Vosteed Raccoon Micarta Knife
Now available from Vosteed is the Raccoon, a knife using micarta to great effect! Check out this full-metal liner, button-lock knife!
Official Specs
Here’s a link to the Vosteed Raccoon Micarta knife product page.
Versions
The Vosteed Raccoon Micarta knife is available in various flavors of micarta – black, blue, and green (seen here).
Price
MSRP for the Vosteed Raccoon Micarta knife is $59.00. The Vosteed Raccoon is available on amazon! (Referral link).
Short Review
While the Vosteed Raccoon is a bit more knife than I usually love, the micarta is absolutely fantastic. I also love the blade (flat) shape, and the action is so smooth. If you need a bigger (3.25-inch blade length) knife, this is a great place to start!
Long Review
Package and Manual
There is no manual.
What’s Included
- Vosteed Raccoon Micarta Knife
- Cleaning cloth
- Zippered carry pouch
- Metal carry canister
- Vosteed patch
- Vosteed sticker (2 types)
- Card describing the knife
- Warranty card, etc.
Look
What you’ll see throughout this post is the way the Vosteed Raccoon micarta knife ships. Vosteed reached out to me nearly immediately after receipt and said the micarta really shines if oil is thoroughly rubbed in. That sounds fantastic and I’m sure they’re right that the micarta really takes on some greatness with oil. But I know zeroair, and I know zeroair would end up with that oil straight into his eyeballs, and so I politely declined to oil my knife.
You can see this better in later photos, but check out that backspacer – it’s matching micarta!!
The flat ground blade has a “not shiny” finish and I really love it. This is the best blade shape. Fite me.
The spine of the blade has a bit of jimping where you’d probably want it, and the other part has a “just” broken edge. It’s not rounded, and barely even a 45-degree angle (probably). You might be able to strike a flint with it, but there are probably other knives better suited to that task.
Open / Close / Lock
A thumbstud is used to open the Vosteed Raccoon micarta knife.
The thumbstud is very accessible thanks to some cutout areas in the micarta scales.
Vosteed made the Raccoon to be ambidextrous; there’s a thumbstud on both sides of the blade.
The lock release, however, is only on one side.
The blade is practically a “drop shut” smoothness. It’s very good!
Build and Feel
Covered over and over above, but the scales of the Raccoon are micarta. The build quality is great, and note that the micarta provides a great grip surface. This will ebb and flow with the age and use of the knife – micarta isn’t really a “patina” material, but it also is in some sense the best patina material – it should show age and usage very nicely.
Fully open, the Raccoon has a very forward and flat shape. It pleases me that no part of the blade touches a surface when being rested in the way seen below. That translates into exactly how I want the knife to feel when in use.
The blade is perfectly centered.
Here’s that dual thumbstud I mentioned above. No need to swap from one side to the other – both are always in place.
And here’s that micarta backspacer. It’d be awesome if the grain of this backspacer matched the grain of the scales, but we can’t have everything!
The Raccoon has minimal branding (which is great), and what’s there is subtle.
Size
Overall Length 7.60 inch | 193.12mm
Blade Length 3.25 inch | 82.55mm
Blade Width 1.07 inch | 27.27mm
Blade Thickness 0.118 inch | 3.1mm
Handle Length 4.36 inch | 110.75mm
Handle Width 1.10 inch | 27.95mm
Weight 3.39 oz | 96 g
Steel / Cut / Oats
Vosteed states the Raccoon blade steel as “14C28N.”
Here are the details of that steel:
https://www.materials.sandvik/en/products/strip-steel/strip-products/knife-steel/sandvik-knife-steels/sandvik-14c28n/
Retention
The pocket clip used on the Raccoon is similar to other Vosteed knives I’ve seen (like the Nightshade.) The pocket clip is a nice deep carry clip. The clip is held in place by two “over/under” TORX screws (around T6, I think).
You can see below that the pocket clip has a nice shoulder and fairly accessible “mouth,” so using the pocket clip is easy.
The clip can be moved to the other side, too! In fact, the reverse has been given special attention – there’s a clip “blank” here that fills the gap on the side the pocket clip is not.
Also included on the Raccoon is a hole where a lanyard could be attached. This hole is on the same end as the pocket clip and can be seen in the photos above and below.
Vosteed also provided me another way to carry (or store?) the Raccoon (and in fact all my Vosteed knives!) This is a knife roll, capable of holding many knives and even flashlights, too!
The roll is fairly large and has a very “classic” look. These brass button slip into the leather (or “leather”) loops and allow a good bit of adjustment for different load levels of the roll.
The appointments on this roll are very nice!
Inside (and outside, for that matter) is some Vosteed branding. This patch could be removed, but the leather on the outside is stamped as part of the roll itself.
Inside, there are many (I count 18 or so) pockets for knives (or flashlights, since Vosteed now also has a flashlight in their arsenal – the Rook!)
You can see my “standard flashlights” fit very nicely in these pockets! Great for travel to your local flashlight meetup!
Obviously knives fit very nicely, too.
The Raccoon can fit all the way into one of these roll pockets, or if your Raccoon is super sleepy, you can tuck it in nice and tight using the knife pocket clip. Either way it’ll wake up refreshed!
It’s hard to say enough about the roll. I love it, an it makes for a great accessory to the Raccoon and all of Vosteed’s other (many!) items! Highly recommended!
Conclusion
Two things here that bear commenting on. The micarta Vosteed Raccoon knife and the leather knife roll that Vosteed also sent. They’re both very nice.
Notes
- This knife was provided by Vosteed for review. I was not paid to write this review.
- This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!
- For flashlight-related patches, stickers, and gear, head over to PhotonPhreaks.com!
- Use my amazon.com referral link if you’re willing to help support making more reviews like this one!
- Please support me on Patreon! I deeply appreciate your support!
For some reason, any knife I ‘m interested in appears as unavailable on Amazon or doesn’t ship to my country in southern Europe.. This is the case for the Raccoon as well. This means I have to order through a european store like Lamnia, etc, etc.The 60$ Vosteed would end up costing at least 90€.