Budget-Friendly Knife From a Mastermind: Spartan Blades Talos

Bequeathed to the United States’ most potent warfighters upon completion of the Army Special Forces Qualification Course, the Yarborough is a wickedly devastating fixed blade. Designed by Bill Harsey and made by Chris Reeve Knives, it has all of the potency and fluid grace of a Harsey design — a taut combination of design prowess and intimate knowledge of blade fighting.

The Yarborough is something only Harsey could design. Throughout his entire career, Harsey has produced designs that are unmistakably his.

This knife, the Spartan Blades Talos, is a classic example. With its conventional blade shape and striking lines, every element evinces the hand of a master. Carry and handle this knife for even a day, and you will instantly know why Harsey is mentioned in hushed and reverent tones by knife knuts worldwide.

In short: This is supernal design from a true knife-making master that feels small in the pocket, but capable in the hand. Despite its very compact footprint when folded, the Talos has a blade length similar to much larger knives like the Spyderco Paramilitary 2. The fact that the Talos is such an excellent value is an added bonus.

Find your perfect folder in GearJunkie’s guide to the Best Pocket Knives.

Spartan Blades Talos Review

Harsey’s reputation as a custom maker is elite. He’s known for immaculate finishes and confident lines, and his customs are highly sought after. But his production work brought him broader fame. He worked with Gerber in the early days, with Lone Wolf, CRKT, Chris Reeve Knives, and now Spartan Bladeworks.

Along with Bob Dozier and Walter Brend, Harsey’s process serves as the prototype for custom makers today: produce elite bespoke work and collaborate on designs for the masses.

These three ushered in a Golden Age of knife-making and as all three enter their fifth decade of work, we enjoy the benefits of these masters collaborating with production companies. 

First Impressions

It won’t drop your jaw with bling, and it kind of feels like an artifact from the late-’90s knife industry in terms of materials and appearance.

But the first time you carry or cut with it, you will know why Harsey is revered. This is a powerhouse that spends its design pennies in all the right places. It saves expense everywhere but where it matters most — the blade steel.

Testing Conditions

If you review knives in 2025, you have to accept that you can never keep up. My personal website has more than 500 individual, handwritten reviews from real experience, and yet, I still miss stuff. Here, I missed the Talos when it first launched, and only now am I coming back to it. I am glad I did. 

Even though I have a huge collection of amazing cutlery, this knife kept finding its way into my pocket day after day for about 2 months. It rode in a suit to work and in jeans cutting insulation on the weekend. I put the Talos through its paces using it for food prep, recycling, in the workshop, and outside. 

There were a few places where it wasn’t awesome, but it was never, ever bad. This is about as high a performance floor as you will find on a folder in the $100 range.

Blade Stock Shows Limits

The place where I had some issues with the Talos was in food prep. I generally eat an apple a day (Cosmic Crisp) and it offers me a chance to test the knives I am carrying. Chopping, slicing, and peeling an apple are all good tests of a knife blade.

Very good, thin-stock knives will slice even a whole apple, once cored. The Talos, with its thicker stock and short blade height, couldn’t quite slice the apple. Instead, it cracked it in two. It also had some difficulty slicing and peeling, again because of the thicker blade stock.

It was quite the splitting wedge (like the Spyderco Drunken or the Techno, for example), but it was not on the same level as the TRM N2 or the Kershaw Bel Air. With cheese, it did fine and was more than capable of spreading mustard on a sandwich during a (soggy) hike.

Processing recycling and doing fire prep tasks gave me insights into two things. First, it made clear just how good the balance is between durability and cutting performance. This is a jack-of-all-trades blade thickness. 

However, plowing through box after box did reveal this knife’s one major weakness — the finger scallops. Finger scallops are almost impossible to make work. I have medium glove hands, and they did nothing but dig into my fingers. I would strongly prefer one index finger notch that operates as a cutout to access the lock bar and nothing else. Alas, no knife is perfect.

Splurge on CTS-XHP Steel

In the workshop, the Talos’s thicker stock was more helpful. After some major changes to our house’s heating system, I had to redo much of the insulation in my basement workshop. The Talos helped me at the tail end of that project.

Insulation is some of the toughest material on a knife blade, and spray foam is just brutal on finishes. Yet after cutting up multiple battings of insulation and hard-outside, gooey-inside blobs of spray foam, the Talos was none the worse for wear. 

I did clean the blade immediately after the spray foam, but the edge looks untouched and is still keen. Further, it did duty as a marking knife, and performed great.

Processing recycling and doing fire prep tasks gave me insights into two things. First, it made clear just how good the balance is between durability and cutting performance. This is a jack-of-all-trades blade thickness. 

However, plowing through box after box did reveal this knife’s one major weakness—the finger scallops. Finger scallops are almost impossible to make work. I have medium glove hands and they did nothing but dig into my fingers. I would strongly prefer one index finger notch that operates as a cutout to access the lock bar and nothing else. Alas, no knife is perfect.

The clip and the lock are both dead simple and brilliantly effective. The G10 is correctly textured and the jimping is effective but not shreddy.  You can get a full titanium framelock version in one of two different sizes, but given the feather weight here, I don’t really see the need to upgrade.

Conclusions: Who’s It For?

The workshop always provides excellent tests of blade steel and here, the CTS-XHP was great. Originally, this steel was billed as marrying 440C’s stainlessness and D2’s edge retention, and I see nothing to refute that. And it is a premium steel offering for a knife around $100.

Overall, the Talos is a splendid knife with one issue (finger scallops). It is compact in the pocket and capable in the hand. The blade seems impossibly large for the handle, and its thickness finds a place of balance. 

As a matter of preference, I would like thinner blade stock, but I am certain others like what it is here. I do think the finger scallops along the handle are an objective mistake. They force you into grips, and they work for only a very small number of people with a specific hand size. 

After a reading of the design masterpiece The Design of Everyday Things, I am convinced that handles of any sort should never have finger scallops. Here they are relatively mild and thus don’t cause too much of a problem, but I still think the knife would be better without them.

For the money, however, you will be hard-pressed to find a knife that is its equal. You are getting powder steel and elite design at CIVIVI prices. I am happy I went back and reviewed this knife. It’s great.