Falling in Love with the Viper Moon

I recently purchased a new flipper knife from Viper Knives, a company that seems to be far below everyone’s radar. Let’s take a long look at this new Italian marvel.

TL;DR

The upshot is I adore this knife. The Viper Moon is endowed with a beautiful design, is marvelously curvaceous, sports premium materials, and offers very comfortable ergonomics. I highly recommend it!

Pros

  • Abundant curves, crowning & chamfering
  • Gorgeous, modified Sheepsfoot blade
  • Mystique of MagnaCut
  • Comfortable handle design
  • 3 deployment methods
  • Many scale-material & color options
  • Great aesthetics
  • Sturdy button lock
  • Multiple Ti accents
  • Beefy blade stock
  • Captured pivot
  • Pivot thrust bearings
  • Amazing value!
  • The smile it gives me

Cons

  • No lanyard mount (is that actually a con?)
  • Super plain pivot design
  • Sharp, pointy thumb studs
  • Stamped, non-ambi pocket clip
  • No flat spot under clip contact
  • T6 body screws in scale center
  • A bit heavy for some people
  • Basic, folding cardboard box packaging

Tech Specs

Brand

Viper Knives

Website

https://viper.it/en/

Manufacturer

Tecnocut

Origin

Maniago, Italy

Model Reviewed

Moon FCV

Designer/Design

Fabrizio Silvestrelli

Model Launch Year

2024

Style

Folding Knife

Lock Type

Hardened steel button plunge lock

Opening Type

Manual

Opening Mechanism(s)

1. Jimped (6-line) mini-flipper tab (light-switch only)
2. Dual, 5-stepped, conical thumb studs
3. Button lock

Pivot Type

Plain, shallow-domed, captured titanium pivot using T10 fastener

Pivot Mechanism

440C stainless steel thrust ball bearings in caged stainless steel retainer rings

Length Closed

115 mm (4.52”)

Length Opened

200 mm (7.87”)

Weight

148.33 g (5.23 oz.), advertised as 140 g

Original Packaging

Corrugated, printed, roll end folding cardboard box with cherry locks

Edge

Plain

Shape

Modified sheepsfoot

Material

CPM Magnacut

Claimed Hardness HRc

60-62

Blade Length

88 mm (3.38”), advertised as 75 mm

Cutting Edge Length

77 mm (3.03”)

Primary Bevel Angle

Height

29 mm (1.14”)

Thickness

4 mm (0.158”)

Main Bevel Edge Thickness

0.69 mm (0.027”)

Thumb Studs Span

12.2 mm (0.48”)

Finish

Belt Satin

Features

Crowned spine, spacious crowned finger choil

Grind

High, flat grind

Swedge

48.70 mm (1.92″)

Jimping

2 sets of crowned, 19-line, fine cuts on both sides of spine thumb ramp

Blade Markings

Show side: Model name, Company logo & name at top of primary bevel
Clip side: Designer logo on flat; steel name on ricasso

Sharpening Choil

Yes

On-Blade Opening Assists

Thumb studs, mini back flipper

Materials

Dark Matter Fatcarbon Fiber

Color

Dark Green

Scale Thickness (includes liner)

4.95 mm (0.195”)

Scale Texture

Soft, shallow vertical cuts

Handle/Scale Features

Finger scallops, chamfered edges

Liners

Dual, full-length, AISI hardened 420 stainless steel liners, milled for weight reduction

Opening Stop Pin Type

Floating pin in handle

Closing Stop Pin Hits Sharpening Choil

No

Handle Length

115 mm (4.52”)

Closed Handle Height

38 mm (1.5”)

Handle Thickness

16 mm (0.63”)

Pivot Center-to-Thumb Stud
(higher can mean less leverage for easy, fast opening)

26.92 mm (1.06”)

Pivot Center-to-Open-Knife Fulcrum
(0.0 is balanced at pivot)

20.1 mm (0.79”) down handle

Thumb Stud-from-Pivot Center

39°

Thumb Stud Tip-to-Scale Edge:
Show Side / Clip Side

8.12 mm (0.32″) / 8.12 mm (0.32″)

Flipper Tab from Pivot Center

120°

Integral Handle

No

Backspacing Type

Backspacer

Backspacing Material

Titanium

Backspacing Color

Gray

Backspacer Length

60.65 mm (2.39″) with 5.5 mm (0.22”) return on opening side

Backspacer Features

Crowned

Lanyard Mount

None

Pocket Clip

Stamped, deep-carry style

Clip Material

Titanium

Clip Color

Gray

Clip Placement

Right-handed only, tip-up

Clip Length

48 mm (1.89”)

Clip Length-to-Handle %
(< 50% preferred)

41.70%

Clip Features

Recessed-mounted, center cut-out

Fasteners

T6 button-top ANSI 303/304 stainless steel body screws (3 total), T6 flat-head ANSI 303/304 stainless steel pocket clip screws (2)

Who is Viper Knives?

The brand Viper Knives is owned by Tecnocut s.n.c. of Maniago, Italy, an important manufacturing center for many well-known Italian knife and blade makers, a trade that began all the way back to 1453 (the picturesque town itself, situated in the Friulian region between Venice and Trieste in northeast Italy not too far from the Austrian border, dates back to 981!).

Tecnocut was founded in 1987 and began selling their own designs for sporting knives using the brand name Viper. They established a reputation for excellence by combining high quality materials and modern manufacturing technologies, but retained the classic Italian knifemaking traditions of combining skilled, detailed craftsmanship with their classically beautiful Latin design aesthetic. They are equally known for their lovely fixed-blade knives as they are for their fancy folding knives, which range from genres such as outdoor/hunting knives, aggressive tactical knives, to even “gentleperson” / sculpted jewelry knives! And if you want, they also make culinary knives, even Champagne sabrage swords, as well!

Viper is known for its liberal use of crowned spine blades and backspacers, rich, diverse and colorful scale materials, intricate and varied blade and handle shape designs, manufacturing their own Damascus steel as well as using several high-end blade steels, and they work with several knife designers to create some of the most elegant production knives I have seen. Yes, I am smitten!

Introducing the Viper Moon

I bought the recently-released, swoon-worthy Viper Moon, designed by Italian master knifemaker Fabrizio Silvestrelli for Viper in model Moon FCV and am quite impressed. I luckily stumbled across the Viper Knives website in the summer of 2023 and loved the many classic Italian knifemaker designs I found there. One of the knives that really caught my eye was the pre-release photos of the Moon. There was very little information about it in any media channels (frankly, Viper Knives is largely invisible overall, which is inexplicable!), and the Blade Show 2023 video from DCA of Knife Center that showcased this knife was the ONLY video of this knife that I could find. It was due out in December 2023, but that date came and went with no news. When it was finally released at the start of February 2024, I found a fantastic deal on it and I placed my order, hoping that buying before seeing any reviews was not a foolish decision.

Photo courtesy of Viper Knives

Details and Specs

It turns out that I made a great decision with this knife, and I couldn’t be happier. Let me show you why I love it.

Blade

The soft curves of the modified Sheepsfoot, satin-finished, MagnaCut blade is what initially caught my eye. Just look at it! It has a high, flat grind with a curving swedge and a crowned spine. The spine’s thumb ramp rises to meet a pair of 5-stepped, conical thumb studs, surrounded on both sides with fine, extremely comfortable yet effective, jimping. After that, the spine gently slopes down to a crowned, straight, swedge section parallel to the knife edge before gently sloping down again to meet the blade’s sharp tip. It’s such a sexy shape!

The edge bevel was even on both sides, with a perfectly perpendicular scratch pattern as the curve flowed up to the tip. My Moon was very sharp but not razor-sharp. However, a little diamond-paste-loaded strop work on my part finished the job nicely.

Photo courtesy of Viper Knives

The Moon’s show side blade markings include the model name, the Viper logo, and the brand name at the top of the bevel. The blade’s clip side shows the designer’s logo on the flat and “CPM MagnaCut” on the ricasso.

The blade has a large finger choil to complement the dual jimping locations on the spine for a choke-up grip, enabling multiple ways to comfortably hold the knife.

Blade Dimensions

Viper says the blade length is 75 mm (2.95”), so I expected it would be a smaller knife. Not true! That measurement must represent the cutting edge (mine is actually 77 mm / 3.03”). The entire blade from tip to handle is 86 mm (aka 3.38”). The blade height is 29 mm (1.14”) and its thickness at the thumb studs is 4 mm (0.157”).

HRc Rating

Viper reports that their HRc rating for their “latest generation of Magnacut steel” blades used on the Moon fall between 60-62, although I have no way (yet) to test that.

Photo courtesy of Viper Knives

Knife Body & Scales

The Moon comes in a variety of scale colors and materials, including G10, Canvas Micarta, SureTouch, and Dark Matter Fatcarbon Fiber. I got the green CF, and it’s marvelous. The scales sport shallow, narrow vertical cuts that add both a nice visual and tactile texture. Viper also added finger-grip scallops into the scales, which fit my hands perfectly, and all handle edges are exquisitely chamfered. In fact, everything on the ergonomic handle is chamfered, including the exposed edges of the full-length, stainless-steel liners. There’s not an untouched, sharp edge anywhere, as is the Italian knifemaking custom. I found it luxurious to hold in my hand.

Handle Dimensions

The handle length is 115 mm (4.52”), and it’s 200 mm (7.87”) opened. The closed knife height is 38 mm (1.5”), and measures 16 mm (.63”) thick, so the Moon is no dainty, little thing!

Hardware

The knife features a shallow-domed, rather plain-looking, captured titanium pivot on the show side that matches the color and appearance of the lock button, which I find uninspiring. Luckily, the pivot is surrounded by glassy-smooth thrust bearings to help the blade move easily after breaking past its moderate-level detent. I detected no up-or-down, nor side-to-side, blade play, no pivot lash, and the blade is perfectly centered.

The pivot uses a T10 slot, and the recessed, steel, button-top body screws are T6. There are only 2 body screws on each side: center and rear, but one of the 2 flat-top, pocket clip screws serves double-duty as the rear body screw. I do wish that the beautifully sculpted, green CF scales didn’t have those button-top, uncoated body screws in the center. They look more like design afterthoughts! I believe that if Viper had used color-coated, flat-top body screws mounted along the edge, they wouldn’t distract so much from the otherwise beautiful handle design flow.

Opening Mechanisms

The Moon features 3 one-handed opening methods:

Photo courtesy of BladeHQ
  1. Mini Back Flipper Tab. The blade presents a very small but effective, finely jimped back flipper tab that’s unobtrusive when closed and fits entirely within the handle when open. The bottom side of the flipper tab is crowned like the spine, which is a very nice tactile touch when the knife is open and closed. This is definitely a light-switch flipper, not a push button.
  2. Dual Thumb Studs. The dual thumb studs are easily accessible due to the generous, scalloped handle relief cut-outs. The studs are perfectly-positioned and work very well, and reverse flicking is easy once broken in. The studs are milled into a 5-stepped, pointed cone, and while the thumb stud tips feel a bit overly sharp for me, they’re definitely usable.
  3. Button Lock. The Moon employs a button plunge lock system. The steel button sits recessed into a dado-cut recess in the scale, protecting it (and you!) from unintentional presses. Given this is Viper’s first-ever, button lock-equipped knife, I was a bit worried about lock failures. But I can happily report that the Moon securely passed my (reasonably mild) spine whack tests. The lock works intuitively and performs with no issues. There’s no double-clutch, and only had a tiny bit of easy-to-overcome lock stick after a forceful opening when it was brand new.
Photo courtesy of lamnia.com

Titanium Accents

Photo courtesy of lamnia.com

The Moon does come with some titanium parts. The aforementioned pivot is made from titanium, as is the softly crowned, gray backspacer, which fills the rear half of the handle, extending to the rear point, and then continues back for 5 mm (the thickness of the backspacer) toward the blade side to protect the user from exposure to the blade’s sharp tip.

Photo courtesy of boker.de

The Moon also employs a recessed-mounted, deep-carry, gray titanium, stamped pocket clip (tip-up, right-handed only). The 48 mm (1.89”) clip is a plain-looking, utilitarian design, but has a center cut-out which minimizes its visual impact on the Moon’s overall design aesthetic. It’s less than 50% of the handle length, which I appreciate. The end of the clip features a modest rise, which doesn’t dig into my hand, is still easy to fit into my pocket, and offers firm retention.

Weight

Despite its milled, full-length liners, the Moon is no lightweight. According to Viper, the Moon weighs 140g (4.94 oz.). But this is also incorrect, at least for me. My Moon FCV comes in at 148g (5.22 oz.). That’s beyond the preferred 1 oz. per 1” weight-to-blade-length ratio, but I don’t mind. I really like the robust hand feel of the Moon’s modest heft.

Knife Karen Nitpicks

There aren’t many, but there are a few items I’d like to bring up with the manager.

  • The presentation box it came in is a rather cheap, corrugated cardboard, roll end folding box with cherry locks sporting printed imagery. There was no zippered pouch, no microfiber cloth, not even any stickers! Now one could argue that the cost of fancy packaging is part of the total cost of the knife, and that was definitely kept low. But if first impressions are important to you, just know that you’ll want to give it a second chance to impress. It will.
  • The thumb studs are pretty pointy and sharp. Apparently this is a common complaint about Viper folding knives. They’re not unusable, but given the focus on ergonomics elsewhere, they should be a lot more comfortable.
  • The pivot is so plain! For such a beautifully designed knife, this was a disappointment. Even designing in a basic pivot collar would have made a big improvement. But it saved on costs.
  • Those shiny steel body screws are placed in the center of those beautiful scales! Why? Yeah, I know. It lowered costs. 😔
  • Worse yet, those body screws are T6! But that’s because they’re in the center of the scales, and anything bigger would make it look even worse! Right? 😫
  • The Ti deep-carry pocket clip is recessed, is a good length ergonomically and works just fine, but it’s, well, kind of boring. But the real complaint is that there’s no flat spot on the scale underneath the contact point. Given the clip is non-ambi and the scales are vertically textured, omitting the flat patch is a basic oversight.

Price

The list price for the Italian-made Viper Moon with so many premium materials and features is only €252.60. That translates to $274.37 US (as of April 8, 2024). But who pays MSRP? I bought mine for $186.95 from Atlantic Knife. They offer several models with less expensive scales that go for as low as $159.95.

Verdict

Photo courtesy of boker.de

The Viper Moon is a beautifully designed, Italian-made, folding flipper knife. It boasts a gorgeous modified sheepsfoot blade, textured Fatcarbon scales, titanium accents with the pocket clip and backspacer, and everything is chamfered and smooth. I simply adore it! I love its look, robust size, and its smooth, curvaceous feel enough to make it my EDC. Its excellent ergos, along with the beautiful design aesthetic, Fatcarbon fiber scales and the ultra-premium 3+” MagnaCut blade, overcome any and all trivial complaints. It’s a definite keeper! And then knowing that all of this is available at such an attractive price (I bought mine for $186!), I am “over the moon” with the Viper Moon!

Questions

Ultimately, I don’t understand why Viper Knives seems to be largely ignored by the knife community. They make gorgeous, well-designed, and premium-quality knives exhibiting excellent craftsmanship and top-of-the-line components for the blade and scales. And best of all, the more-than-fair price of this model puts an amazing knife into our hands so easily. The Moon is my second Viper knife, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.