Gunner Quinn
With its locking blade, ergonomic shape, and easily gripped scales, the Swiza D03 is an attempt to update the venerable Swiss Army Knife into a modern everyday carry (EDC) knife. Unfortunately, its lack of ambidextrous one-handed-opening and a pocket-clip leave its performance lacking.
For people who prefer a traditional pocket knife to a modern EDC knife, the D03 will be more than adequate. For people like me who prefer the ease of access and deployment provided by a pocket clip and a provision for ambidextrous one-handed opening, the D03 will fail to satisfy.
The D03 had a manufacturer-suggested retail price at the time of this writing of $41.95 and was widely available online for prices approaching $30. Since there are better EDC knife options available in that price range, I do not recommend the D03.
Background
After Wenger was bought out by Victorinox, some former Wenger employees formed a new company that they named Swiza. They bought the old Wenger factory and began to design and produce knives there.
I noticed that one of their designs had a locking blade. I decided to give it a try, so I ordered one online, using my own funds. Not long afterward, the knife was delivered to me at the church where I serve.
First Impressions
The knife arrived in a simple 3.88 x 1.25 x 0.5 inch box. The box is made of un-dyed paperboard imprinted with black ink. A cutout in the side of the box allows one to see the side of the knife.
The black-handled knife has a 2.95 inch blade made of 440HC stainless steel. The soft-touch handles feel like Kryton. The knife weights approximately 3 ounces.
The slot in the back of the blade is not large enough for effective one-handed opening. As a result, it is little better than the traditional “nail nick”.
JWR Adds: I suspect that the slot design was used instead of a more modern opening thumb-opening stud, so that this knife would be legal to sell in Germany. In 21st Century Nanny State Germany, knives that can be opened with one hand (Einhandmessers) are banned from carry, as “offensive weapons.”
There is some forward and backward play in the main blade when it is latched into position with the liner lock. The liner lock is released by pressing a button located under the cross on the side of the handle. The main blade has both a liner lock and a slip joint. This makes the blade more difficult to close than is truly necessary. I am not sure what the rationale is for this arrangement. It would seem to me that the liner lock renders the slip joint superfluous.
In addition to the main blade, the D03 also includes an awl with an eyelet for sewing, a bottle opener with a large flathead screwdriver, a can opener with a small flathead screwdriver, a corkscrew, and tweezers. There is no lanyard hole or key-ring loop to allow the attachment of an aftermarket deep carry pocket clip.
The knife came out of the box shaving sharp, and one of the things that is nice about 440HC is that it is easy to resharpen.
I can never remember using the corkscrew on a knife to actually remove a cork. In my pre-teen years, I did heat a corkscrew on a knife in a fire in order to use the red hot corkscrew to burn wood out of the inside of a crude toy boat that I was making. The heat of the fire ruined the temper of all of the blades of that knife. That was an early lesson in metallurgy. The handle of the knife was broken even prior to the fire incident, so the sacrifice of the knife for educational purposes was no great loss.
Anyway, I wish that Swiza had used the space dedicated to the corkscrew for a Phillips screwdriver instead. Phillips head screws are encountered more often in modern life than bottle corks.
Testing
I carried the D03 in my left front pants pocket instead of my Leatherman Skeletool throughout the testing period. Without a pocket clip, the D03 slid into the bottom of my pocket along with the ink pen, Swiss Army Classic SD knife, and plasma lighter/flashlight combo that I typically carry in that pocket. Crowding made accessing the various items more difficult. It also made my pocket bulge more than I would have liked.
I used the knife for a number of tasks during the testing period:
Opening letters,
Opening a box of the children’s devotional booklets that our church makes available in the foyer. By the way, if you are looking for a good daily devotional for pre-teen children, I highly recommend Keys for Kids. For teens, I recommend Unlocked, which is produced by the same ministry.
opening a box of toner for the printer in the church office.
Pushing steel wool into a hole in the side of our house using the small flat-headed screwdriver. An electrician had recently drilled the hole to bring a new ground line into the house, and he had left the space around the line unfilled. The local mouse population quickly took advantage of the opportunity to move their base of operations from outside of our house to the inside. The mice may have been afraid of the hawks that were nesting nearby. In any case, my wife, “Kari” was definitely not happy about hosting our new guests. I quickly took steps to prevent further ingress and to eradicate those mice that had already come inside.
Cutting shipping tape on a package in which I was preparing to send a birthday present to one of our missionaries.
Removing the security seal from a bottle of nasal spray.
Cutting packaging away from a watertight extension cord connector for our camper.
Cutting landscaping cloth for re-landscaping an area where we recently had an underground power cord buried.
Cutting the zip tie holding a new pair of gloves in their packaging.
Stripping insulation from extension cord wires so that I could install a new female plug on the cord.
Puncturing the seal on a moisture-absorbing canister so that I could drain it prior to throwing it away.
Cutting open the shipping box for a rocket stove that I would be testing.
I ultimately terminated my testing of the D03 early after only about two weeks. This was due to my profound dissatisfaction with the performance of the knife. The lack of a pocket clip in particular made it difficult to access the knife and the other items in my left front pants pocket.
Swiss Army Knife History
In 1889, the Swiss Army introduced the M1889 7.5mm Schmidt-Rubin straight-pull service rifle. The M1889 and subsequent Schmidt-Rubin models required the use of a flat-head screwdriver in order to field strip it. The Swiss Army contracted with a German supplier for a folding knife which included a screwdriver, can opener, and reamer. The Swiss M1889 service rifle quickly became obsolete and was replaced, but the Swiss Army knife lived on.
By the end of 1891, the company that would eventually become Victorinox took over the contract for the M1890 folding knife.
In 1908, the contract for production of knives for the Swiss Army was split between Victorinox and Wenger. The two companies eventually reached an agreement for Victorinox to market its knives internationally as “The Original Swiss Army Knife”, while Wenger marketed their knives internationally as “The Genuine Swiss Army Knife.”
In 2005, Victorinox purchased Wenger, once again becoming the sole supplier of knives to the Swiss Army.
Some former Wenger employees then purchased the former Wenger factory, and began producing the Swiza line of knives.
Conclusions
The Swize D03 is an interesting update to the classic Swiss Army Knife. Its locking main blade, ergonomic shape, and easily gripped scales represents significant improvements to the classic design.
Equipping the main blade with both a liner lock and a slip joint seems misguided, and detracts from ease of use. It would probably be wise to replace the corkscrew and bottle opener with tools that have wider contemporary application like a Phillips screwdriver and scissors. The lack of a pocket clip, and the lack of provision for ambidextrous one-handed opening caused me to lose any interest in carrying the knife long term.
Others may have different tastes in knives, and may spend their money as they prefer. But I cannot recommend the Swiza D03. I feel that there are better yet comparably-priced options available.
All other things being equal, if I had to choose just one EDC knife or multi-tool to carry for the rest of my life, I would select the Leatherman Skeletool. It is true that it offers only right-handed rather than ambidextrous one-handed opening, the bits are proprietary rather than standard 1/4 inch bits, and it does not include scissors or tweezers. But other than those drawbacks, it has proven to be just about the ideal multi-tool for me. I cannot count the number of steps that I have saved by being able to reach into my pocket for the Skeletool rather than needing to go to get a knife, screwdriver, wirecutter, or pair of pliers from a toolbox somewhere else.
Disclaimer
I did not receive any financial or other inducement to mention any vendor, product, or service in this article.
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