a thin blade stock, it makes for a blistering sharp edge, but that edge, especially on very thin stock blades, is fragile. This is the problem with the Kerhsaw Leek’s grind and one of the reasons why I made the decision to redo the cutting bevel (that and the chip was big enough that it required reprofiling to get rid of it). In the end, the grind, while lovely, was a liability and hence I am taking off a point.
Deployment: 2
This is a difference where the Mini Ritter comes out ahead. This knife is the best deploying Axis lock I have ever used, even compared to the beautifully executed Mini Bugout. The blade snaps open with authority and slides closed with ease. If you do a retracted bar lock deployment, the blade swings freely. There is no nicer deployment than this. It is quite incredible to experience.
Retention: 0
Not only is the stock pocket clip atrociously weak, it is also a bit ugly. I am just not sure why they went this route. Hogue has a dozen or so clip designs in its catalogs and all of them are better than this one. Fortunately they tapped the screws for a standard Benchmade clips, so finding a replacement isn’t hard.
Lock/Blade Safety: 2
As good as the deployment is the lock up is even better. The push/pull Axis locks usually have between good deployment and good action is gone here. Hogue’s machining is really a tour de force as they have dialed in perfect tolerances. The end result is the most solid Axis lock I have ever seen. There is no blade play in any direction and the knife still deploys with kinetic fury (I call that as a band name, FYI). Furthermore, the knife disengages with ease.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Very High
Axis locks are always high on the fidget factor, but here, with the buttery deployment and insane snap, you will fidget with this knife until your fingers bleed.
Fett Effect: Very Low
A heavy stonewash and a complex pattern on the G10 hide wear and tear quite well. In fact, almost all of these shots were taken AFTER the sanding and even then you can’t see a difference.
Value: See below
The steel and action are good, but getting this knife into ideal form takes work which retracts from its value significantly. As such, I am not sure how to score this knife here.
Overall Score: 14 out of 20
At some point, you just throw in the towel and say, it is not worth the hassle. The knife I have now is amazing but that is after: 1) buying a new clip; 2) sanding down the stupid texture under the clip; and 3) reprofiling the edge. I spent about a half hour carefully sanding the handle and cleaning it up and then another half hour reprofiling the edge to work out the ding. Assuming I make minimum wage (here in Massachusetts it is $12.75), that means that this $139 knife is now a $151.75 knife. On top of that, I have $23 in an MXG clip. That means that I now have a $174.75 knife, excluding shipping. And it is basically a slightly bigger and smoother Mini Grip (though the blade is the same length). If the knife came this way out of the box and retained its price tag, it would be a clearly better buy than the Mini Grip and one of the better knives for EDC on the market today. But in this day and age, when EVERYONE is releasing excellent EDC knives, unfortunately the Ritter is probably below par. I wish it weren’t and I am glad to have donated money to the cause, but there are just too many problems to ignore.
Even assuming I discount the grind issue, the clip and the texture issue are as close as you can get to objective design flaws. And in that situation, it is still below bar. That list from hesitation-free recommendations in the Best Knives of 2020 includes a dozen knives that are just outright better than this knife and only six of those knives cost more than this blade (and realistically only four are significantly more money).
In the end, this is a good but flawed blade, a moderately fast race horse hoping to win the Kentucky Derby in a historically fast field. In other words, you can do better for less money.
Competition
Obviously this is the question, right? Which is better the Mini Grip or the Mini Ritter? Out of the box, there is no question that the Mini Grip is a better knife. The significantly better action are a big bonus for the Mini Ritter and the price break of about $30 is also important, but stock the Mini Ritter is an absolute pocket shredder. In two days of carry there was noticeable damage to my jeans. Two days. The Mini Grip, on the other hand, has been riding in my jeans for years with zero problems.
After a careful sanding, the offensive texture on the Mini Ritter was gone, but the floppy, limp clip remained. I purchased an MXG clip two days after the Mini Ritter arrived. Once you factor that in, the price advantage disappears. I don’t think a clip swap is absolutely necessary for the Mini Ritter, but if you have more than one knife with a clip, you’ll never carry the Mini Ritter. Its clip is atrocious, perhaps the weakest stamped steel clip I have seen.
Once the texture was removed and the clip replaced, it became clear just how good the guts of this knife are. This is the Axis lock to end all Axis locks. Compared to the stock Mini Grip, the Mini Ritter is leagues better. The grind here is good, but basically a gimmick. Its instability makes it less desirable, in my mind, than the robust yet still slicey grind from the Mini Grip.
In the end, the King remains the King.
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