We have all heard the expression, “You can do anything you set your mind to,” but can we really do that? In short, the answer is no. Humans are all built differently and with different skill sets. Sadly, some have none. Allen Elishewitz is one of those rare people. He is a knife-making veteran considered one of the founding fathers of the tactical knife boom of the 90s.
The Humble Beginnings of Allen Elishewitz
Since Elishewitz was a young boy living in Texas, he was always fascinated with martial arts and weapons. Motivated by Black Belt Magazine, he had the internal drive to make his mark in that community. From doing traditional karate, all the way to living in Thailand to training in Muay Thai, Elishewitz gave all of his efforts to be as well-rounded as he could. He ended up getting inducted into the Southwest Texas State University of Martial Arts Hall of Fame.
Allen Elishewitz is a true patriot. He served in the United States Marine Corp as a team leader of a Deep Recon Platoon (a job not handed out so easily). In the tactical community, Elishewitz has hand-made, designed and enhanced pretty much all of it. He hand-makes his knives, re-machines and enhances firearms, and hand-makes pens and watches. If that’s not enough, he founded Tactician Concepts where he runs hands-on defensive courses at Sig Sauer Academy and private seminars for gun and knife fighting.
Blades Are Built For Business
Elishewitz Knives is his flagship business where he produces his utility tool and weapon lines. His knives are nothing less than tier-one and always have a defensive purpose to them. His folders and fixed blades are made by hand, which means no CNC machines.
One of the things separating his company from other knife-makers is the fact that every year he introduces new models while retiring older ones, no matter how good they were selling. Of course, this gives him the option of bringing older models out of retirement for upgrades and enhancements.
One of the other things that take a special skill set that not many knife-makers have is knowing how to turn a tactical knife into a high-end art piece for a particular type of clientele, as not everyone buying a custom knife uses them. To give you an example, the average tactical knife will have manmade materials like carbon fiber and other fiberglass space-age materials.
While an art knife will combine meteorite, pearl, gold or other natural materials combined with space-age materials as well. The average cost of a tactical knife is $900 to $1,500, while art knives range from $3,500 to $5,000. From a manual folder and a fixed blade to a Balisong and a switchblade, Elishewitz has done it all.
A Man Of Many Talents
Just because someone knows how to build knives from scratch doesn’t make them qualified to work on firearms. Being the type of person he is, Allen Elishewitz had to tinker with firearms. More specifically customizing his favorite fighting sidearm—a Glock. Like most other enthusiasts, Elishewitz junks all of the internals and replaces them with the best products available. After the internals have been changed, Elishewitz will then re-do the entire slide with manual millwork to lighten up the overall weight. Again, this is not something that just anyone can do. Especially so because he is taking a slide that has been heat-treated, which makes the steel extra hard.
After the millwork is complete, he will then make a custom compensator from scratch. The Elishewitz compensator has a ton of research and development behind it to separate itself from the average gun store compensator that you can buy over the counter. The compensator alone has about 20 hours of machining and refinement. Outside of just looking awesome, the compensator is extremely light and can dissipate every little bit of gas coming out of the barrel, which will minimize muzzle rise for quicker on-target follow-up shots. In a nutshell, Elishewitz uses his years of firearm training to create what he feels is the ultimate fighting pistol.
The Hits Keep Coming
And if all of that wasn’t enough, Elishewitz started a separate company called Tactician Concepts. The company was designed to offer civilians and law enforcement new tools to strategically handle a bad situation. Elishewitz holds private courses along with having the repeat opportunity to teach at the Sig Academy. So what makes a knife-maker, gunsmith and machinist qualified to train people? As you know, Elishewitz has been traveling the world training multiple types of martial arts, but what you don’t know is that he has been doing the same thing regarding training with knives and firearms. He is almost like a real-life Bruce Wayne but without the billions of dollars, costume or good looks.
From training with Travis Haley, Pat Mac, Kyle Lamb and Craig Douglas (just to name a few), Elishewitz made sure he has trained with the best of the best to be able to create his own tailored mission-specific courses. So, no matter whether it’s fighting with a knife, pistol, empty hands or even vehicle tactics, Tactician Concepts has you covered. For more info, visit elishewitzknives.com and tacticianconcepts.com.
