Out the Front (OTF) knives have become pretty popular in the last decade. Because of this, I decided to try one out. Cobratec Knives offered me one of their Large Black Mamba’s to review. This is one of their cost effective automatic OTF knives. As it uses D2 for the blade steel. Also, do not let the name fool you, large does not mean huge. The Large Black Mamba is a good size Every Day Carry (EDC) knife.

As stated, the Cobratec Large Black Mamba is an OTF knife. If you are new to knives, that means the blade actually extends out the front of the knife, through a slot in the end of the handle, automatically. It does this by either a button or switch located somewhere on the handle. The Black Mamba uses a slider switch on the top edge of the handle. It is a dual action switch. Slide it forward to extend the knife’s blade out, and rearward to retract the blade. I do like the switch on the Black Mamba. It has some serrations on it to let your thumb get a good grip on it. The switch is also ramped up and down to position your thumb at the perfect location to use said switch.

The specifications of the Black Mamba are what make it a good OTF knife. Even though Cobratec calls it the “Large” Black Mamba, it’s only called large because it is the biggest in the Mamba line. The blade’s length is 3.25 inches long. Making it the same size as a ton of folding EDC knives on the market. Moving to the handle, it has a length of 4.75 inches. This makes sense to me, since the handle houses the mechanism to open the knife, as well as the blade itself. That makes the total length, opened, to be 8.25 inches. The handle's thickness comes in at 0.49 inches and 0.60 with the pocket clip. The height of the handle measures 0.925 inches wide or 1.09 inches if you include the slider switch. I thought the Black Mamba would be larger, but once I received it, I realized it’s basically the same size as most of my EDC knives.

Cobratec uses D2 steel for the Large Black Mamba’s blade. I like D2 as I believe it is one of the best lesser expensive steels used in knife blades. This also helps keep the cost of this OTF knife down. D2 is not a stainless steel, so to help keep it from the elements, Cobratec gave it a black titanium coating. The coating does two things: It helps protect the blade and it gives it a really nice look. The blade on the Black Mamba is a drop point shape. It is also not serrated. I’m okay with this as I find straight drop point blades very functional. This particular blade is 0.100 inch thick and 0.650 wide. I would have possibly liked a wider blade, but I am not a OTF designer. So there are probably design limitations due to the handle’s width. But the Black Mamba’s blade shape worked well. Being that the Black Mamba is an OTF automatic knife, it does have a blade safety mechanism. If you try to open the knife with something significant blocking the blade from pushing out, the blade will release from the opening mechanism and become loose inside the handle. It will also disengage if you hold the blade tight while trying to retract the blade back into the knife. To get the Black Mamba back into action, just pull the blade all the way out and it will re-engage the opening/closing mechanism. You can also flick the knife and use gravity to do the same thing. This is a common safety feature on OTF knives.

I mentioned the handle’s dimensions, but let’s go a little deeper into the handle. The Black Mamba’s handle has little squares machined into it for grip texture. Actually, the lines are machined in it to make the squares. On the top and bottom, Cobratec machined some lines in to give rectangles. All of these squares and rectangles give the Black Mamba a really good grip. Especially since the handle is made from 6061 aluminum, and aluminum can be slick. On the rear of the handle is a built-in glass breaker, should you ever need one. Also on the handle is the pocket clip. It is tip down, right hand only. Tip down is because it is an auto knife. When you grab the knife out of your pocket, your hand is already positioned with the pokey end pointed away from you. So when you push the opener switch, you don’t get hurt. My only real complaint about the Black Mamba is its pocket clip, it is not a deep carry clip. However, the pocket clip works extremely well and is very strong.

As with almost all of my knife reviews, I like to actually use the knife. I carried the Large Black Mamba for a while. It carries really well. Or at least as good as most of my flipper style knives. The D2 blade came extremely sharp from the factory. I have had to touch it up twice. D2 sharpens pretty easily, so it wasn’t a big deal. One of those times I dulled it up by scraping some stuff off of a metal surface. Probably something that no knife maker recommends. The opening mechanism has also never let me down. Plus it is super easy and fast to use. I’m not a big OTF guy, but the Black Mamba performed great for everything I threw its way.

If you like OTF knives, or maybe want to get into OTF knives, the Large Black Mamba might be just what you are looking for. It is priced right at $170. Has a good blade steel. It functions fantastic and has a good blade shape. What more could you want from an OTF knife? Go check out the Cobratec Large Black Mamba and see for yourself. Or at least take a look into all the other OTF knives Cobratec makes.