There’s a new State & Union piece in the wild, a burly fixed blade called EK103. Descended from a lineage of fighting knives, the EK103 interprets classic military knife principles in a fresh modern way.
The “EK” in EK103 is not an acronym, but a last name – that of John Ek, a renowned maker of fixed blades. The Ek name is most strongly associate with the Ek Commando, a fighting knife that, in terms of field-provenness, is right up there with the USMC knife. The Ek handle, with its chamfered linear shape and three large bolts, has been carried forward, referenced, and paid tribute to for decades – for instance, Jesse Jarosz worked with KABAR (State & Union’s parent company) back in 2016 to put his spin on the design, and KABAR has in fact been the shepherd of Ek blades for many years.
The EK 103 has that handle, but we’ll get to that down below; first we’re going to focus on that blade. It’s 3.5 inches long, which isn’t enormous, but its very wide profile and oversized fuller give it the swagger of a blade in a larger size class. This hearty spear point is produced in S45VN, and overall just screams “hard use,” something that can be relied on when failure is, quite simply, not an option – but the reigned-in dimensions make the EK103 a reasonable choice for the lighter range of fixed blade chores too; it’s clearly not a fillet knife, but its overall maneuverability seems to be on point.
Now we’ll talk about the handle, which is famous for a reason. It straddles that rarest of lines, the one that exists between “pure functionality” and “unmistakable style.” The three big bolts are present and accounted for, as are the wave-chamfered scales, made here from Ultramid, a modern polyamide whose durability is a perfect fit for the rest of this tank-like fixed blade. And in keeping with the no-nonsense edict of this piece, there’s nothing fancy going on with the sheath: just a classic pancake-style Kydex number, ready to be situated however the user wants. The EK103’s listed weight is 8 oz.
It is available now.
Knife in Featured Image: State & Union EK103
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