TESTED: Carrying the VZ Grips Leonidas Fixed-Blade Knife

Folks carry knives for a lot of reasons, and self-defense is certainly one of them. When it comes to what type to carry though, there are a lot of factors that go into that decision. Training, budget, carry method, and legality where you live, just to name a few. At the end of the day though, a self-defense knife needs to be able to stop or dissuade an aggressor. That’s generally done by either slashing them, or poking holes in them. The new VZ Grips Leonidas provides you with a discrete, lightweight, fixed-blade option. It’s made from G10, and thus nonmetallic, which allows it to be carried in non-permissive environments.

VZ Grips Makes Knives?

If you’re a gun guy, then you probably know that VZ Grips makes excellent grips for revolvers, pistols and AR-pattern rifles. They’ve always been known for quality design, and execution. Knives might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the VZ name, but’s they’ve been making them for quite a while now.

I first discovered the VZ line of knives back at the 2019 Blade Show in Atlanta. I stopped to look at grips but noticed right away that they had a number of G-10 knives on display as well. Then I soon unraveled an interesting story on how their knife line came to be. VZ was first approached by an Explosive Ordinance Destruction (EOD) team down in Florida to make a nonmagnetic, nonconductive knife for them for use in explosives probing. It turns out that G-10 is a perfect material to use for that task.

I have one of those early EOD knives, a first generation Executive dagger, as well as a longer one that I picked up at the show. Fun tip: if you catch VZ Grips at any of the shows they set up at, you’ll probably find some color options that aren’t available on their website.

At this year’s 2024 Blade Show, I saw that VZ Grips had a new G10 dagger, the Leonidas. I decided I needed to add one of those to the collections as well. I grabbed a bright green one, which looks like it was one of the show special colors.

VZ Grips Leonidas Details

As the name implies, the Leonidas takes its design cues from Ancient Sparta, and you can see a lot of the Spartan Xiphos sword in its lines. The Leonidas is made from one piece of 1/4-inch-thick G10 and has a 3.5-inch-long, double-edged blade with a central fuller. An integral double-sided guard keeps your hand from sliding up onto the blade during stabs, and separates the blade from the 4-inch-long handle.

The handle is dimpled in a golf ball-like divot pattern and flares out slightly at the pommel. A thumb indentation is present on both sides of the knife just to the rear of the guard. That helps in orienting the blade in a horizontal grip. Overall length is 8 inches, and the weight is just 1.2 ounces, or 2.1 ounces with the sheath. The standard Leonidas colors are Black, Dirty Olive, Predator Green, Tiger Stripe, and Black Red. MSRP is $80.00.

Speaking of sheaths, the Leonidas has an optional sheath available for just $10. It’s a clever all-leather design, with no metal components. It has a fold-over belt loop so that you can carry it inside the waistband.

How Does a G10 Knife Perform?

G-10 isn’t steel, and you can’t expect it to perform like it. Let’s get that out of the way right from the start. It is very durable though. It can be ground to a fine point that’s capable of penetrating clothing and soft, fleshy materials. Basically, a G-10 knife is a stabbing instrument and should be used as such. It isn’t a utility piece, unless you work in EOD. But it can be used for things like opening up boxes and packages with relative ease. Primarily though, it’s a dedicated self-defense tool that is lightweight, non-conductive and discrete. These are all things that will allow you to carry your Leonidas in non-permissive environments, when you may not be able to carry anything else.