This is a “mid length” review as it is a review of an iteration on a design I previously reviewed (review found here).

Quick Review Summary: An American-made parade of design and details.

Truth be told I was truly smitten with the original Torrent, a collaboration between TJ Schwarz and Millit Knives. I got a v1 knife when v2 came out. It lacked some of the upgrades of the v2 and it had a very, very fancy Damascus steel blade and skeletonized carbon fiber “covers”. It was almost, sort of, exactly but not quite what I wanted. What I wanted is the stuff liked about the v1 knife with the upgrades I appreciated in the v2 knife. Alas, I sold it and immediately regretted. Then I spent the better part of a decade trying and hoping that Millit would drop a v3. Eventually they did, but they were exceptionally hard to come by. After playing cat and mouse with drops that included only one or two knives, I finally got lucky and scored a v3 Torrent with EXACTLY the specs I wanted. It didn’t take as a long as I took me to grab a Leafstorm, but it was almost as long.

Boy was it worth the wait. This knife is a masterwork, a brillant, nuanced complex design that is unquestionably the product of a talented designer. This is married with truly next level machining, a step beyond what you will find at production companies like Reate and Chris Reeve. And, because this is 2024 and the knife market is truly insane, this knife was an exceptional value. My Torrent with non-skeletonized carbon fiber covers and S90V blade steel came in at $450. Given the small batch production and the incredible details here that is a very, very fair price. It was, in fact, cheaper than my original Torrent though that is a bit of apples and oranges because that was a fancier knife.

One thing that the Torrent made me think about is the nature of ultra small batch production knives. Are Grimsmos custom knives? What about makers that work one at a time but only use machines for things (until they get to grinding the edges), folks like Brian Tighe? When Nick and I went to TRM and got to see Les’s workshop (the knife knut equivalent to Santa’s Workshop), it was clear to me that the Comets they were working on were as fussed over as any custom. These ultra small batch productions blur the lines between custom and production in a way that is hard to account for with our community’s current lexicon. To throw a wrench into the works a bit more—what were things like Canal Street Cutlery where craftsmen used heirloom machines with a single computer or number or control to make knives according to a pattern one at time? My Boys Knife looks different from the handful of other examples I have seen online.

In the end, I am not sure any of this matters. What does matter here is that this knife is a stunning value for what you get. The flipping action is smooth and stable (I again had to tighten the pivot to my preferred level of smoothness, but it locked in without Loctite and has stayed there). The edge was exceedingly sharp, not quite “Wenger Aphid 2” sharp, but better than what you get from most production companies. And, most importantly, all of the details are perfectly rendered: light orange peeling all over the handle, the pockets for the screw heads so they aren’t proud of the handle, the thin, multi-layered pocket clip, and the wonderful details around the finger cut out and handle of the knife. The Torrent is a feast of details.

One thing that is better on the v3 compared to my v1 Torrent is the detent. This is a wonderful flipper with some really good sounds and feedback when opening the knife. I am a fan of ultra crispy detents and while this isn’t the crispiest detent I have ever used, its leaps and bounds better than the first one and pretty darn good compared to the market as a whole. Given that this was the one place I took a point off the first time around, the v3 Torrent scores a 20 out of 20.

Does it get a perfect score? Yes. That first knife was so darn close but held back by one obvious, unavoidable weakness that once that weakness is fixed, the knife becomes a resplendent example of the knife maker’s craft in 2024. And at a price that is around what you’d pay for a much more common, much less refined Reate or $25 more than a plain jane Small Sebenza (post price hike), the Torrent v3 is a true value. Millit isn’t cranking these out just quite yet, but follow them on IG for drops. That is how I scored this knife, which I paid for with my own money and is part of the permanent collection.

Score: 20 out of 20; PERFECT