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A Hands On Review and Photo Gallery of the Civivi Conspirator Button Lock Pocket Knife
The Conspirator is another well designed folding knife from Civivi that is hard to categorize. It has a classic non-tactical look that makes me want to call it a gentleman’s folder, but its relatively tall blade and large hand-friendly handle make it almost practical enough to call it a hard use knife. Of course the thin blade tip, small standoffs, and button lock exclude it from that classification. Ultimately the Civivi Conspirator is just a great all around EDC that avoids specialization similar to the Civivi Relic I reviewed a few months back.
This photo review features the Cuibourtia wood handle version, but the Conspirator is also available in Micarta.
The Civivi Conspirator features a Nitro-V steel blade, Cuibourtia Wood (or Micarta) handle scales, a deep carry pocket clip, and a button lock.The Conspirator has a classic look that should help make it popular, but ultimately it is its great overall design and decent fit and finish that lead me to be believe it will become one of Civivi’s best sellers.The Conspirator is not a light knife, but it is lighter than it looks. The liners are skeletonized, and it has standoffs instead of spacers, so there was a noticeable effort made to keep the weight down in the design process.With an overall length of 8.11″ the Conspirator is slightly shorter than the Buck 110 Hunter Pro, but it is quite a bit taller.The action of the Conspirator is fairly smooth, but it is not quite as snappy as other Civivi flippers. I did have a fair amount of half deployments when using the flipper tab. With a little practice it is easy to reverse flick this knife open thanks to the deep nail nick on the blade if that is your preferred style of opening flippers.The button lock works well, and it is super dependable for regular or even moderately hard use tasks. However, I did not test its locking capability as aggressively as I would a back lock or even a frame lock knife.The Conspirator has a fairly large stop pin that is easily accessible for cleaning. The the lock up is solid with no vertical wiggle, and only a tiny bit of horizontal wiggle if enough force is exerted.The Conspirator handle fills the hand nicely, and the generous chamfering of the handle scales prevent hot spots. However, the pocket clip is somewhat noticeable in an annoying way when gripping the knife tightly. This is a reoccurring issue with Civivi knives. Hopefully they will switch to lower profile pocket clips at some point.The jimping on the Conspirator blade is comfortable and provides a fair amount of traction. I also appreciate the unusually long length of jimping. This provides some thumb placement options when utilizing the Filipino grip.The Nitor-V steel blade of the Conspirator sharpens easily, and it is incredibly tough. It doesn’t hold an edge as well as some of the super steels like Elmax or M390, but it costs considerably less, and it does hold an edge better than most other mid range steels.It was nice to see that Civivi used a lanyard bar rather than annoying lanyard hole. I have never used a lanyard on a folding knife, so I think the stop bar is preferable.The tall blade of the Conspirator slices and carves extremely well, but it is fairly thin behind the edge, so it is not a great option for hard use tasks.I was not surprised to see the Conspirator slice effortlessly through rope. It ships sharp.The flat grind and tall blade are somewhat similar to a short chef knife making the Conspirator is a great pocket knife for food prep.The Conspirator ships with the pocket clip on the right side, but it can be switched to the left side. As you can see here the Conspirator is a deep carry knife, and the clip holds it securely in place even if you do a handstand (assuming you can do a handstand, but you might have noticed we have no pictures of us attempting it).The body and pivot torx screws on the Conspirator are T8, and the pocket clip torx screws are T6.The Conspirator would certainly not be my first choice for a hard use or camping type of pocket knife, but it is a great all-around EDC that looks great and cuts well.At it’s current price point of $85, the Conspirator offers pretty good value. However, I hope the knife becomes popular enough that Civivi offers a higher end version made from more premium materials like they have with the Elementum.
Ben started a twenty year commercial photography career after a blurry stint in the navy. He spent a lot of time losing and breaking knives and other EDC gear on location shoots before starting Nothing But Knives. He has reviewed and tested hundreds of both outdoor and kitchen knives over the course of the last six years, and he was mostly sober while testing and reviewing.
