Pocket Knives (3)

For decades the knife industry has been built around the legal length limit, which in most countries allows unlicensed carry, concealed or otherwise, of any knife with a blade length of 3.5" or less. That means that pocket knives are that size and below, and unless companies come up with a ...

At first it seems a little like a souvenir, reminding me a bit of the fake pistols that turn out to be cigarette lighters when you pull the trigger--but there's nothing fake about this tactical folder from Lone Wolf Knives. In fact, it makes good sense to build ...

One of the best military quality folding knives available, the Microtech SOCOM Elite offers details others ignore. The 4" tanto style blade, ground with a wide but strong bevel, is forged from high carbon stainless steel chosen for its edge holding abilities rather than corrosion resistance alone. The ...

When a small team of Gerber employees made up their minds to follow their own dreams and start up their own business -- Lone Wolf Knives -- they enlisted the well known engineer and knife maker Paul Poehlmann for their design team. This beautiful and unusual modern pocket folder, the ...

I love stockman knives. I grew up in a small western town and used to watch the old ranchers carving pieces of pine with their stockmans at church picnics. And, when I was in boy scouts, the ranch kids all had stockman knives of their own, handed down from ...

Developed by Texas knife maker Allen Elishewitz, the Horus is named after an Egyptian hawk-headed lord of the sky. Indeed, when the blade is deployed, the shape is very reminiscent of a hawk's profile. Much of this look is added by the choiled handle which is shaped with a ...

There are a lot of rescue knives out there. There are some with all the bells and whistles - oxygen tank wrench and torque bits and special seat belt cutters.. There are some no bells and whistles - just a serrated blade and that's it, which hardly makes a ...

The epitome of western heroism has long been John Wayne. Generation after generation of Americans grew up watching the Duke on the silver screen - always a character of grit, courage, honesty, hard work, and determination. He wasn't always a cowboy, but it was his roles in ...

Designed by Colonel Rex Applegate and greatly influenced by the scientific fighting style of William Fairbairn, this sturdy dagger type folding clip knife adds modern convenience to a dependable and efficient classical fighting blade. The double edged stainless steel blade, 4.48" long, adapts for one handed opening with either hand. ...

Most of us who hike today carry quite a bit of gear with us. The necessary modern philosophy of "pack it in, pack it out" requires that. Instead of building shelters on the spot, for example, we carry tents, and those as well as the many other essential pieces of our ...

With so many new knife designs and ideas now on the market it's easy to forget that the most popular is still the one that's most familiar--the classic American folding pocket knife. The Baby Butterbean series from the famous American knife manufacturer W. H. Case is a fine example of what ...

Everybody's pocket knife used to look like this, back when small differences in style and quality were the most dramatic choices we had. There was a time, oddly enough, when a pocket knife didn't need a built-in flashlight, fire starter, or anti-reflection coatings to be handy. Although the extra ...

Knife maker Ed Halligan, designer of the popular K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) knife series, offers a smaller and more utilitarian version of his simplified engineering in the P.E.C.K (Precision Engineered Compact Knife). The PECK knife, less than one ounce light and only 2.625 inches in closed length, unfolds a ...

Buck's ergonomic keyring pocket knife is better suited to lighting up keyholes than doing any cutting work. It's small size and rounded shape will be unfamiliar to those accustomed to the conventional handle styles. The 1 1/4" stainless steel blade locks in place when fully opened, but not ...

A modern folding knife that has suddenly become the legacy of a once great American knife maker, the Camillus Sizzle and the rest of the Camillus line are the last we'll see of the real Camillus products. The company went bankrupt in 2006 and closed its doors, the victim of ...

Victorinox's 5.1" folded length Ranger, with a main knife blade almost 4" long and forged from high carbon stainless steel, ranks as an all around camp knife as well as the usual pocket tool kit. The clip point blade locks in place when fully extended. The 7 tool, ...

It's always a good idea to keep your eyes open for bargain gift ideas when they happen to surface. We're bringing this Kershaw Money Clip Knife to your attention for that reason. It's quite a nifty little tool, and it isn't one of those "cheaply-made" knock-off models either. Since it's manufactured ...

Whenever I think of Sigg, I picture the classic stainless steel water bottles with the loop caps that they're so famous for marketing. They're great bottles. So when Sigg came out with this outdoor cutlery set fashioned like a Swiss Army knife, I couldn't have been more pleased at the ...

Obviously I'm in favor of carrying knives, but not only for self defense. We all constantly run into circumstances that require tools. Knives are among the first implements that humans invented. Leaving your knife behind is like leaving your teeth behind.

In modern circumstances our needs are ...

Special alloy CPM-S30V knife steel promises to give the 4" blade of Spyderco's tactical knife the edge holding capability of traditional high carbon alloy plus the corrosion resistance and low maintenance of high carbon stainless. Many quality stainless steels originally were designed for special purposes in aerospace or industrial applications and ...

This featherweight folding clip knife from Spyderco is more than you'd expect from the modern Chinese foundries. The design of this elegant David Boye knife is futuristic and efficient, making use of top of the line modern materials. Seven and 7/8" open and locked, the Flight G-10 comes with ...

A top quality and reliable folding clip knife, the Recon 1 with 4" tanto blade forged from high carbon stainless steel and coated with non-reflection and nearly frictionless black Teflon is more than enough knife for serious work. Light weight (5.6 ounces) and a folded length of only 5 ...

Usually with Swiss Army Knives you get excellent quality, multiple functions, and somewhere among them a stainless steel knife blade that's missing something. The Parachutist corrects some of that with a blade that's stouter than most in this line of pocket tool kits, and going one step farther, includes a locking ...

A knife with a blade just over 2" really isn't much more than an office tool unless you're MacGyver. Still, I'd rather have any knife than none at all. This mini lockback pocket knife is fine for light work like peeling an orange for lunch or opening the mail--actually ...

I'm always offended if I'm doing ordinary things at work, like opening boxes, and somebody hands me a box knife that's a razor blade clamped into a cheap aluminum handle. I hand the box knife back and pull whatever knife I'm carrying out of my pocket and use that. ...

Tactical style but handyman quality makes the Gerber Torch 1 an interesting choice as a general purpose utility knife. The dropped point stainless steel tanto blade has a black matte finish for low reflectivity and a combo edge for fast, multiple purpose cutting. The Torch 1 is ...

Spyderco knives are all about performance. While they usually make cool looking knives, the look is ultimately the result of the added functionality Spyderco is putting into every knife. Take a look at this Native III and you'll see what I mean.

The 3 1/8-inch VG-10 stainless steel combo edge (mostly ...

A old man I once knew, an avid hunter, passed these words of wisdom on to me: Hunting is half about discovering your prey, and half about keeping prey from discovering you first. I don't think he had the design of my hunting knife in mind, but there are some ...

The multi-tool of the future is going to be focused more and more on technological repairs. Mending fences and tinkering with an old engine are becoming, in a word, passé. This is just another sign of our drastically changing times. For many people who carry a multi-tool, ...

Spyderco's new Cricket SS C29 is super-duper thin. With a genius idea from custom knife maker Chris Reeve, the liner lock's liner is actually made out of the handle's backside scale, essentially reducing the thickness from thin to ultra-thin, but still ensuring a secure locking mechanism with fewer moving parts. ...

A hand crafted design from Solingen of Germany, this small but efficient leaf point skinner is well suited to the old task of skinning and butchering game. Not quite heavy enough to be a good cleaver, it's still more knife than most of us need.

Stag handles used to be common. ...

In honor of America's "thin blue line," Cold Steel has made the American Lawman, a serious knife with a 3.5-inch stainless steel drop point blade. Made from AUS-8A stainless steel and hollow ground, the Lawman's blade is super sharp and capable of handling all varieties of tough cutting tasks. A ...

The Scallion, a modern design created by Ken Onion and now produced and marketed by Kershaw, is a gentleman's pocket knife built to modern standards. That approach provides several advantages over the classic gentleman's knife, which evolved to be too small to be generally useful.

Modern knife makers like Ken Onion ...

Ken Onion's very refined yet totally modern design results in an admirably functional pocket knife built for the modern gentlemen, not the modern gentleman's grandfather.

Kershaw markets the Mini Mojito, an Onion design with a lot of class and all the modern features you really need. The sine curve ...

Put together a knife from the finest materials, using the finest design, and you have to have something good. Kershaw's Avalanche, a design by knife maker Ken Onion, is today's technology simplified to the point of good sense.

Starting with the 3 1/8" blade, you get a dark Tungsten coated high ...

The Military Black Blade came about when someone asked Spyderco's owner Sal Glesser, "If your son were going into the military, what knife would you send him with?" And thus the newest addition to Spyderco's Save and Serve line was born - knives designed with EMTs, LEOs, and Military Personnel in ...

For over a century, Wenger was fierce competition for the better known Swiss Army brand, Victorinox. In 2005, when Victorinox took control of the Wenger name, both brands continued to provide Swiss Army products - Victorinox as the "Original Swiss Army Knife" and Wenger as the "Genuine Swiss Army Knife."

What's the ...

Take a look at this Smith and Wesson Bullseye Extreme Ops knife. At only 3.22" long, the 440C Teflon coated stainless steel, combo edge, tanto point blade is not big and scary. Rather, it has a sleek and stealthy design, and a great quality. Perfect for ...

I grew up in a small western town, one with ranchers and cowboys and miners, and in my opinion, bull riders are probably the toughest, coolest group of people in America. There's just something so brazen and outright insane about willing riding a furious one-ton bull with the intention of hanging ...

Not pretty, but functional.

The Gerber Lariat incorporates a few modern folding knife features into a very utilitarian design, which in spite of being practical has little of the class most knife enthusiasts expect. It reminds me very much of the kitchen tools built for arthritic hands, with soft oversized handles that ...

The Gerber Evo evolves towards the light end of the knife spectrum, which is a place where those looking for an occasional use knife will be comfortable. I have no doubt that for most purposes the Evo is fine. It would be an intriguingly good choice for ultralight hikers, ...

This ultra modern pocket knife is ergonomically designed for effective use. That could just be gibberish, but Spyderco actually did something differently and even a little better with this one. There's a finger notch farther up the knife than usual, half handle and half blade. Does that make for ...

I'm always skeptical of technically complex knives--to win me over they have to be very well made. Grudgingly I am willing to put Columbia River knives in the accepted category. If you want a workhorse knife that opens easily with one hand, looks great in a futuristic sort of ...

A sunny day. A large, comfy blanket. Some eating utensils, paper plates, napkins, and a wicker basket filled with sandwiches, fruit, cheeses, wine, and something for dessert. This, and your Victorinox Picnicker, is all you will need to pull off a wonderful afternoon outing.

The Picnicker has everything that you ...

This Gerber Winchester lock-blade folding knife measures 7 inches overall, with a 3-inch stainless steel blade. A size like this allows for easy, comfortable pocket carry, but a large enough size blade that can take care of almost any task. The combo edge, with serrations near the base of ...

The Air Ranger, a William Harsey design now produced and marketed by Gerber, combines the art of the smith with the art of the machinist. The stout 3.25" high carbon stainless steel blade can be opened with a flick of the thumb, one handed. The machined aluminum handle offers ...

The DIY Wallet Pocket Knife
Welcome to the world of a devoted Minimalist Urbanite Survivalist Technologist Yuppie (MUSTY). And what the heck is a MUSTY?

Well, let's just say that I've spent the better part of a decade in search of the ultimate light-weight urban survival man-purse.

I've spent most of that time searching for an off-the-shelf product that would hold my cards, cash, keys and set of personalized mini-tools. Finally, I decided it did not exist. Inspired by other MUSTYs — see this guy and this guy — I began to design and construct my ultimate Pocket Knife Wallet.

It turned out to be quite easy, inexpensive, and the result was very satisfying.

Whoever said "fashion" and "fix-it" don't mesh certainly hadn't come across this multi-tool yet. It's the Leatherman Squirt P4 coated in a generous dose of powder pink gloss, hoping to entice a few more market segments with its delicate hue.

Seriously, though, what damsel in distress wouldn't want an emergency tool ...

Buck isn't just synonymous with folding lock-blade knives because they make great folding lock-blade knives - the company actually pioneered the way for what is standard in the pocket knife world today. The first Buck Model 110 Folding Hunter, in 1964, was the first folding lock-blade knife available. And, ...

This Swiss Army Rambler is grouped under Victorinox's line of small, elegant pocket-tools. At only 2 1/4-inch long, the classic red handle will fit comfortably out of the way in a pants pocket or, with the key chain attachment, on a key ring - whatever allows you to keep it ...