Kubey's Tityus in contoured titanium is the strongest argument yet that a $125 folder can feel like a much more expensive knife. That judgment comes from Wayne Walter of Wayne's Sharp World, whose re-review of the KB360A went up on KnifeInformer this week, and his reasoning is refreshingly concrete: keep the honest budget steel, and pour the extra $75 into the part of the knife the hand actually touches.
The Tityus started life as a straight budget play, a G10-handled flipper with a D2 blade that sold for around $50 and earned a genuine following on value alone. The titanium version does not chase premium steel to justify its price. It stays with 14C28N, the Sandvik formula that has become the default workhorse for quality budget blades, bead blasted and ground flat on a 3.39-inch drop-point profile. The blade stock measures 0.12 inch, the overall length 8.15 inches, and the closed knife weighs 5.05 ounces.
What changed is the handle. The 6AL4V titanium scales are fully contoured rather than flat, milled down to about 0.362 inch at the forward area where the fingers wrap, thinning from a maximum of 0.510 inch through the midsection. Walter measured both versions side by side and found the G10 slab sat at a constant 0.521 inch. On paper the difference is a few hundredths of an inch. In hand, he reports, the contoured version simply disappears into the grip in a way the flat-scaled knife never did.
The lock changed too, from liner to frame, and that move apparently did no harm to the action. The G10 Tityus was already praised for its crisp flipper tab and healthy detent, and the review notes the titanium version carries that feel over, with smooth breakaway and no blade play. One practical difference matters for a subset of buyers: the titanium model carries right-hand, tip-up only, while the older G10 version could be set up for either hand.
Where It Sits in the Market
Against its obvious rivals, the CIVIVI Conspirator and the Kizer Sheepdog in Walter's comparison shots, the Tityus reads as a big, broad-handled work folder rather than a slim gent's knife. The review compares the build quality to folders from WE, Kizer and Reate that cost considerably more, while stopping short of claiming identical performance. At $125 with 14C28N rather than S35VN or 20CV, the value equation is the entire point, and the review treats that tradeoff as a feature rather than a compromise.
"To me it felt like a $250 knife for half the price," Walter writes, adding that he would like to see Kubey apply the same contoured-titanium treatment to more of its catalog, the Pike in particular.
Walter's read on the steel matches the wider 14C28N consensus. It takes a fine edge quickly, shrugs off corrosion well enough for humid climates, and costs a fraction of the powder steels it gets stacked against. Paired with a blade this size, it makes the KB360A a genuine user rather than a safe queen, which is exactly the role its price implies.
The KB360A is sold through dealers rather than Amazon, which the reviewer verified as of late October, and Tityus configurations vary enough that buyers should confirm the titanium and 14C28N specification before ordering. The gray contoured scales and bead-blasted blade make the upgraded version easy to tell apart from the D2 original. And the detail that lingers from the review is a small one: run a thumb across the forward milling of the titanium handle and you can feel exactly where the $75 went.