Spyderco's Para Military 2 Salt Finally Gets MagnaCut, for $253
The most predictable upgrade in the knife industry just landed: Spyderco took its lightweight Para Military 2, which already lost 25 percent of its weight when it moved to injection-molded fiberglass-reinforced-nylon scales early this year, and swapped the blade into CPM MagnaCut.
MagnaCut is the closest thing the market has to an all-rounder. It balances toughness, corrosion resistance, edge retention and sharpening ease in a way that no single-traits champion does, which is exactly why it keeps showing up on $200-plus knives. Putting it in a Salt knife, where every component and every piece of hardware is already marine-grade and corrosion resistant, closes the last gap in the package. Before this, a Salt knife asked you to accept a more modest steel in exchange for not rusting. Now you get both, and the blade is available in PlainEdge or SpyderEdge serrations.
The rest is unchanged and that is fine. A 3.47-inch premium drop-point blade, a Compression Lock that remains one of the best mechanisms in production, a trademark thumb hole for one-hand opening, a reversible deep-carry clip and a lanyard hole. Weight holds at 2.8 ounces because the steel swap does not force a change to the handle. Yellow FRN scales are not vanity: they are how you find the knife if you drop it in grass, water, or the bottom of a pack.
The comparison that matters is Salt versus non-Salt. At $253 the Salt version is $51 more than the standard PM2, and that premium buys MagnaCut plus the corrosion-proof hardware package. If you swim, fish, paddle, or just sweat through your pockets in a humid climate, $51 is cheap insurance. If your knife lives on a desk, a standard PM2 with a steel you already know will do the same job for less, and there are plenty of sub-$200 MagnaCut folders from other brands.
Verdict: the PlainEdge version is available now and the serrated variant is notify-only. This is the PM2 to buy if you have ever watched a spot of rust form overnight, and the version to skip if you never take your knife outdoors.