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Microtech LUDT
The Microtech LUDT carries the company's origin story in its pocket clip. It descends directly from the UDT, the first knife Anthony Marfione ever put into production in the mid-1990s, an automatic built with an action powerful enough to fire its blade underwater. Thirty years of refinement later, the LUDT is that founding design perfected, and it remains the purest expression of what the Microtech lineup is about.
What Does LUDT Stand For
LUDT stands for Large Underwater Demolition Team, honoring the Navy frogmen who became the first SEALs. The original UDT shipped in three sizes before Microtech consolidated the line around the large frame, and the name stuck. The underwater-capable deployment that inspired it is still part of the spec.
LUDT Gen III Upgrades
Gen III is a ground-up reworking of the platform: a pivot riding on 24 silica carbide bearings for the smoothest action in the model's history, 3M grip inlays in the anodized 6061-T6 handle, standard Torx hardware you can service at home, and a fuller groove, crowned spine, and thumb-ramp jimping on the blade. It is also the first Microtech automatic to run Bohler M390MK steel. We put the whole package through its paces in our Microtech LUDT Gen III review.
LUDT Ram-Lok and Blade Styles
The platform now runs two ways: the classic push-button auto and the LUDT Ram-Lok, a manual version built on Microtech's crossbar bar lock with frag-machined aluminum and Marfione Select titanium and carbon fiber trims. Both carry the 3.5-inch blade in an 8-inch, 3.6-ounce package, in drop point or tanto, with plain and serrated edges across stonewash, apocalyptic, and Signature Series finishes. See where M390MK lands in our comparison of every major knife steel.
LUDT vs Ultratech
The choice is mechanism first. The Ultratech is the dual-action OTF, firing and retracting from the slide; the LUDT swings out the side with a push button and folds closed against the spring. The tradeoff favors the LUDT at the cutting board, because its wider blade and fuller slicing geometry do things an OTF's narrow blade cannot. Among side-opening automatic knives, this is the one that started Microtech, and it still argues its own case every time the button clicks.
