Hi guys, a bit new here and new to the world fo knife/bayonet collecting, so I apologize in advance if I make no sense or anything.
I recently ordered an Ontario M9 in the mail, although I'm curious as the Ontario M9 I received in the mail from "Cutting Edge Knives Australia" doesn't have the same looks as the ones I've seen in images.
Below is a comparison image of a common Ontario M9 image and my knife offset to the right.
.
The Ontario I have has a grip that becomes wider in the middle and thins back out again towards the top and bottom. It also lacks the vertical grooves found on most m9 models, and the diamond-etch pattern also becomes entirely smooth/flat and turns into nothing at the front and back of the grip.
The knife reads:
M9
ONTARIO
KNIFE CO.
USA
It does have a small round dot-mark too. Although it's a "New in packet" model, when removing it from the sheath, it had a terrible scratch-like mark down the sides of the blade from the mechanism of the sheath (no protective grease?)
Is anyone able to tell my why mine has a different grip (Although it's not too important I'm guessing, but I want to be sure I haven't got another Australasia clone since the last "Phrobis M9" I bought turned out to be a terrible gate operators Taiwan model).
Threaded Mode