I ended up picking up the SOG seal knife- I'll admit it's a hell of a lot bigger than I thought. Probably too big to carry on ex, at least in the open
It's a beautiful knife though for sure. It's not as razor sharp as the seal pup seems to be but I figure that's due to the blade size and thickness or something, still extremely sharp.
I looked into a couple of others but just couldn't justify the price.
Chris Reeves Project 1 (Picture shown is project 1 and project 2)
These bad boys were discontinued so their former selling price of about $350 has jumped quite a bit. Found one for $500..
Some other ones which seemed like great blades, just a little out of my price range
Chris Reeves Green Beret.
Spartan Horkos and Harasy 2
(I like the flat dark earth colour of the blade with green handle)
Both spartan blades and the green beret are around the $350 mark.